Imgema Posted December 25, 2015 Author Share Posted December 25, 2015 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? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted December 25, 2015 Share Posted December 25, 2015 Right now I don't believe this can be changed, but you can check the BitBucket page to see if someone has put this in there. If so, vote for it. If not add it. The BitBucket link is at the top of the page "report issue". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Imgema Posted September 26, 2016 Author Share Posted September 26, 2016 (edited) 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 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 September 26, 2016 by Imgema Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Imgema Posted February 19, 2017 Author Share Posted February 19, 2017 Bump. Is there any chance of implementing this in the near future? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Imgema Posted April 21, 2017 Author Share Posted April 21, 2017 I noticed that the issue got a new status as "resolved". But the latest version doesn't seem to have any difference. Is this for an upcoming release? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wally Posted September 30, 2019 Share Posted September 30, 2019 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! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neil9000 Posted September 30, 2019 Share Posted September 30, 2019 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wally Posted September 30, 2019 Share Posted September 30, 2019 (edited) 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 September 30, 2019 by Wally 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Imgema Posted October 2, 2019 Author Share Posted October 2, 2019 (edited) 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 October 2, 2019 by Imgema 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro808 Posted October 2, 2019 Share Posted October 2, 2019 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Imgema Posted October 2, 2019 Author Share Posted October 2, 2019 (edited) 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 October 2, 2019 by Imgema 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro808 Posted October 2, 2019 Share Posted October 2, 2019 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted October 2, 2019 Share Posted October 2, 2019 To be honest, I don't receive many requests for improving the search, but I will take note of this for the future. I'll put it on the list of potential items for the next poll as well. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wally Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wally Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 (edited) 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 October 23, 2019 by Wally Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wally Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 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! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Imgema Posted October 28, 2019 Author Share Posted October 28, 2019 (edited) 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 October 28, 2019 by Imgema Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wally Posted October 31, 2019 Share Posted October 31, 2019 (edited) As an example, an implementation of the games search functionality in Steam Edited October 31, 2019 by Wally Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts