New combined search

I have added a new experimental combined search function, the main new features are.

- It will search all areas and people. e.g.

www.listal.com/search/tom Shows a mix of people, TV shows, movies

- You can now search under other peoples profiles

- You can now viewed tagged items across all categories e.g. www.listal.com/tag/funny

- You can directly type in a search query into the browser url by typing after /search/ or /tag/

The right bar may show:

- A list of tags containing the query word

- Lists containing the query word

- Forum topics containing the query word

I haven't explored it enough to say much yet, but searching by ASIN or pulling from Amazon doesn't work anymore unless you specifically select a category to filter. Any chance of fixing this?

I use the search feature numerous times a day and I really dislike this new feature. Is there anyway you could create a feature so that if I set to search for movies then it will only search movies and stay that way unless I change it?

I really think this just creates an extra step. Right now I've been alphabetically tagging my movies and this slows down the process considerably.

but searching by ASIN or pulling from Amazon doesn't work anymore

Not sure what you mean by that, you were never able to search by asin from the search box, although it would be a good thing to add.

I use the search feature numerous times a day and I really dislike this new feature.

Can you explain why? and with example queries which you think are bad would be helpful. It's only been up for 30 minutes! I will be making improvements over this week.

Is there anyway you could create a feature so that if I set to search for movies then it will only search movies and stay that way unless I change it?

Possibly but movies should come up most of the time at the top anyway since they are the most popular thing on the site.

Well I'm usually very specific about the way I type in the search so I have the fewest results to go through. This just adds an extra step. As a classic movie and obscure movie fan, they are already often buried down in the search results as it is since they often have few to no ratings. Right now I've put off tagging a large list of movies for the past year and the last few days I've been trying to catch up in my spare time. Going through hundreds of titles was already time consuming enough, but now this adds an extra step to the search results. 99% of what I do on this site is strictly movie related and I thought the search feature was almost perfect the way it was before. I think if there was a way we could "tack" the preferred medium then it would work out better for everyone. Say someone only uses this site for music, then they can have the option to have it set permanently to music unless they change it.

I really think this just creates an extra step. Right now I've been alphabetically tagging my movies and this slows down the process considerably.

Are you not just sort them by title and going through the pages? Confused about where search comes in with this, if you could explain more that would be helpful and I will try and fix the problem.

Well I'm usually very specific about the way I type in the search so I have the fewest results to go through. This just adds an extra step. As a classic movie and obscure movie fan, they are already often buried down in the search results as it is since they often have few to no ratings.

Can you give some examples of queries that don't produce very good results?

Now I can remember but in the previous search function if you were in an area such as My Stuff "TV Shows" wouldn't the search box default to look only for TV shows?

I like the idea of being able to search for everything but... still not sure.

If it is an extra step to add a new item then it might be an extra step most people might not take. As before if you searched for something odd then you would be shown that you could add that item (if it truly existed). Getting a blank area then having to click on a sub-genre seems... unfriendly???

I've added the dropdown box back if you are in a specific area.

The main reason I added the combined search is that most people these days are used to typing in a search box and just finding what they want (e.g. google) without selecting from a drop down.

Not sure what you mean by that, you were never able to search by asin from the search box, although it would be a good thing to add.

What I mean is typing in the ASIN, then selecting "Amazon" to pull the results from there and bring up the appropriate Listal entry or add a new one...but yes, searching by ASIN in general would be great, by barcode, even better :D

The main reason I added the combined search is that most people these days are used to typing in a search box and just finding what they want (e.g. google) without selecting from a drop down.

I can see that would be simpler-looking and less confusing for newcomers. There's also the serendipity you can sometimes get with combined results.

For regular users who dislike losing the drop-down list on some pages, I suggest using the Web Search Pro (addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/552/) addon for Firefox for any sites you search regularly. After adding a search engine (either from the addon's homepage or by using the context menu to 'Add as private search engine') you can save time searching by opening its Quick Type Search popup (CTRL+Q) from any tab and just typing in the first few letters (or, in the case of multi-word titles, the first letters of the words) of a site to pick which area to search. In listal's case, adding using the private search option doesn't work, but you can manually change the URL: fields afterward as follows:

listal Search All (So you'd type 'lsa' in Quick Type Search)
Code:

www.listal.com/search/{searchTerms}

listal Movie Search (So you'd type 'lms' in Quick Type Search)
Code:

www.listal.com/search/movies/1/?query={searchTerms}

listal TV Search
Code:

www.listal.com/search/tv/1/?query={searchTerms}

listal DVD and Blu-ray Search
Code:

www.listal.com/search/dvds/1/?query={searchTerms}

listal Books Search
Code:

www.listal.com/search/books/1/?query={searchTerms}

listal Music Search
Code:

www.listal.com/search/music/1/?query={searchTerms}

listal Games Search
Code:

www.listal.com/search/games/1/?query={searchTerms}

and so on...(Just look at the address displayed after you search.) Then there's some that follow this pattern:

listal Lists Search
Code:

www.listal.com/lists/search/{searchTerms}

listal Actors Search
Code:

www.listal.com/actors/search/{searchTerms}

And for tags:

listal Tags Search
Code:

www.listal.com/tag/{searchTerms}

Something awry with filtering a tag search. When I tried the TV filter on www.listal.com/tag/stabbed+in+stomach, I got 'Could not find product with this id' even though there were 2 TV items with that tag and using the DVDs filter just sent me to the homepage.

If it is an extra step to add a new item then it might be an extra step most people might not take. As before if you searched for something odd then you would be shown that you could add that item (if it truly existed).

For items with many possible variations of names, it might be desirable to make members look through all the choices to make sure they're not adding a duplicate. But not for movies and TV, which are required to have a unique IMDb number. What I do there is use the above-mentioned Web Search Pro to create a private search engine for submitting the IMDb URL so that I'll be taken right to the correct item. What I did before that was just enter a random string of characters into the search box so that I'd be taken right to the 'No results found' page where I could enter it. If any search results are found, there's still no links for adding by IMDb URL if the movie you want is not among them.

i don't mind the new search, but i do find the old one quicker to find what i'm looking for. it doesn't take long to use the drop-down box, and it ultimately allows you to get to where you want with one page load. with the new way, i have to load the page with everything on it and then hit the filter and re-load the page with the new results. for folks with not-so-great internet connections, this could be annoying.

that being said, i don't think the new search terrible. i just really don't see it as an improvement in any form.

i have to load the page with everything on it and then hit the filter and re-load the page with the new results

Surely that depends on what you are searching for? The idea is that most of the time what you are searching for will appear on the first page, that usually happens for me, I will try and access how often this is happening for other people.

Something awry with filtering a tag search. When I tried the TV filter on www.listal.com/tag/stabbed+in+stomach, I got 'Could not find product with this id' even though there were 2 TV items with that tag and using the DVDs filter just sent me to the homepage.

Changed it to only show areas the tags exist in.

It's a nice new feature, Tom! Is there any way we can still have a drop-down menu just with the default platform set on combined searching?

For regular users who dislike losing the drop-down list on some pages, I suggest using the Web Search Pro (addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/552/) addon for Firefox for any sites you search regularly.

Thats pretty cool.

It's a nice new feature, Tom! Is there any way we can still have a drop-down menu just with the default platform set on combined searching?

For now I want to try it with the dropdown only displayed when you are browsing a specific area.

Just posting quick update to say I will be updating the search this week with a number of new features some based on feedback here, I also intend to convert the existing area specific searches to the new format of search results on the left, tag and lists on the right. I will also be adding the "Sort by:" and "With selected" features to the combined search.

Sorry, the R2DVD search was broken. I've fixed it now, you should be able to search as normal.

The reason why it doesn't turn up in the main search is that that the region 2 DVD is sold with the name "My Neighbour Totoro" (uk spelling of Neighbor), this is the version you probably want to add:

www.listal.com/search/My+Neighbour+Totoro

I'm liking the combined search's returning results where the search terms are in a different order than the one entered in the search box, as this is a recurring problem with names, which are written in different orders in different countries. (Some people write last names in all caps as a way of indicating which is which.) This could be extended to the results you get when you filter just by actor.

Also, the Birth Name field could be used to find matches when there are no results for the main name, as could an Alternate Names field like on IMDb, and it would cut down on the number of duplicate people entries.

One other thing you could add to the search results for actors is a label of which ones have IMDb links associated with them (although there's no actual IMDb link for actors on their pages, just a list of their movie/TV appearances), as these are the entries members should be entering new data into. On the search results page that's filtered by actors, there's the item count to give you a clue, but I don't know what that's based on. On this search www.listal.com/actors/search/qi%20shu, for example, it says there's 1575 items for this actor, yet they've only been in 51 movies according to the item page. This search www.listal.com/actors/search/werbowy shows 0 items, yet there is one movie listed on the person's page.

I like the new search so far. As I use all sections of listal I had to use the drop-down box quite often and had some difficulites with it from time to time. Now for most of the queries the desired result appears directly and selecting the filter is less time-consuming than clicking on the box and selecting it from the drop-down menu.

I like the new search but I'm having problems voting and marking items from the search results page.

My rating isn't registered when I click on the stars. The "Mark as" doesn't work either.

I'm using Chrome 6.0.466 (dev).

Should be working now

Tom, I've noticed there's a search glitch the last couple of days. If I go to an actor's page and choose to sort by date, the sort feature works just fine for page one, but when I go to page two it resets to the default page one.

Example...
www.listal.com/person/pierce-brosnan/movies/date-desc

i just discovered jason castro. his first cd was released april 2010. he was american idol runner up in 2008. the only thing in the search is a profile page. there are many useful photos of him on his facebook page--all fan generated. someone should go there and choose some for the database. i still have no expertise with photos at all or i would. he is going to be big as evidenced by the fans and friends he has on facebook. please find someone who would like to earn the points for posting them. thanks to that special person---

i still have no expertise with photos at all or i would.

You didn't post the URL, so I'm guessing you mean www.facebook.com/jasoncastro?v=photos. If you're using Firefox, all you have to do is right-click on an image, select View Image, copy the URL of the image, and then paste that into the URL field on the Picture tab of the person on listal. I'm also guessing you mean www.listal.com/person/jason-castro/, where I note there are already 250 pictures. If you want to batch download all the Facebook pictures for yourself quickly, you can use the ImageHost Grabber addon for Firefox, which supports Facebook as one of the hosts. Currently there's no way to batch upload them to listal, but you can vote for this suggestion: www.listal.com/suggestion/20.

Tom, I've noticed there's a search glitch the last couple of days. If I go to an actor's page and choose to sort by date, the sort feature works just fine for page one, but when I go to page two it resets to the default page one.

Example...
www.listal.com/person/pierce-brosnan/movies/date-desc

Fixed

i want to thank you hyomil for explaining to me about the jason castro photo situation. i feel lucky to receive such quick help. maybe i soon can learn enough to be more useful to LISTAL. WE can only -all hope so.

How do you add an actor/person who is not in the database?

Everything else new is great, I'm really liking it!

Thanks and I will add an update soon so you add a person from the main search page.

A combined search for "A.I. Assault" is correct, but a movie search for it replaces the periods with spaces for some reason.

www.listal.com/search/A.I.+Assault
www.listal.com/search/movies/1/?query=A.I.+Assault

Added it to the list and then went back to edit the item, but it still says the same thing at the top and I'm still unable to edit it. What gives? :/

I just added it to Wanted and then undid the add. I don't know why it didn't work for you, but after I added it it became editable.

It's not really related to the new search since you are using the old search function when searching amazon but it was a change that was added at around the same time.

Unfortunately you couldn't add items from amazon to custom lists directly without first adding them to a standard lists or rating. I've fixed this now.