Design Search

Use Windows® Search to find embroideries by name, and from information in the notes and settings. You can also search on other properties, and sort your search results.

Search for Embroideries by Name and in the Notes

1. Click the Explorer icon in the Status Bar to open Explorer.

2. In Explorer, open the Navigation pane and the Details pane.

In Windows® 10 & 11, click the View tab, and select Navigation pane and Details pane.

3. Select thumbnail view: in Layout, click Medium-sized icons.

4. Browse to Documents\mySewnet\Samples\Embroidery\Stitch.

5. In the Search text box, enter the word ’flower’. Thirteen items are found. Some of these items are highlighted in yellow, for example Purple Flowers.vp4.
   The highlighted items have ’flower’ in their names.

6. Click Rose and Violets to select it. The embroidery appears in the preview pane.



 

7. Look at the Notes. The text ’Flowers and Gardens’ is used.
   All of the other embroideries in the search results include the word ’flower’ in their Notes or Settings.

8. Hover the pointer over the Notes; the full text of the Notes is displayed.

9. In the Search text box, enter the word ’candle’. The Camp Pine Diary embroidery is listed.

10. Click the Camp Pine Diary embroidery to view it in the Preview pane, and then hover the pointer over the Settings. The Settings includes information on the Candlewicking stitch used in the font, and the motif line border.

A search may produce unexpected results. Check the Notes and Settings, as well as the folder name, to reveal the reason for a surprising result.

11. You can also search for words that only occur in the Notes or Settings.

Browse to the folder Documents\mySewnet\Samples\Plugin\Stitch\Flowers.

12. In the Search text box, enter the word ’flower’. All of the embroideries in the folder are still listed.

13. Click Valentine to view it in the preview pane. The word flower is not present in the Notes or Settings, however the folder name is ’Flowers’.

Search looks for words in the file and folder name, and in the Notes and Settings.

 

14. In the Search text box, enter the phrase:
    notes: flower
    Only one embroidery is found, Outline Flowers.vp4. It uses the word flower in its Notes, as well as its name.

This method of searching looks only at the Notes. It can be used to exclude unexpected results from the name, settings, or folder name.

To search for information in the Settings, use ’Settings:’ instead of ’Notes:’.

15. Delete the last three letters from ’flower’ to make ’flo’. Many more embroideries are now displayed, as they had ’floral’ in their Notes, not ’flower’.

Note that you can search on incomplete words, as well as complete words.

Use ’Notes:’ and Settings:’ as well as other properties such as ’Stitchcount:’ to search for embroidery information in Explorer.

Search Terms

Use the following search terms to search for embroidery properties.

Refining a Search

Use Search to look for files in nested folders, and refine and sort the results to view them.

1. Click the Explorer icon  in the Status Bar to open Explorer, then open the Navigation pane and the Details pane, and select thumbnail view. See the first three steps of Search for Embroideries by Name and in the Notes.

2. Browse to Documents\mySewnet\Samples\Plugin\Stitch. The folders within the Stitch folder are displayed.

3. In the Search text box, enter the word ’flower’. There are 70 items in the search results.

4. Scroll down the list of results. It includes the folder Flowers.
   The search results include the contents of the folders within the Stitch folder, and the names of the folders.

5. Hover the pointer over several of the Metallic Flower embroideries and read the tooltip. The flowers use varied embroidery file formats.

6. Change to Details view: in Layout, click Details.

7. At the top of the Details pane, click the Type header. The search results are sorted by file type.

 

This is a good way to quickly scan the results of a search, and find a particular file.

You may need to scroll horizontally to view all of the column headers. Right-click one of the headers and select Type from the context menu to add it, if you still cannot see it.

8. Alternatively, you can search for files of a particular type. In the Search text box, enter the phrase:
   .vp4

The 62 search results are all .vp4 files, but they are not all flowers.

9. To combine the two forms of searching, in the Search text box enter the phrase:
   flower.vp4

Eight files are now displayed. These are the .vp4 embroideries with ’flower’ in their name.

 

As only files with .vp4 in their name are displayed, no search is made of the Notes or Settings.

Alternatively, to search all .vp4 files with flower in their name or notes, use ’flower .vp4’ (note the space between flower and .vp4). 17 files are shown.

10. You can use an asterisk wild card to search for text anywhere in a word. Enter the phrase:
    *fly

This search finds several butterfly embroideries and Flying Fairy.

11. You can refine a search in other ways. To exclude all ’flower’ embroideries with the word ’metallic’ in their name or notes, enter the phrase:
    flower NOT metallic

None of the 54 files displayed have ’metallic’ in their name or notes.

The word ’NOT’ excludes any file containing the word that follows it. When used in this way, NOT must use uppercase letters.

12. Enter the phrase ’flower AND metallic’.

All of the 16 files displayed have both of the words ’flower’ and ’metallic’ in their name or notes. AND is a powerful way of narrowing a search.

13. You can also search using the operator ’OR’. This searches for files and folders using either the word ’flower’ or the word ’metallic’. Enter the phrase: flower OR metallic

In this case the folder Flowers will be found as well as all files using the word ’metallic’.

14. To perform advanced searches, you can combine searches. Enter the phrase:
    (flower AND metallic) OR (farmyard AND bird)

In addition to the metallic flower embroideries found previously, Goose, Hen and Rooster from the Animals folder are also displayed. Place searches within parentheses to combine them.

Search Operators

Use the following uppercase search operators when searching:

Searching for Files by Size and Number of Colors

Use Search to find embroidery files by their size, or the number of stitches.

1. Click the Explorer icon  in the Status Bar to open Explorer, then open the Navigation pane and the Details pane. See the first two steps of Search for Embroideries by Name and in the Notes.

2. Use Details view: in Layout, click Details.

3. Browse to Documents\mySewnet\Samples\Plugin\Stitch. The folders within the Stitch folder are displayed.

4. In the Search text box, enter the word ’farmyard’. Nine items are found.

5. At the top of the Details pane, click the Size header. The search results are sorted by file size.
   You may need to scroll horizontally to view all of the column headers. Right-click one of the headers and select Size from the context menu to add it, if you still cannot see it.
   This is a very quick way to see the approximate size of embroidery files, but using the stitch count is a better guide.

6. Right-click one of the headers and select More from the context menu.

7. In the Choose Details dialog box, scroll down to Stitch Count and select it.

8. Click OK to close the dialog box. There is now a header for Stitch Count in the Details pane.

9. Click the Stitch Count header to sort the embroideries by stitch count.
   You can add any of the following types of stitch information to the columns in the Details pane, and sort by them: Embroidery Width ("), Embroidery Width (mm), Embroidery Height ("), Embroidery Height (mm), Stitch Count, Number of Colors, Notes and Settings.

 

This works very well when reviewing the size of files from a search, but searching on Stitch Count itself is better when searching among a large number of files.

10. In the Search text box, enter the phrase ’StitchCount:3423’. The embroidery Hen is found.

This search phrase is equivalent to ’StitchCount:=3423’.

Stitchcount in this form searches on the exact number of stitches. It would be more useful to search within a range.

11. In the Search text box, enter the phrase ’StitchCount:<7000’. In the Stitch Count column of the details pane you will see that all of the embroideries listed contain fewer than 7000 stitches.

The operator ’<’ means ’less than’, in effect ’fewer than 7000 stitches’.

Alternatively, you could use ’<=’ which means ’less than or equal to’, or ’7000 or fewer stitches’.

12. In the Search text box, enter the phrase ’StitchCount:>20000’.

The operator > stands for ’greater than’. Only the nine embroideries in the Stitch folder with more than 20,000 stitches are displayed.

To display only the embroidery files in a folder, use ’StitchCount:>1’. This displays all embroidery files of any type with more than one stitch in them. This is every embroidery file in a folder, or even on the computer.

13. As with searching on name and notes, you can combine searches.

In the Search text box, enter the phrase ’StitchCount:>7000 AND <20000’.

14. Scroll down the list. All of the embroideries listed contain more than 7000 stitches, but fewer than 20,000 stitches.

 

15. Searching on number of colors is very similar. In the Search text box, enter the phrase: ’NumberOfColors:1’.

All embroideries in the Stitch folder using only one thread color are displayed.

This is a useful way of searching for Redwork embroideries if you did not add the term to the Notes.

16. In the Search text box, enter the phrase: NumberOfColors: >10. All embroideries in the folder with more than ten colors are listed.

Similarly ’NumberOfColors:< 10’ will show all embroideries with fewer than ten colors, and ’NumberOfColors:>5 AND <10’ will display all embroideries with more than five colors, but fewer than ten colors.

Searching for Embroideries by Width, Height and Hoop Size

The operators used when searching for embroideries by width and height are the same as those when searching by stitch count and number of colors.

1. Click the Explorer icon  in the Status Bar to open Explorer, then open the Navigation pane and the Details pane. See the first two steps of Search for Embroideries by Name and in the Notes.

2. Use Details view: in Layout, click Details.

3. Browse to Documents\mySewnet\Samples\Plugin\Stitch. The folders within the Stitch folder are displayed.

4. In the Search text box, enter the phrase: EmbroideryWidthMM: <100

This searches for all embroideries in the folder that are narrower than 100mm. There are 96 such embroideries.

5. In the Search text box, change the phrase to read: EmbroideryHeightMM: <100

This time 93 embroideries are found.

6. Combine the two searches to show all embroideries that will fit within a 100mm x 100mm hoop.

7. In the Search text box, enter the phrase:
   EmbroideryWidthMM: <100 EmbroideryHeightMM: <100
   This search displays 88 items.

 

Similarly, you could search for any embroideries too big to fit in your largest hoop:
EmbroideryWidthMM: >360 EmbroideryHeightMM: >350

To search for embroideries within a range of hoop sizes, use a phrase such as:

(EmbroideryWidthMM: >150 EmbroideryHeightMM: >150) AND (EmbroideryWidthMM: <200 EmbroideryHeightMM: <200)

Alternatively, to avoid entering a long and complex search phrase, search for a hoop size and then sort the results by height or width.

Universal Hoop Dimensions

These are the Universal hoop dimensions in millimeters for a search to find embroideries that will fit within the stated hoop and orientation:

Using the Explorer Plugin

Viewing and Properties

Selecting and Moving Files

Print Embroideries

Sending Embroideries

Copy Stitches

Convert

Convert to Picture

Change Thread Range

Properties

Viewing and Properties

mySewnet™ Explorer Plugin