What are the differences between the operators "within", "until", and "since"?

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1

How these operators work is not obvious.

From some experimenting, I’m noticed that “until” includes the current day while “within” does not.

That’s the only difference I can find.

“Since: x” seems to include all dates after x, so for example, “Since: 1w” would include all lists with due dates at least 1 week after the current date.

I’m not sure if there are other differences that maybe I just didn’t notice. Anyway, I don’t think these differences are intuitive so so maybe it would help if the help documentation had more info on the specific differences between these operators.

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Interesting, you’re the first one to raise this point. We thought hard about the word choice and thought it was relatively clear.

So let’s define A as the beginning of time, and Z as the end of time. And define N as today.

  • “since” date X means from X to Z, just like in plain English (“I’ve been here since 14 years ago”).
  • “until” date X means from A to X, again just like in plain English (“I’m gonna wait here until he shows up”)
  • “within” date X means from N (today) to X, like in plain English (“please send us a reply within 7 days”). “within” should be used if you want to use “today” as a reference point.

As for the format for date X, “1w” means 1 week in the future, and “-1w” means 1 week in the past. This can be carried over to other time units as well, and it applies to all of “until”, “since”, and “within”.

Hope the above makes sense… Anyone else finds this confusing?

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Hey Erica, your examples are helpful to understand the concepts a bit clearer. Maybe this can be part of the tutorial (advanced) if you decide to include it.

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Good point! We really do need to revamp the help center to make it searchable and to separate the basics from the advanced stuff.

5

Yes! Things are advancing well in Dynalist thanks to you and @Shida. The development is legendary in the community as I read Twitter, Quora and other sources…congratulations!

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I didn’t understand the difference either. Only now after reading this thread I got it.

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That helps me Erica…

Any way to include this on your Date Help page? Can’t find it on the following page:

http://help.dynalist.io/date/

Thanks!

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within:today results in today
within:1d results in tomorrow
within:-1d results in yesterday AND today

For me should
within:-1d results in yesterday

That made me pretty confused.

If I want today too I can write
within:-1d OR within:today

Otherwise the search functions are fine.

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Today as a day is considered in the past rather than in the future, that’s why it’s included in “-1d” but not “1d”. Anything positive time would be in the future.

“within:today” is a special shortcut value, “1d”, “-1d” and “today” are not mutually exclusive.

For preciously yesterday, you can use (or even bookmark) “within:-1d -within:today”.

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Thank you clarify the things.
That I can something exclude with “-” is really helpful, for example -within:today

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Yes, indeed! The - prefix can also be used with other keywords, such as “apple -peach” which searches for results that contain “apple” but not “peach”.