Advanced search and grammar

[christianlupus]

Hello, @seyfeb, @MarcelRobitaille, and others,

in #1244 we discussed an internal search bar in the cookbook. I had in my mind an advanced search option here to be implemented. I was thinking of creating some grammar that allows searching very specifically for recipes. In this discussion, I would like to ask you for your thoughts on these ideas and eventually have some feedback on the ideas.

Please note that this is mostly not yet implemented and needs more or even much more implementation work before it can be implemented completely. However, it was nice when we have a clear image in mind of what might be the next steps.

I would like to define prefixes that allow searching specific files of the recipes. So, for example ingr:apple or ingredient:apple would look for apple in the ingredients. We have to define the possible prefixes that will be available. What I came up so far:

prefix	elements to be sarched
title	title of the recipe
desc	description
ingr/ingredients	ingredients of the recipe
inst/instruction	instructions
tool	tools of the recipe
tag	keywords
category	category of recipe
url
downloaded:bool	true/false if recipe was imported

Just typing a word in the search would search all categories mentioned.

What is missing is the notion if the text should be matched exactly by word or as part of a word (either apple would match both apples and pineapple or it would match neither). This needs to be defined as well. I tend to interpret it as parts of words.

Also one could define a structure to search for a fixed string like "scrambled eggs". So, these words must be in fixed relation to be found.

Variant 1: prefixes for boolean

To realize simple boolean structures, one can use prefixes similar to the GitHub search. So, for example -tool:oven would filter out all recipes that need an oven.

The exact syntax needs to be defined here as well. The language that can be described by this approach is rather limited, just basic searches. However, this might be a benefit as people tend to be better with simple structures.

Variant 2: English operators

Alternatively, one could make a complete language out of this by defining the operators NOT, AND, and OR as well as parentheses. So, the term would be like ingr:apple AND NOT (tool:oven OR keyword:spicy).

Of course, this can be done with other operators like && and || as well. The point is that it requires a more logical understanding to build such constructs,

Variant 3: Combination

It was in general possible to combine things. Either both grammars are to be accepted or the user can configure the level of experience.

[MarcelRobitaille]

I think variant 1 is pretty reasonable. For variant 2, I wonder if enough users would take advantage of it for it to be worth the development time. I consider myself a pretty technical user, but I don't think I would ever need something so advanced to search my recipes. If someone has a compelling use-case for that, I'd be happy to work on it though. It seems like a fun challenge.

[christianlupus]

For further refeence here some cross-posts:

• Feature Request: Saved Searches/Tags · Issue #130 · nextcloud/cookbook
• Add wildcats for Search · Issue #5 · nextcloud/cookbook

[jessebot]

Searching by ingredient would be really helpful. Is that something I can open a feature request for, or perhaps a dedicated discussion?

[jessebot]

Thank you for your prompt and informative response! 🙏

[jessebot]

Oh, it turns you can CAN search by ingredient using the fuzzy search. I guess I find the UI a little confusing. Still happy to create a GitHub Issue for this, but not really sure if this is a bug or a feature or just a preference thing. Maybe it's just me that gets confused. Either way, I'm still very grateful for this app and the work the community and maintainers put in 🙏

Here's some feedback on how the UI feels

There's a little magnifying glass in the Filter name field, and I thought that was the search 🤦

Here's what I mistook when the browser window is 3/4 size

I often work on a laptop, so I often have windows at 3/4 size or half size, so I can multitask.

Here's what I mistook when the browser window is squished

Often times if I see any input fields near the top or in a side bar of a UI, I assume it's a search field especially if there's a magnifying glass, and I was kinda right, but not quite, so that's what caused me to come to this repo and see if others were having this issue.

Some minor suggestions

sort by field

• Perhaps the sort field could say "Sort by" either in the dropdown, above the drop down in muted text, or to the left of the dropdown.

• Use "Recipe Name" or "Recipe Title" instead of the word "Name"?

filter input fields

Maybe it would be a little less confusing if we referred to the recipe name as "Title"? Then, it would say ":funnel_icon: Filter by Recipe title" in the placeholder text, instead of "🔍 Filter name", which could make it a little more clear?

Side bar

The reason I also kept trying to use the Download field recipe from... field was because it's directly above the All recipes link, which makes it look like a search bar. As a suggestion, perhaps the + Create recipe button at the top left of the side bar should instead open a popup modal or window that then gives you the option to create new OR import from url, that way the import field can't be confused with a search. Here's an example of what I mean when it comes to search being embedded in side bars, which is what formed my habit:

[christianlupus]

@seyfeb I guess most of the stuff is already part of the reimplementation you are working on. Honestly, I am too far from home to have a closer look of every wish/suggestion is considered in the design approach... What do you think?

[seyfeb]

@christianlupus The filter UI is different now, that's correct. Most of the UI elements a the same, but especially the text input field is more like the search field on github. The search magnifier icon in the top bar is gone.

@jessebot Thank you for your effort. I can see that the search icon might confuse you. The idea was to indicate that it's a free text input instead of a dropdown field (like for the other filters).

What I'm interested in is the discussion "name" vs "title". I have no strong feelings about this, but just out of curiosity: what were you thinking initially whose "name" you were searching for if not the recipes'?

Regarding the download field, I like the idea. This is related to #288

[StartAGarden]

I am really sorry for jumping on this thread, but can somebody explain to me how to make the search look through the whole recipe/ingredients? Because for me Search only always looks through the titles of the recipes and I am wondering what I am doing wrong, since it sounds like it should look through ingredients, too..? I am trying to search via the one in the upper right corner.

[Benedikt81]

First, let me start by saying that I really like the new search/filter bar. It is easy to use and looks nice.

Three things I was wondering:

1. I have a few tags that written with different casing, i.e. Eggs vs eggs. When editing a recipe, both variants are displayed, also in the keyword filter. But if I filter for the keyword, all recipes are displayed, regardless of the case of the letters. That means, I can not easily correct the different forms of the keyword and am stuck with the two variants. (I know how to fix in the folder directly and will fix it that way, but it is not an optimal solution). Either ignore the case in all areas of the cookbook or treat it as two different keywords everywhere.
2. The sorting of the keyword filter seems to be broken:
   
3. I really am missing the old keyword "cloud", specifically the numbers behind it. Maybe you can put number of recipes containing the keyword in brackets behind the keyword in the filter. I would still miss the option to sort by number of recipes though.

[christianlupus]

This might be related to #2115.