> I had a quick play at https://regex101.com/ and couldn't get that
> syntax to work.
Unless someone can come up with a suitable regex expression, perhaps we should abandon the idea of it as a solution.
> But there is an issue with using "+", it's a valid filename
> character, so if ZTree started using it for AND, then people would have
> to start quoting filters that include the character, which could break
> existing history items.
Agreed, and I was hoping someone would suggest something better.
> "|" is free for use in filters, I generally think of pipe as a
> Boolean or, but as the context here is filtering it does have mnemonic
> value, i.e. think of this pipeline, which is doing an AND
Agreed, that's a good choice.
> ZTree already has the concept of ANDing filters. If multiple name,
> date, size, namelength type filters are specified, each type is OR'ed,
> then the results of each type are AND'ed.
Yes, we already have implied ANDs and ORs, depending on the type of filter element. Another solution is to leave the syntax as it is, and add a toggle that forces them all to be ANDed. That would probably be easier to implement.
Another thing to consider is whether it's worth doing at all. I don't think I've ever needed to do it, although I wonder if I have, and have just worked around it. For those doing it regularly, could the filter combinations be created with a script?