Search Overview

Search overview

Gubbins is built to find things fast. However big your inventory gets, there are four ways to narrow it down — from a quick type-ahead to a precise, saveable query.

Where to find it: the Search items box at the top of the Inventory screen (and the command palette from anywhere).

Quick search

Just start typing in the Search items box. Gubbins matches across your items' names and details as you type, powered by a fast full-text index:

• Prefix matching — typing screw finds screws and screwdriver.
• Every word narrows — blue m3 finds only the items matching both words.
• Across the details — names, descriptions, notes, MPNs, manufacturers, barcodes and serial numbers are all indexed.

💡 Tip Press Escape in the search box to clear it without reaching for the mouse.

⚠️ Heads-up Matching works from the start of each word, so a typo won't find it and a longer form won't match a shorter one (drills does not find drill). Trim back to the shortest beginning you're sure of — dril finds both.

The bookmark button at the right-hand end of the box opens your saved searches — keep the search you've just typed, or bring back one you saved earlier, without opening any other panel.

Four ways to search

Way	Best for	Page
Quick search	Finding something by name, fast	(this page)
Plain English	A natural request without learning any syntax	Natural-language search
Text syntax	Power users who want precise field:value control	Text query syntax
Visual builder	Building complex AND/OR queries by clicking	Visual query builder

The last three all live in the Visual search panel (open it from the More menu on the Inventory screen) and all do the same thing under the hood — they build up a filter you can refine, re-run and save. Saved searches are reachable from both places: the Visual search panel and the quick-search box's bookmark button.

Choosing an item in a picker

Plenty of screens ask you to pick an item rather than search for one: a kit component, a BOM line, a purchase-order line, a related item, a substitute, or the single item an export covers. Every one of those pickers searches your whole catalogue.

Click the box and it offers a first few items to choose from. Start typing and it searches instead, exactly as the quick-search box does — so an item is reachable however far down the alphabet it sits, and however many items you hold.

• The closest matches come first. The list is ranked by how well each item matches what you typed, over every item that matched — not the first handful in alphabetical order.
• It tells you what it isn't showing. Under the box, a line such as "Showing the closest 20 of 143 matches — keep typing to narrow" means there is more behind it. Add another word.
• Two items with the same name stay distinct. The second and later ones are shown with a short identifier in brackets, so you can tell which is which.
• ↑ / ↓ and Enter choose from the list, and Escape closes it without clearing what you typed.

ℹ️ Note The project picker on the export screen searches your whole list of projects the same way, though it offers them alphabetically rather than closest-first.

Filtering alongside search

Search combines with the other ways to narrow the list:

• Location — selecting a location in the tree limits results to that place. See Locations & stock.
• Status chips — quick filters for things needing attention (low stock, expiring, overdue, maintenance due). See Alerts.
• Category and tag facets — narrow to a category or tag. The Category picker lists only categories that are actually in use in the current view, so a category with no items simply doesn't appear — and it drops out (or comes back) live as you move items between categories, without a reload.

ℹ️ Note When the Visual search panel is driving the results, it takes over from the quick-search box, the status chips and the category/tag facets — so you're always looking at exactly one query's results, never a confusing mix. The location selected in the sidebar is the exception: it still scopes the query, and the result line names it. See Visual query builder.

Your view lives in the address bar

Everything you narrow the Inventory screen by — the location you picked in the tree, what's in the quick-search box, the status chips, the category and tag facets, Show removed, and the page you're on — is written into the page's web address as you go.

That has three everyday consequences, and one thing worth knowing:

• Back undoes your last narrowing. Each deliberate step — selecting a location, ticking a chip, turning a page — can be stepped back through with your browser's Back button, or the system Back gesture on an installed app. Typing in the search box counts as one step, not one per letter. So after a detour to another screen, Back walks you all the way to the list you were reading.
• A reload doesn't lose your work. Refreshing the page, or Gubbins updating itself, brings the same filtered list back rather than starting again from everything.
• A filtered list can be bookmarked or shared. "Everything expiring in the Chemicals cupboard" is just an address: bookmark it, pin it in a tab, or send it to whoever needs to act on it.
• Opening Inventory afresh still starts clean. Choosing Inventory from the menu means the whole inventory, as it always has. Use Back, or a bookmark, to return to a filtered view.

ℹ️ Note A shared link describes the view, not the items — whoever opens it sees it applied to their own inventory. Gubbins never sends your data anywhere just because you copied the address.

💡 Tip The Visual search panel's query is not part of the address. To keep one of those, use a saved search instead.

How many matched

Directly above the list, Gubbins tells you how many items your current search and filters match — for example “128 items match”. That figure is the total across everything that matched, not just the rows currently on screen, so it stays put as you scroll and only changes when you actually change a filter. It reads the same when the list is grouped by location or driven by the Visual search panel.

Because it's announced as a live status, screen-reader users hear the new total each time a filter changes — the quickest way to tell whether a query narrowed too far, or matched nothing at all.

Related pages

• Capabilities — searchable, weighted attributes with best-match ranking.
• Saved searches & favourites — keep and recall queries.