Search Engine - Feedback And Suggestions

[MasterBlaster]

[FIXED] 1. The new search engine finds a lot less resources than the old one.

Spoiler

• I might be wrong here, but from what I understand, in the old search system:
  • Each resource had special "keywords" assigned to it.
  • When performing a search, the engine compared the user's input (search) with the keywords in the database and displayed all resources that matched them, i.e. had at least one of searched keywords assigned to them.
  • In simpler terms, when a user searched for something, the engine displayed all resources that contained at least 1 keyword that matched any of the words the user put into the search box.
• You can still see keywords in the resource description, but I don't know whether they still work as keywords (i.e. are their own separate property of resources) or are they just a regular part of the description.
• An example - keywords are marked by the red box:

• From my testing of the new search engine:
  • The focus right now appears to be mostly on resource titles/names - i.e. the search engine doesn't seem to compare the words user typed into the search box with keywords or resource description.
  • The engine requires the user to search for at least 1 full word present in the resource title/name in order to display it in the search result.
  • I think the "search only titles" box in the basic search menu might be bugged, because at least in my testing, checking it ON or OFF didn't appear to change anything in the search results.

• Some examples of searches that didn't work in my testing and specific observations:

• Icon: BTNGoldenLightArcher (image above)
  • Found by searching for: BTNGoldenLightArcher
  • Not found by searching for: Archer, Light, Golden, BTNGolden, BTNGoldenLight, etc.
  • It would appear that since the title/name for this resource does not contain spaces between the words, the search engine treats is as a single, long word, i.e. requires the user to search for exactly the full title/name to find this resource.
  • Searching for parts of the title (=single, long word)/keywords or anything in the description does not bring up this resource in the search results.
  • Implication: in the current iteration of the search engine, this resource would almost never appear in the search results, because it is extremely unlikely a user would know its full name before doing the search.

• Model: Blue Dragon Nexus (image below)
  • Found by searching for: Blue, Dragon, Nexus
  • Not found by searching for: any of the keywords or any part of the resource description that are not present in the resource title (for example: Arcane, Magic, Temple).
  • As observed above, searching for this resource behaves differently due to it having spaces between the words used in its title.
  • It is my understanding that should this model had a similar naming structure to the icon from the example above, searching for it would work differently (similarly to the way it worked with the icon)

• From my general understanding of things, changing all assets' names to be comprised of singular words (i.e. "Blue Dragon Nexus") instead of word conglomerates (i.e. "BTNGoldenLightArcher") would help alleviate this issue.
  • This change wouldn't really bring the functionality of the new search engine close to its previous version as keywords and/or description are still not checked by the search engine.
  • Looking at example #2, the Blue Dragon Nexus resource has 20 keywords, i.e. in the old engine it should have been found by any search that contained at least 1 of those 20 keywords.
  • In the current version of the search engine, from my testing so far it will only be found when searching for at least 1 out of the 3 words contained in the resource name/title.
  • This significantly reduces the chance of this resource appearing in many searches, even if by simple logic they should theoretically display this asset in the search results (as it logically matches the thing that was looked for - for example, a person looking for a "Temple" model [one of the old keywords for this resource] could be interested in this resource as it clearly looks like something that could be used for a "Temple" unit in game).

• As observed above, the exclusion of keywords from a search engine narrows the variety of results displayed after performing a search and makes it so that finding a resource requires the user to be very specific.
  • Many of the keywords acted as synonims for the resource name, thus allowing it to be displayed by more searches, for example - looking for a "Worker" unit would also display units named "Peasant" with the capability of serving as a worker unit. This is currently not working.
  • This is particularly problematic in the case of many assets that have flavorful and stylized names as the chances are, the user would not look for a specific, more fancy term instead of something more simple.
    • In the example below, there is is a strong likelyhood that people interested in using this model would not search for any of the words contained in its title/name (red box), but instead looked for thing like filter: Dwarf + search: Mage, i.e. a word that was previously among the resource keywords.
    • Current version of search engine would not display this resource as a part of similar searches, leading to a lot of people potentially interested in this model not being able to find it.

• Overall, the way the current search engine works significantly reduces the variety and the amount of potentially useful resources displayed to people performing searches.
• As evidenced above, simply changing the names of the resources to be comprised of individual words (i.e. BTN Golden Light Archer) instead of single, long words (i.e. BTNGoldenLightArcher) isn't in my opinion a viable solution.
• The best possible solution, in my opinion, would be to return to searching resources by keywords (old system). However, if something like that is not possible due to technical limitations, I believe the next best thing (albeit slightly more risky, as it could make some searches too broad) is to allow the search engine to match the search input with the resource description (where the old keywords currently appear to be).

[FIXED] 2. Display resource thumbnails at the search results page.

Spoiler

• This has already been confirmed by Ralle as something he would want to change.
• All I want to add that this is really important, because in searches that display a lot of results, having to open every single one individually to discover what it really is, can become a really tedious task.

3. Add an option to select how many results are displayed per page of search results.

• In the old version of the site we had an option to select how many search results we want to be shown per page. For example, if our search found 200 items, we could either display it as 1 page with 200 results or 10 pages with 20 results on each of them.
• This combined with the resource thumbnails will greatly reduce the time and the amount of clicks that an user will need to browse through the search results.

4. Results are displayed as duplicates.

• The general notion of a budle is interesting and has potential. I like it.
• However, currently in a lot of searches there's a ton of pointless duplicates that needlessly clutter the search results' page. Their usability is in my opinion quite low as all of the items from the same bundle that are displayed as separate resources on the search results, still take the user to the very same page anyway.
• By exploring the Advanced Search menu, I have found that there is an option to "Display only bundles". Tested it and it appears to work properly. And since every resource has to be inside a bundle, it would seem that this option allows the users to view all of the resources anyway, but without the duplicates (i.e. the ones that are part of the same bundle).
• My suggestion is:
  • To enable this option by default as I believe searching for general resources/bundles would be something more people would be interested in than viewing each resource individually. Plus, it would instantly alleviate any issues people might have with search results cluttered by the duplicates.
  • To move this option from the Advanced Search to basic search menu (the one that appears after clicking on the search box) for an easier navigation.

• Also, when using the "Show only bundles" option, the search results do not seem to have any pictures attached to it (i.e. the creator's avatar is not displayed instead of the resource thumbnail = there is an empty image slot next to each found item).
• It appears that enabling "Show only bundles" option by default and allowing resource thumbnails to be displayed as bundle thumbnails could be a fairly easy solution to issue #2.

5. After performing a search, you cannot search the same repository again from the main search box (it will search the whole site, not the repository).

• This is not really a major issue, but I can become quite annoying if you're looking for a lot of resources at once as it's a bit anti-intuitive to have to go to the Search Again menu to search the same repository instead of simply typing the next search in the same box.

[FIXED] 6. The Advanced Search menu takes too much scrolling and is a bit complicated.

Spoiler

• Having each tag displayed one under another greatly increases the amount of scrolling needed to use it.
• The sheer amount of options available in the search might be a little daunting to some users.
• While the amount of new options in the advanced menu is amazing, it could definetely use some sort of selective presentation (i.e. drop down menus for certain things).

[FIXED] 7. Gul'dan is breaking the search.

Spoiler

• A funny thing (bug?) that I found that apparently searching for "Gul'dan" in the models' section displays a whole lot of results that have absolutely nothing to do with Gul'dan - i.e. not only does the model not match, but there often isn't any mention of Gul'dan anywere in the resource page or comments.
• Tried replicating it with other searches, but so far no luck.

[FIXED] 8. The maximum amount of search results might be limited to 200.

Spoiler

• The Hive has thousands of resources. Limiting the amount of maximum results displayed by the search to 200 seems like an unwise decision since with such a huge base of resources, a lot of the more general searches will simply be incomplete.
• I'm not sure about this problem - because of issue #1, I couldn't really get the search to find me anywhere close to 200 resources on pretty much most searches. Only got it to work once or twice, so it might as well be a coincidence.
• This would be particularly annoying with issue #4, where not only do you get a limited amount of results, but also a considerable chunk of what you get is taken by duplicates.

[FIXED] 9. A lot of the fonts in the main resource pages have a color with very low contrast to the background.

Spoiler

• This could make browsing the resource repositories much harder for some people, especially ones with some sort of ophtalmological (related to the eyes) problems.

[FIXED] 10. Searching for a word that has less than 4 letters doesn't work.

Spoiler

• This makes searching for very popular words like "Orc" or "Elf" unavailable.
• Given this can be sidestepped by the filters, looking for other words can't - for example, it is impossible to look for "Rat".

---

So, that's my feedback. Hopefully it helps Ralle improve the search functionality

A GREAT SUGGESTION BY FREDDYK THAT COULD PRETTY MUCH SOLVE MOST ISSUES ABOVE:

That is why i believe the best way to handle this is to add the list of keywords as a separate property of bundles, just like the list of tags or the list of authors. Then you should be able to add a field in the Bundle Filters area (where currently you can filter by author) to filter ressources through keywords.

Edit: made it shorter, added points 6-10 and Freddyk's great suggestion.

 

[rarigate]

Just bring the old one back, plain and simple.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Just bring the old one back, plain and simple.

It surely sounds like the best solution, but the entire "platform" the site operates on has changed, so I don't know if bringing the old one back wouldn't be more difficult than improving the new one.

Edit: Upon further testing and reading, added more findings to the list.

 

[Ralle]

1

I want to split the name of the icons by upper case letters and other logic. But only for the search engine. I thought you were afraid of me doing it for the interface. That's not what I meant. By adding spaces internally, the search engine will properly index the icon names.

It does not search descriptions!? That must be a bug. I have written the code so that should happen. I gotta fix that.

2

Yes. Gonna do that. Generally gonna add more information.

3

Increased it to 50 just now and max to 500.

4

Technically they are not duplicates. Most model uploads are uploaded with a portrait that has the exact same name. This is not going to be like that for future uploads where modelers don't feel as enticed to upload a portrait.

5

Yes, I agree. This is kind of sucky. I will have to report it back to XenForo to see what they have to say. It makes the most sense to have it edit the current search and not make a new site-wide search.

6

Yes, I gotta put the extensive tags in a scrollable box, don't I? These tags were imported from Hive 1 and there are many duplicates because the tags where separate for Hive 1. I will at some point go through them and merge many of those shared by icons/models/textures. Not now though, as it's not as pressing a matter.

7

Huh, gotta look into that. Perhaps the search engine, like the last one, only likes words with no special characters.

8

Yeah increased that to 500.

9

Okay. Those fonts are for things with less emphasis though. Perhaps too little?

10

Yep, that's a setting. I can reduce that to 3, 2 or 1. But every time I do it, it may cause more load on the server. We can experiment with it though . On Hive 1 I cannot remember what I set it to, but 4 is just default for the search system.

I will use this thread as reference. Please stay current and update the thread accordingly. Perhaps use [s] for the things I have fixed so far .

 

[MasterBlaster]

I want to split the name of the icons by upper case letters and other logic. But only for the search engine.

I understood correctly, Chief I just don't think that's enough to fully solve the issue.
But hell, I guess it's worth a try, though it sounds like a lot of work that I don't think is necessary since...

It does not search descriptions!? That must be a bug. I have written the code so that should happen. I gotta fix that.

This by itself should already take care of the problem above - from my experience, a lot of descriptions have keywords that already include pretty much every word from the name anyway.

IMPORTANT:
Reconsider searching whole descriptions. Some people might end up going a bit overboard with describing their resources - i.e. use words that sound cool in the description, but aren't really something that their resource should be searchable by. It might cause some misleading results. Keywords are better imo.

Short example - someone makes a footman unit and describes it like this:

Spoiler

"All he wants it to find an ORC and put his BLADE into his SKULL".

This unit will be shown by searches for ORC/BLADE/SKULL, though it doesn't really fit them.

Increased it to 50 just now and max to 500.

Nice! And would it be possible to add an option/box for the user to PICK how many results are displayed per page? Like, if I want there to be 10 pages x 50 results or 1 page with all 500 results.

Technically they are not duplicates. Most model uploads are uploaded with a portrait that has the exact same name.

I understand - thing is, right now there's not many resources that would benefit from this, so it can be a little annoying.
The "Display only bundles" option is very nice + it's already there and works + I think it could really fit amazingly well here (under "Search resources only"):

Also - THE NOTE OF THIS ONE:
This is what happens if you use the "Show only bundles" from Advanced Search:

Now - add thumbnails here + enable it by default = the resource thumbnail/preview problem temporarily fixed.

Yeah increased that to 500.

I think it'll do - at least for now If anything, I guess it's a fairly simple thing to change should 500 still not be enough

Okay. Those fonts are for things with less emphasis though. Perhaps too little?

Yeah... A lighter shade of gray could be fine - a little more contrast, but still not standing out too much.

Yep, that's a setting. I can reduce that to 3, 2 or 1. But every time I do it, it may cause more load on the server. We can experiment with it though

1 is extreme and 2... I'm not a native english speaking person, so I don't know if there are any 2-letter words that would be relevant, but imo 3 would be a sweet spot for this.

I will use this thread as reference. Please stay current and update the thread accordingly. Perhaps use [s] for the things I have fixed so far .

Will do, Chief. I'll read up on what other folks are saying too and if anything new pops up, I'll add it here.
I'll mark the new stuff with [NEW] prefix and fixed with [FIXED] prefix - I'll also put the descriptions of each fixed point into a spoiler tag to reduce the size of the post.

I'll mark #8 (max search results) as fixed for now, if you make/made any more changes, let me now.

 

[Ralle]

Sorry for not participating much. Okay, resources are now searchable by the description. I still need to split icon names internally for the search system to work efficiently.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Sorry for not participating much. Okay, resources are now searchable by the description. I still need to split icon names internally for the search system to work efficiently.

It appears to work. Icons are searchable too.
The examples given in OP are working now. Will mark as FIXED.

Also, when you have some time - there's some extra explanation and thoughs in post #5. Could be useful

 

[Ralle]

Don't worry, I will revisit over and over again until it's good.

 

[Shyster]

This is a great list you've got here, all these suggestions are key to improving the experience. Without that, it's really several steps backward as a user I think. However, I understand this has been in the works for a long time and it'll take a while to get things polished. The new site has a lot of potential and I'm glad to see people are testing it to death to find every little detail

I'll add to the list -- when clicking on a resource to view comments, ratings, download, etc. the page starts scrolled down a ways toward the comments instead of being at the top.

 

[Ralle]

I'll add to the list -- when clicking on a resource to view comments, ratings, download, etc. the page starts scrolled down a ways toward the comments instead of being at the top.

That's because it scrolls to the resource you found. Bundles may contain many resources and it wants to tell you exactly which resource you clicked on in the result.

 

[rarigate]

It surely sounds like the best solution, but the entire "platform" the site operates on has changed, so I don't know if bringing the old one back wouldn't be more difficult than improving the new one.

Edit: Upon further testing and reading, added more findings to the list.

I do not necessarily want to bring the whole old one back as it is not fully compatible of the new update, I only mean its awesome features. (i.e. 20-200 search results per page, resource thumbnail preview, etc.)

 

[Ralle]

Resources, particularly icons will have their names better indexed now. E.g. the icon BTNHorseMask will be indexed as "BTNHorseMask HorseMask Horse Mask". This will make it easier for the search system to differentiate between the words.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Sweet
Btw, I'm on a conference till Friday. I'll update the OP when I'm back.

Edit: okay, I'm back. Don't see any new feedback out there, besides maybe asking for the links to the resource sections to be more visible.

Also, Ralle - anything I should mark as Fixed above (the icons already count towards point 1, which is fixed)?

 

[DrakkarovCh]

It only shows profile pics, random images or doesn't show any image.....its kinda difficult to find something with that issue

 

[Ralle]

MasterBlaster already wrote this.

 

[Ralle]

Depending on how much I get to test (we're going to watch a movie now) I will release this tonight/tomorrow.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Oh, this looks sweet! Once you release it, I'll definetely test it and see how it does in practice

 

[Ralle]

Roger. Back to work. Movie was alright.

EDIT:
Have a look now.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Roger. Back to work. Movie was alright.

EDIT:
Have a look now.

Happy you enjoyed your movie
Okay, so - my thoughts:

WORKS:
1. Maps, Icons - dear god, this is so sweet!
2. Tools - looks okay to me.

PROBLEMS:
1. Models - well, I think it shows more data, but there are no thumbnails for models' themselves.
2. Skins - it shows the image of the skin file thing-y, it's better than nothing, but I think that having a preview of a skinned unit would be better.
3. Spells - shows the image of the test/download map associated to the spell, not the image of the spell itself.

4. For some reason, I could not perform a search on "Packs" repository - always got "No results found".
5. Didn't look at SC 2 section - I'm not too familiar with it, so I wouldn't be able to give good feedback.

IMAGES FOR PROBLEMS:

1. Models:

2. Skins:

3. Spells:

QUESTION:
If I do a search on, say, Models, does it also look in submissions/substandard?

P.S. Once al thumbnails work well, I'll do a full test again and post a 2.0 list with any other issues/feedback left in this topic, ok?

 

[Ralle]

Oh right. I adapted the resource information from the bundle display page to work in search results, but since they don't actually have a direct relation to any image, they will not show any on the results page. I can of course take the primary image and show that.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Ok, models and spells work properly.

The skins still show an image of the skin, which is a bit confusing (explanation above).
And I still can't search Packs.

 

[Ralle]

Oh man, I just tried it, you're right. Funny thing is, it works if you do "Search All" but restrict it to the "Packs" section.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Must be some nasty bug Chief

And how about those skins?

They show the preview of the skin file, i.e. how the texture looks. It doesn't tell much about how the unit will look when a skin is applied. Maybe you should do whatever you did to fix Spells and add the resource image of a skinned unit?

 

[Ralle]

That's the plan.

 

[MasterBlaster]

So, quite a bit of time has passed - here comes a 2.0 feedback

• When searching Maps, it'd be cool if each entry had information about what type of map it is available without having to click on the map.
• Consecutive searches via search box still perform a search on the whole site, not the repository that was searched before (i.e. performing 2nd search of the same repository in a row is counter-intuitive).
• It is still not possible to choose how many results are displayed per page (this would really be a huge QoL improvement, at least for me)
• I don't seem to understand how to filter Icons based on their type (i.e. to show only icons with Passive/Upgrade, etc. icons in the pack)
• Would it be possible to keep the filters' bar on the side of search results and be able to apply them to search results as well?
• I am still unable to search packs.
• Some searches still display duplicates - please, add an option to show results as bundles to the main search menu (the one that appears when clicking on the search box)
• Perhaps some fonts could use adjusting in the resource section to provide more contrast, but - I can't really tell now, because I've gotten used to them.
• The long list of filters in the advanced search menu could use some work to make it more readable, for example - collapse each and sort the list of categories via resource types.

On the other hand, I can confirm that all repositories correctly show the thumbnail.
And I can confirm that in term of pure functionality (i.e. finding stuff), the search engine appears to be working flawlessly, dare I say - even better than Hive 1.0.

Overall, good work!
Some QoL changes should, imo, still be done, but even as it is now, I'm personally ok with the search engine.

 

[Ralle]

• When searching Maps, it'd be cool if each entry had information about what type of map it is available without having to click on the map.

Will add tags for search results.

• Consecutive searches via search box still perform a search on the whole site, not the repository that was searched before (i.e. performing 2nd search of the same repository in a row is counter-intuitive).

Yep, this seems like a usability issue in XenForo to me. You have to use "Search Again" to edit your search.

• It is still not possible to choose how many results are displayed per page (this would really be a huge QoL improvement, at least for me)

By increasing the displayed results to 50, I think I found somewhat of a sweet spot. Adding an actual field is still under consideration.

• I don't seem to understand how to filter Icons based on their type (i.e. to show only icons with Passive/Upgrade, etc. icons in the pack)

When you set the "Resource Type" you can say which type of icon must be in the bundle.

• I am still unable to search packs.

On my list.

• Some searches still display duplicates - please, add an option to show results as bundles to the main search menu (the one that appears when clicking on the search box)

Not duplicates. Portraits and models. They happen to have the same name. They are distinct models.

• Perhaps some fonts could use adjusting in the resource section to provide more contrast, but - I can't really tell now, because I've gotten used to them.

Well, low constrast usually means less important.

• The long list of filters in the advanced search menu could use some work to make it more readable, for example - collapse each and sort the list of categories via resource types.

Or make big significant headers. Good point.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Ok, Chief I guess you know better.

Anyway, I guess that'll be it for me in this thread. I wanna thank you for a fruitful co-operation

 

[Ralle]

I liked collaborating with you, and there are still a few things left on the list to do .