[engine] Searching and tagging in the add-on server

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Glowing Fish
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[engine] Searching and tagging in the add-on server

Post by Glowing Fish »

I am sorry if this has been brought up before, I couldn't seem to recall ever seeing it. Also, it is hard for me to search for "search", since it is used much in a different context.

Anyway, my idea is that pbl files could be allowed a "tag" field where the designer could tag a campaign or add-on with some basic themes that people could search for. Things that described the basic type and content of the campaign like "branching", "RPG", "dwarves", "spawns", "dragon" etc.

There would be two reasons for this: first, if someone had played a campaign along time ago, and forgotten about it, they could search for it and find it easily. And also, if someone was just looking for a campaign or add-ons that interested them, they could use this to find likely matches.

Right now, this might not be that needed, since even though there is a lot more material on the add-on server than there used to be, so even with ~200 add-ons, it isn't that hard to find what you are looking for. However, there might be a lot more material in the future, so this might be a more needed feature.

Of course, I know that adding features to the pbl wml would not be easy, but I do think this is at least good as an idea.

(BTW, if this has been implemented in 1.9, and I am not aware, I am going to hang my head in shame, stumble into the Valley of Death, and let the walking corpses overwhelm me)
Don't go to Glowing Fish for advice, he will say both yes and no.
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Astoria
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Re: [engine] Searching and tagging in the add-on server

Post by Astoria »

Glowing Fish wrote:(BTW, if this has been implemented in 1.9, and I am not aware, I am going to hang my head in shame, stumble into the Valley of Death, and let the walking corpses overwhelm me)
Nope, you haven't missed anything.

I think your idea is quite useful, but can also be a pain in the butt.
People may set 500 tags, or several useless tags. Searching for names always worked for me.
Formerly known as the creator of Era of Chaos and maintainer of The Aragwaithi and the Era of Myths.
Glowing Fish
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Re: [engine] Searching and tagging in the add-on server

Post by Glowing Fish »

Well, search using any system of tagging can be misleading. I am sure that if I went on flickr and searched for pictured tagged "pretty", it wouldn't be very useful.

My biggest fear is that people would just tag with overly vague terms like "good" or "challenging".

Maybe the tag field could be limited to ten terms, or something?
Don't go to Glowing Fish for advice, he will say both yes and no.
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Captain_Wrathbow
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Re: [engine] Searching and tagging in the add-on server

Post by Captain_Wrathbow »

Isn't this [sort of] what the "type" field is for? I suppose this would be more customizable and specific, but still... perhaps "type" could be modified to encompass both the goals of "tags" and "addon type"? ...just speculating here... :hmm:
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Astoria
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Re: [engine] Searching and tagging in the add-on server

Post by Astoria »

Captain_Wrathbow wrote:Isn't this [sort of] what the "type" field is for? I suppose this would be more customizable and specific, but still... perhaps "type" could be modified to encompass both the goals of "tags" and "addon type"? ...just speculating here... :hmm:
Like: Dwarf Campaign, Undead Scenario etc.?
Formerly known as the creator of Era of Chaos and maintainer of The Aragwaithi and the Era of Myths.
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Captain_Wrathbow
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Re: [engine] Searching and tagging in the add-on server

Post by Captain_Wrathbow »

I don't know. After some more thought, perhaps it would be better to add a completely new "tags" field... if anything is added at all, that is.
Glowing Fish
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Re: [engine] Searching and tagging in the add-on server

Post by Glowing Fish »

LightFighter wrote:
Captain_Wrathbow wrote:Isn't this [sort of] what the "type" field is for? I suppose this would be more customizable and specific, but still... perhaps "type" could be modified to encompass both the goals of "tags" and "addon type"? ...just speculating here... :hmm:
Like: Dwarf Campaign, Undead Scenario etc.?
The thing about this is that it would have to really subdivide the type down into small pieces, by the main units used, the main enemy faced, or even the terrain. (Northerners fight Monsters on Frozen terrain, short campaign), for example. Putting an open ended tag field seems to be much easier...

As well as there are lots of things that don't fit. For a long time, Coliseum was in a larger package (it might still be), and I had a bit of trouble finding out which one it is in.

So far, there doesn't seem to be much straight-out disagreement with this idea. I imagine that it might be hard to implement, though.
Don't go to Glowing Fish for advice, he will say both yes and no.
Alink
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Re: [engine] Searching and tagging in the add-on server

Post by Alink »

This is kind of already possible with the filter tool:
- Filter take a list of words (separated by space) and shows all add-ons having those, regardless of the order.
- It also searches in add-on descriptions (visible when clicking the "description" button)
- That's already enough but all description texts will be considered as tags, which may be not wanted (huge noisy tags soup).
- So, we could decide some special convention for specifying tags like "tag:campaign tag:dragon", but using a special character is probably better, '*' for example. Then just write it at the end of description field:

Code: Select all

description="
A campaign about a dragon
tags:
*campaign
*dragon
"
- User can then list all addons tagged dragon by typing "*dragon" (or even *dra since it filter as you type). If there is too many results, he can add "*campaign"

PS: of course, it would be cool to list these tags somewhere, but that probably needs to move them into a new key "tags" and add new UI elements.
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Re: [engine] Searching and tagging in the add-on server

Post by Glowing Fish »

So is there any official verdict on this idea?

Can it at least be "BWH"?
Don't go to Glowing Fish for advice, he will say both yes and no.
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