I'm encountering an issue with searching Chinese characters in Mochi. When using the deck-specific search (top-right search bar), searching for Chinese terms works correctly and provides exact substring matches. However, when using the global search (top-left search bar) with the same Chinese terms, the results appear unrelated and do not find the relevant cards. Is this a known issue with global search functionality for Chinese language content?
Global search doesn't work with Chinese character
1 Answer
Have you tried enabling Chinese in the search settings? You can enable different languages in Settings -> Preferences -> Search.
Pin Ting
It seems there's a different indexing mechanism for global search when handling Chinese character strings compared to local search.
Currently, local search within a deck correctly finds a card containing "對不起" (meaning "sorry") whether I search for:
The full string "對不起" Any single character (e.g., "對", "不", or "起") Any two consecutive characters (e.g., "對不" or "不起") However, global search only finds this card if I search for the exact, full three-character string "對不起". It doesn't recognize substrings, single characters, or partial consecutive characters.
Could the indexing for global search be modified to support substring matching, similar to how local search currently functions?
Matt
Sorry didn't see your comment until today. You're right in that they use different indexes. I think the search on the deck page is probably more effective, so I may switch the global search to use that.
I didn't know the settings.
I just tried. After I checked "Settings > Preferences > Search > Chinese", searching Chinese characters in the global search box works.
Wondering why the local search within a deck already worked before I made this settings change.