Systems and methods for providing improved search functionality on a client device

A non-transitory machine readable medium storing executable program instructions which when executed by a data processing system method for providing a search functionality, the method comprising:

• receiving an unstructured query to be used to perform one or more searches;
• determining one or more structured queries from the unstructured query based on a grammatical interpretation of the unstructured query and available contextual information using a query grammar, wherein the query grammar is a set of one or more rules that associate one or more terms of the unstructured query with a keyword identifying one or more types of metadata associated with computer-storable objects, a past selection of a query result by a user is used to modify the set of one or more rules of the query grammar for this user that is used to parse the unstructured query to generate the one or more structured queries, and the query result is associated with the one or more terms and corresponds to a particular type of metadata associated with computer-storable objects;
• executing a search using the one or more structured queries and the unstructured query to determine search results, wherein the search results include results from both the one or more structured queries and the unstructured query;
• and
• presenting the results of the search using the one or more structured queries and the unstructured query.

A data processing system comprising:

• a processor;
• a memory coupled to the processor though a bus;
• and
• a process executed from the memory by the processor that causes the processor to receive an unstructured query to be used to perform one or more searches,
• determine one or more structured queries from the unstructured query based on a grammatical interpretation of the unstructured query and available contextual information using a query grammar, wherein the query grammar is a set of one or more rules that associate one or more terms of the unstructured query with a keyword identifying one or more types of metadata associated with computer-storable objects, a past selection of a query result by a user is used to modify the set of one or more rules of the query grammar for this user that is used to parse the unstructured query to generate the one or more structured queries, and the query result is associated with the one or more terms and corresponds to a particular type of metadata associated with computer-storable objects,
• execute a search using the one or more structured queries and the unstructured query to determine search results, wherein the search results include results from both the one or more structured queries and the unstructured query, and
• present the results of the search using the one or more structured queries and the unstructured query.