Plaza Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Gromet on May 13, 2018, 12:03:00 am
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I like people to try out the experimental search engine for the plaza and leave comments here.
http://grometsplaza.net/search.html
Title search - does it need one?
Author Search - check out your favorite authors.
Include/exclude storycodes - try them out, do we have too many (3000) :o
Is there something else you wish to see added?
This is just a trial version and we need your feedback. 8)
Thanks ;)
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Wow. Looks pretty good at giving users a fairly robust menu of possible search criteria. I would have to say "Yes" though to including the Title search. that let's people include a keyword type of criteria outside of the storycodes that you have. (and that is a LOT of storycodes!)
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A title search would be helpful to those who are searching for specific ones. There may be those who have been referred to the site in search of a specific tale.
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I typed in selfbondage in the include storycode box and nothing happened
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Just tried the search engine, worked perfectly.
Here's a tip, when searching for story codes, be sure to use an actual story code. solo-F or solo-M would be the codes for selfbondage. Check the story code list before searching if unsure.
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Yes selfbondage is more a tag than a storycode, the storycodes have been added to the stories for a number of years now and you can find the list here: http://www.grometsplaza.net/pages/storycodes.html The link is also on the top of every tile/author/main page too.
There will be a clear up of the storycodes happening, I'm currently reviewing the 3000 we currently have.
The more feedback we have the better.
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The feature looks very nice, however I have some suggestions for improvements:
- Don't use debug output on a production site. Someone might try to exploit bugs using leaking SQL statements. And for those, that don't know what it is, it is irritating.
- Create a possibility to search storycodes via regular expressions. Although not many will use it, for those who can it is really nice and should not a big deal to implement.
- Implement pagination (or at least an option to increase the number of results shown)
- Implement options to sort search results (alphabetically, per site, per date, ...)
But it really is a long-awaited feature, so I'm incredible happy it is available. ;)
Good Job!
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I love it! extremely useful and easy to use when I needed to go searching for something. Thank you!
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This might just be me.
But if I get say 137 results and it says "showing the first 100", I don't see any actual way to display the rest. There's no page button or anything.
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But if I get say 137 results and it says "showing the first 100", I don't see any actual way to display the rest. There's no page button or anything.
Yes, that was by design - I couldn't see the point in loading page after page of search results? It makes sense if you only show a few results per page (e.g. Google) but if you can't find something in the first 100 results, then you probably want to narrow down the search to return fewer stories?
At least that was my thinking. What do other people think?
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Well the way I use it is to just get a sampling of stories I like, I'm not searching for anything specific.
So yea I'd like to be able to see them all, because there's 137 stories matching my search criteria so 137 stories I might like.
I mean with google you are searching for the correct link. With this I'm searching stories I'd like. Those last 37 meet the same criteria as the first 100.
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I'm not sure how making a search engine works, but I would like to suggest the one from another site I read on. bdsmlibrary.com has probably my favorite search engine under the advance search. It allows someone to check/select from a huge range of codes. Something similar might help get the main choices (M/F,etc.) selected, then they could read the results for smaller choices (items used). Just a suggestion.
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Jup, the one in BDSM library also gives you page after page of stuff to see.
It's just easy. Say you want to see only f/f stories. That doesn't mean you're looking for a specific story or even want to narrow it down anymore. You just put F/f as the only search criteria and browse like that.
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I'm not sure how making a search engine works, but I would like to suggest the one from another site I read on. bdsmlibrary.com has probably my favorite search engine under the advance search. It allows someone to check/select from a huge range of codes. Something similar might help get the main choices (M/F,etc.) selected, then they could read the results for smaller choices (items used). Just a suggestion.
Many thanks for all the feedback & suggestions - please keep them coming!
bdsmlibrary.com advanced search has got some good features, and I quite like the "tag cloud" on GaggedUtopia, so I'd like to have a search page that combines the best bits of both of those, but without overwhelming the user with a huge page of tags or tick boxes.
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Well the way I use it is to just get a sampling of stories I like, I'm not searching for anything specific.
So yea I'd like to be able to see them all, because there's 137 stories matching my search criteria so 137 stories I might like.
Thanks, it is really useful to know how people use the search :)
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I'm fine with the no more than 100 results showing. I found a few of my questions using the new search feature, so thanks
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I've been looking for a specific story for a while with no success. I remembered the basic plot but couldn't remember title or author. My first try with the search engine and I got exactly what I was looking for. Well done! Thank you!
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The search engine has had an upgrade! :)
https://grometsplaza.net/search.html (https://grometsplaza.net/search.html)
now with a "word cloud" of the most common storycodes. Please post or email any feedback. I'm still planning further improvements.
It now also auto-loads the next 'page' of 100 results as you scroll to the bottom of the screen, so you can potentially see thousands of stories. The "infinite scroll" that is popular on modern websites.
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Just used the search engine for the first time as a test, very nice. Is there a way to find stories not in the word cloud, as in "cuckold", a subject near and dear to my heart lately? I know I could do a title search obviously with that word, but that might not get me what I was searching for.
Thank you, Jackie.
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Thanks Jackie. There isn't that option at the moment, but perhaps I should add it. An extra field that you can type in other, less common storycodes?
I'd like to have a standard, basic search page that is very easy to use, and an "expert mode" with all the search options.
Could people say which search features they'd like in the basic search page?
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For my purposes story codes, title, and author would be sufficient. I do like the idea of an "expert mode" but agree that keeping the search page easy is the best way.
Thanks for all your work. What I've tried so far works great.
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Just given the search engine another upgrade! :-*
https://grometsplaza.net/search.html
- the "word cloud" of the most common storycodes now changes depending on what you are searching for, so you can drill down to exactly the type of stories you are looking for
- you can now search with a list of gender codes
- the consent & content codes now behave like other codes, so you can leave them grey ("don't care about this code"), or click them green ("stories with this code") or red ("stories without this code")
Please post or email any feedback.
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I just tested the search engine using Jackie’s question about cuckold.
I typed Jackie Rabbit into the search by author field. It populated a story code cloud with codes specific to those stories.
By highlighting cuckold, then deleting the author name the search returned all stories that included the code cuckold.
Very ingenious Webnik, thank you for all the work you have done, and also for your continuing efforts to improve the site.
64Fordman
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Thank you Fordman, that's a wonderful trick.
Jackie.
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I found one minor thing with the search by author feature. Some stories have multiple authors. A search for Techie, for example, finds all the stories by Techie & Techster, but none of the stories by Techster & Techie.
A search for Goddess Jane returns no results when searching for stories by Carnaj & Goddess Jane. Likewise for Babydoll who co-authored with Dan Dofogh.
Even when the story has one author, only the first name returns results. A search for John Roper finds all his stories, but if the searcher only remembers Roper they are out of luck.
Again, no big thing, but understanding how the system works may save forum members some frustration.
64Fordman
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I found one minor thing with the search by author feature. Some stories have multiple authors. A search for Techie, for example, finds all the stories by Techie & Techster, but none of the stories by Techster & Techie.
A search for Goddess Jane returns no results when searching for stories by Carnaj & Goddess Jane. Likewise for Babydoll who co-authored with Dan Dofogh.
Even when the story has one author, only the first name returns results. A search for John Roper finds all his stories, but if the searcher only remembers Roper they are out of luck.
Many thanks for highlighting that problem :) I think I've now fixed it, so you can search for "Techie", "Goddess Jane", "Roper", etc and get the desired results.
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I typed Jackie Rabbit into the search by author field. It populated a story code cloud with codes specific to those stories.
By highlighting cuckold, then deleting the author name the search returned all stories that included the code cuckold.
Very sneaky! :D another way you can do it is by typing a specific storycode into the browser address bar. e.g.
https://grometsplaza.net/search.html?con=cuckold (https://grometsplaza.net/search.html?con=cuckold)
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More improvements to the search page, including an "X" button to reset the form, and a much more compact layout if you are using a small screen such as a mobile phone.
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Noting here in case it surprises anyone, I've just reworked the way the search page behaves, in response to user reports about unexpected behaviour around the gender codes.
When you selected /f or /m, it would include or exclude stories that had submissives of that gender. I assumed, like the users having issues, that the F and M options would work the same way, but for dominants. Instead they were acting to search for stories with a dominant or submissive of that gender. So it was possible to look for stories with a submissive of a particular gender, but not a dominant of a particular gender. That could lead to some unexpected results, for example, if you selected green /m and red M, you were essentially saying "only stories that have males, but also don't have any males", and it would give you back zero results.
I've changed the F and M options to search for dominants of that gender instead, which I think will be more in line with what people expected. If anyone was making use of that any-role gender search, I can add it back in, maybe with some clear labeling about what the difference is, but for now I think the simpler set of options is more useful.