Filtering content. What do you prefer?

AspDotNetDev

I made no consideration for how hard it would be to implement, I just was commenting on what I'd find most useful (even though I'd only use it in 1 out of every 200 searches). And if we're talking specifically about CodeProject, that type of search is almost never required, as the content is just not extensive enough to search through. For real world cases, option 4 would probably be the easiest and would satisfy most people without ticking off others. Although, aside from filtering, sorting is something else to consider. Perhaps sort things that match more keywords nearer to the top. But then we're getting deeper into search algorithms and that can get pretty in-depth (Google made an entire business out of it). And I don't often use the google exclusion feature myself, as I mostly know what I'm looking for... I find it most useful when I don't really know what I'm looking for (only what I'm not looking for).

Visual Studio is an excellent GUIIDE.

Mustafa Ismail Mustafa

1 and 2 please with the possible option of adding tags for both the content provider and searcher (looker-for-er in some dialects) OT: Welcome back! how was your trip?

If the post was helpful, please vote, eh! Current activities: Book: Devils by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Project: Hospital Automation, final stage Learning: Image analysis, LINQ Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?

Chris Maunder

Italy is awesome, as always. I'm suffering espresso withdrawals and our dodgy coffee machine in the office is struggling to keep up with my cravings. Ah, back to reality... :(

cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP

PIEBALDconsult

Dunno, I probably wouldn't take advantage of it anyway.

Mustafa Ismail Mustafa

I sympathize. I've had a similar problem when I came back from France. Actually I find that the problem repeats itself when I come back to Jordan from anywhere. Have you tried, giving it the boot? I find that works on people sometimes...

If the post was helpful, please vote, eh! Current activities: Book: Devils by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Project: Hospital Automation, final stage Learning: Image analysis, LINQ Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?

Chris Maunder

You mean giving up delicious, aromatic, life giving espresso?? I'm going to pretend you never suggested that.

cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP

Rama Krishna Vavilala

Are you posting any pictures? BTW: Check out the Bing picture of the day.

Chris Maunder

I'll try and get some pics. Pretty low key this year, though. Bing: Awesome! However, the stats are 14,2 km, 930m, 6,5%, so not something we'd go out of our way to bag. We were slack this year so next year (if it's possible) we'll be on a Mission.

cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP

Mustafa Ismail Mustafa

Chris Maunder wrote:

giving up delicious, aromatic, life giving espresso??

Perish the very thought! :omg::wtf: I meant a helping boot to the tuckus to make it work properly!

If the post was helpful, please vote, eh! Current activities: Book: Devils by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Project: Hospital Automation, final stage Learning: Image analysis, LINQ Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?

Luc Pattyn

Aha. That is a 64 million dollar question I have been asking myself when reflecting on the new Q&A system that might one day be inflicted on us. IMO the answer to this question will make or break the system all the way. Anyway, my answer on your question isn't going to be simple. And some of it may come as a shock. The short answer is: absolutely not 3 and 5; and not really 2 and 4; and 1 only for searches. And now for the long answer. I must urge you to take a seat and take your time. If it is about articles, messages, Q&A, tips, etc and one's intent is to learn something new, then I would like to do a search which implies I can give words (or better yet partial words) and the default is an AND operator; although I would also want the OR and NOT operators and parentheses to be available. And then I would like to be able to sort the results any way I like, by date, by author, by tags, by type, or by your relevance. If it is about an answering session, i.e. a heap (maybe cloud is the current buzzword) of questions on different topics, which one is going to read and maybe answer, then my current thinking leads to the following specs: 1. There are only some categories I want to see (C#, VB.NET, Algorithms, ..., but not Perl, not Apache, not SilverLight, ...); the NOTs are absolute, it really is ... AND NOT ... AND NOT ... There is no OR yet. 2. I want to see them somewhat categorized by topic (I don't want to switch languages every 15 seconds); I'll start with C#, then do VB.NET, then Databases, then ... Still no OR. Getting them categorized is most important for the first session in a day, when I tend to read over 100 questions, not just the latest few. 3. within such category-based selection I want to see them sorted by datetime (as posters often seem to publish related questions in a matter of hours, I want to see those in chronological order, which probably means I need the ability to set the starting point) 4. Under no circumstance do I want to see the same item more than once (unless I make a mistake and ask for a replay), so when a message is tagged both C# and Database, then it should be very easy to see C# messages, and later Database messages without seeing some twice. I would accept a button (or checkbox) to get this implemented ("Don't show me this again unless something inside has changed", as the thread could have grown since my last visit) I expect none of your suggested ways would fulfill these specs; you promised a solution to the cross-post problem, but so

Hans Dietrich

4, and the ability to apply tags (the same or new ones) iteratively to successive result sets (to avoid having to go back to the beginning if I forget to specify a tag).

Best wishes, Hans

[Hans Dietrich Software]

Vikram A Punathambekar

#1 Maaaaybe #4 I really like the way delicious[^] does the filtering, but I wish it had some advanced features like the NOT option.

Cheers, Vikram. (Cracked not one CCC, but two!)

Lost User

4. if it's implemented easily (i.e. it's simple for me to enter) so I can look for C# GRID -ASP.NET if I am looking for Winforms and WPF grid stuff in C# - but I don't want ONLY Winforms AND WPF

___________________________________________ .\\axxx (That's an 'M')

Member 96

Weird, my off the cuff thinking was number 3 but no one else seems to agree. Intuitively from experience I think 3 is the way to go because everyone definitely knows what they don't want to see. Filtering *in* stuff seems off the top to make sense at first glance because after all we only want to see what we want to see right? But in the long view and practical terms of actual usage I think it makes far more sense to say what you don't want to see. It's like the google news page. It allows me to specify what I want to see more stories on, but every time I go to the NY Times site I see far more that I'm interested in that I had not conceived of before. I don't think filtering out the greater part of information makes sense, better to filter in the greatest amount of information. Perhaps I'm just too open minded. :) The automatic system option 5 is definitely a no go area. It's a classic idea that seems cool to a computer programmer and in practice is horrible.

"Creating your own blog is about as easy as creating your own urine, and you're about as likely to find someone else interested in it." -- Lore Sjöberg

Lost User

Chris Maunder wrote:

I'm suffering espresso withdrawals

We had three weeks of crap coffee in France, Belgium and holland. Crossed the border to Italy, stopped for petrol and the chick behind the counter goes "you wanna coffee?" Best coffee we had for the entire trip. Defiantly going back to Italy

I wish I was as fortunate as fortunate as me

BillWoodruff

Hi Chris, I'm going to respond with just a general statement of how I like search to work. My preference is to search sequentially from broad to narrow, fuzzy to sharp, if at all possible, re-using the last search's result. So, for me, if I start with searching tags for those with C#, I'd like everything, please. Then, I'd like to narrow the search, perhaps excluding those whose tags are "ASP.NET," or "winnowing" by searching in the current search result set for only those that include "WPF." If tags are "ranked" somehow : then I see a different set of possibilities : I might like to see those tags that only include "C#" in the "top" two ranks. Whatever way CP implements it, I'll be happy to use it :) best, Bill

"Many : not conversant with mathematical studies, imagine that because it [the Analytical Engine] is to give results in numerical notation, its processes must consequently be arithmetical, numerical, rather than algebraical and analytical. This is an error. The engine can arrange and combine numerical quantities as if they were letters or any other general symbols; and it fact it might bring out its results in algebraical notation, were provisions made accordingly." Ada, Countess Lovelace, 1844

smcnulty2000

The answer you'll hate. The ability to choose for a given search which of the above applies. This is about browsing for content versus searching for content. The two aren't the same. Like if you are standing in a library looking at a book and you start looking at the books next to it. Versus going to the catalog system and asking for a book and having it handed to you. There is also room for what are considered 'expert indexes'. Where someone goes to the trouble of building a special list for an inquiring person to look through. Credit where credit is due: The three together were suggested by the book Library Research Models, by Thomas Mann, as a useful combination for research. http://www.amazon.com/Library-Research-Models-Classification-Cataloging/dp/019509395X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253863361&sr=8-1[^]

_____________________________ Quotidian is not quotidian.

cjb110

4 you often need to exclude, esp as tags are subjective.

KungFuCoder

I'd go for a combination of 2 and 4 Specify tags you want and don't want then show everything that matches sorted by number of matched 'Want' tags minus number of matched "Don't want" tags That way you get items with all the want tags and no don't want tags at the top down to a single want tag and multiple don't want tags at the bottom and everything is there somewhere if you got it wrong

Lost User

On a noticebaord at work we have an article about a Tivo taking over a guy's life. If decided on the basis of previous viewing history he was gay so started background recording of gay related material. He decided to watch mroe macho stuff to change the Tivo's mind so it decided he was gay and violent so started picking content for that. :omg: :doh:

Visit http://www.notreadytogiveup.com/[^] and do something special today.