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Search Box is buggy?


Imgema

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Couldnt find any info with a quick search so i thought i should make a new topic. The search function in LaunchBox gives me odd results some times. For instance, i'm trying to find all games in my collection that have the word "pack" in the title (to find all multi packed games). But it brings up completely unrelated games... like "Battleship", "Die Hard" etc. There is no such word in these titles. There aren't even all the letters in there. So why does it bring up unrelated titles sometimes? Edit: I think i figured out why it does. These unrelated games are made by a company named "Pack-in-Video". So the search box also looks at other info except the game title. Can this be changed to only look at the game title?
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  • 9 months later...

Current search function got silly on me again... i wanted all the NBA games to show up and there were a bunch Pinball games in the lot... because, you know, Pi nba ll  :P

 

Here is the bitbucket request about this issue....

https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox/issues/530/advanced-search-options

Dunno if there are enough votes by now and how hard a proper search function is to be implemented so i don't know how the priority works with the list.

Edited by Imgema
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  • 4 months later...
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  • 2 years later...

I am resurecting the thread.

I think Launchbox really lacks a proper advanced Search

Dont get me wrong. I love Launchbox and I am a paying customer but I hope some shortcomings to be addressed.

Open your Launchbox, select the ALL platform category and search for Sonic.

It will fetch you hundreds of entries, most of them utterly silly (e.g all the 3DO Panasonic games!!!!!)

So in order to limit it would need Publisher, Dates, Game Title only or not, be part of a Series or not, platforms involved etc

Also, I cannot understand why the ticked was set to Resolved

Thank you and keep up the good work!

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4 minutes ago, Wally said:

Open your Launchbox, select the ALL platform category and search for Sonic.

It will fetch you hundreds of entries, most of them utterly silly (e.g all the 3DO Panasonic games!!!!!)

Thats how a search should work, it should find anything that contains the word sonic. If you wanted to find Sonic the Hedgehog then you need to specify that. What if im looking for a different game with sonic in the name, i dont want it to only show Sonic the Hedgehog games if thats not what im searching for. Any search in any program works better the more specific you are with your search terms.

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So if you want to do a comparison gameplay of ports between nunerous platforms? Usual usage of a games launcher...

This cannot be done using the Launchbox search.

And yet search should aim for the more specific rather than more indefinite and in the most flexible way possible (most apps have both Search and Advanced Search - like this forum's engine...).

Edited by Wally
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On 9/30/2019 at 6:10 PM, neil9000 said:

Thats how a search should work, it should find anything that contains the word sonic. If you wanted to find Sonic the Hedgehog then you need to specify that. What if im looking for a different game with sonic in the name, i dont want it to only show Sonic the Hedgehog games if thats not what im searching for. Any search in any program works better the more specific you are with your search terms.

That's why there should be options. You want to search for everything that contains the word Sonic in it and that's fine, but what if i want to search for games only, not publishers or unrelated Panasonic games?. Games that are a part of the Sonic franchise? That's impossible. A simple "contains the specific word" option would filter out the Panasonic games and still keep everythign that has the word Sonic in there. Or a filter that ignores publishers/systems and only searches for Game titles.

Searching "Sonic the Hedgehog" won't bring you all Sonic games either. It won't bring Sonic Adventure, or Sonic-R or Sonic Rush, etc. Or even Sonic 3 on the Mega Drive, i think the only game that has "The hedgehog" in the title is the original game.

Searching for all DOOM ports? It will bring you all sorts of games that have "of Doom" or "Doomsday" in there. I think there are more unrelated results in the list than actual Doom games. And how are you going to be more specific in order to find Doom games? Again that's impossible without digging through unrelated content.

The only time the search works is when the titles themselves are specific and have enough information. "Golden Axe" will only bring you the games since there isn't anything else that contains this specific combination of words. But if a game title is just one word, especially a common one, it will bring all sorts of unrelated results and you can't do anything to help the program understand what you are looking for.

I don't get what's so wrong about some options or filters? I mean, why does it have to search for a publisher name anyway when you are looking for game titles?

But anyway, If the developer doesn't want this to be addressed, that's fine. But i still don't get why my ticket was set to Resolved. Because it's not.

 

Edited by Imgema
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3 hours ago, Imgema said:

....

I don't get what's so wrong about some options or filters? I mean, why does it have to search for a publisher name anyway when you are looking for game titles?

But anyway, If the developer doesn't want this to be addressed, that's fine. But i still don't get why my ticket was set to Resolved. Because it's not.

 

No one said anything was wrong with having options. I am quite sure it is not about him not wanting it to be addressed, but more about prioritizing what the majority has requested/voted on for his next developments. We really have not seen a big outpour requesting the search feature be updated. As to why your original bitbucket was set to resolved I am not sure. We will let him know and see if he can take a look again. Just keep in mind he already has a large list of items from the 2019 poll he is working on. 

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1 hour ago, Retro808 said:

As to why your original bitbucket was set to resolved I am not sure. We will let him know and see if he can take a look again. Just keep in mind he already has a large list of items from the 2019 poll he is working on. 

I don't know how priorities for requests are handled, but i assume after my bitbucked request got resolved status, it stopped getting new votes and it had a decent amount IIRC.

Edit: It's still at 11th place if you look all issues. And there are only 3 unresolved issues in the list above mine, so basically it should be at 4th place right now.

Honestly though, i stopped following any progress anyway. I'm still on version 8.3 of LaunchBox (i think the last version before it turned into "NEXT") because i don't like the way current versions look or cache images. I only commented again after so long because there was a thread resurrecting. So it's not for me but i still kinda hoped this feature was implemented for those who still care about it. Because since Lunchbox gives you the ability to browse all games in one list (surprisingly, not many other frontends do this) the search function could become a powerful and very useful tool for comparing ports, list games of a given franchise, etc. I always thought this was a missed opportunity.

Cheers.

 

Edited by Imgema
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2 hours ago, Imgema said:

I don't know how priorities for requests are handled, but i assume after my bitbucked request got resolved status, it stopped getting new votes and it had a decent amount IIRC.

Edit: It's still at 11th place if you look all issues. And there are only 3 unresolved issues in the list above mine, so basically it should be at 4th place right now.

Honestly though, i stopped following any progress anyway. I'm still on version 8.3 of LaunchBox (i think the last version before it turned into "NEXT") because i don't like the way current versions look or cache images. I only commented again after so long because there was a thread resurrecting. So it's not for me but i still kinda hoped this feature was implemented for those who still care about it. Because since Lunchbox gives you the ability to browse all games in one list (surprisingly, not many other frontends do this) the search function could become a powerful and very useful tool for comparing ports, list games of a given franchise, etc. I always thought this was a missed opportunity.

Cheers.

 

Unfortunately BitBucket is not the sole driver for the community and to be very honest many of the members on the forum and discord likely do not look at the BitBucket page or even know it exists.

I will tag Jason and let him know. See if interest can be built again for it. For now though this is what he is tackling (Top 20 is being worked on I believe). That does not mean he may not look at the request and think it needs addressing sooner. Just letting you know. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Thanx Jason.

It is not the only examples like "Sonic" that fetches all the 3DO games.There are also more "everyday" queries that need to be addressed.

Example: a fellow comes to visit you to play retro co-op games and you need something like e.g find 2 player sport games in Sega Genesis

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18 minutes ago, Wally said:

Thanx Jason.

It is not the only examples like "Sonic" that fetches all the 3DO games.There are also more "everyday" queries that need to be addressed.

Example: a fellow comes to visit you to play retro co-op games and you need something like e.g find 2 player sport games in Sega Genesis

Noted, but search engines like that are extremely complicated to implement, so that's probably quite a long ways off. Currently, it searches all fields, but does not divide up words individually.

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Of course. I would not expect a "google" approach.

An advanced search popup including PlayersNo, Year, Platform and Genre feeded dropdowns plus a Game keywords column (with exact or like selection) would cover situations like the above example and it is super easy to implement

Edited by Wally
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4 minutes ago, Wally said:

Of course. I would not expect a "google" approach.

An advanced search popup including PlayersNo, Year, Platform and Genre feeded dropdowns plus a Game keywords column (with exact or like selection) would cover situations like the above example and it is super easy to implement

Considering how easy it is already to combine filters, arrange by values, and search values, I don't really think that's necessary. All you would have to do to find what you're looking for in that scenario is to select Sega Genesis from the side bar, then arrange by Genre, and then you can search for 2 player, and you'll easily be able to find the games that you want. It's not quite as easy as a custom search popup like that, but it's pretty close. I'll note the request, but honestly I don't think it will be a very popular request.

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Thank you for the reply Jason.

I do not know how do you handle your data...whether you create some sort of compact database out of the XMLs or you work directly with the XMLs in RAM. If the latter is true, I agree it is more difficult to implement.

On the db scenario, the implementation would be far easier 

Keep up the good work!

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When i made the request i was mostly thinking about taking advantage of the "All" list. You list all games from all systems and then you search there for all games in a franchise for instance. Or all NBA games (currently, when you search for NBA, it also brings Pinball games in the results, lol).

The "All" list is pretty awesome and not many frontends that i know of give you the option to list every single game, regardless of system. But the search option is lacking so you can't take full advantage of said list.

With a few advanced options like "includes the exact word" it would be much more useful. With the exact word, it wouldn't bring Panasonic when you search for Sonic but it would bring any game with the word "Sonic" in it like Sonic 2, Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic Adventure. And it also wouldn't bring Pinball games when you search for NBA. And so on. It would still bring "of Doom" when you search for "DOOM" games but an additional filter like "FPS only" would probably clear off every unrelated result.

Edited by Imgema
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