Search screen layout suggestions

[annemehr]

--- In HPFGU-Catalogue at yahoogroups.com, "a_reader2003"
<carolynwhite2 at a...> wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I have put up in a Word file some further suggestions on what the 
> search screens and search processes might be, once we make the system 
> live for HPfGU members.
> 
> Comments please - it is how the results of all our hard work will 
> appear - is it usable ??
> 
> Carolyn

It looks good.  How I think it would look in its final form is that
the table on screen 3 (the mock-up you had for Fudge) will be *very*
long in many cases (think of the Snape one!).  To narrow their
searches, users would scan the last several columns, I assume.  Since
the posts are listed in chronological order, threads will probably
become apparent by looking here. Sometimes you do get parallel threads
which would end up being coded the same -- some of the James vs. Snape
battles post-OoP come to mind -- which I think on the table might be
indistinguishable.  Still, who in their right mind would want to
*follow* an entire one of those threads (mind boggles)?

Rejecting duplicated ideas, of course, will leave us with much fewer
posts in a table.  The problem, of course, is deciding what's similar
enough to be a duplicate, and what's different enough to warrant
inclusion.  But we were always going to have that problem.

Unfortunately, I'll bet a surprising number of people don't bother to
use this, but the ones who do will no doubt be amazed at how much has
been written about anything you can think of.  I do still think it's
worth doing for the people who are going to make use of it.

I, as someone with no technical clue, have a technical question.  How
much harder or easier would it be if we sorted posts into all the
subcategories of screen 2 (i.e. down to the level of individual names
of MoM members in your example) and then have that group of posts be
searchable by any keyword the searcher would chose?  For example, if
you want to find posts discussing when Fudge and Harry interact, you
get to screen 2 and click on "Fudge, Cornelius Oswald" and a search
function comes up.  You enter "Harry" and click on a "go" button, and
every post we've sorted into the "Fudge" category is searched for the
word "Harry" and the message numbers (and names?) come up
automatically.  I think this would be more end-user friendly and
*maybe* less work for us as we wouldn't have to actually *sort* the
posts any finer than to the level of Screen 2.  Meaning that *we*
wouldn't have to separate the Fudge-and-Harry posts from, say, the
Fudge-and-Dumbledore or Fudge-and-LMalfoy posts.  I just don't know if
that's technically possible (I'd think it must be, though), or how
easy or feasible that would be to set up.  I don't even know if I'm
making myself clear!  ;-)

One last consideration: if we could do what I just suggested, we're
going to have to standardise the names somehow.  If an end-user is
going to search a category for "Voldemort," either they would also
have to search for "Voldie" and "LV" and "VMort" and all the other
variations, or *we* will have to insert a line somewhere that lists
all the proper names for people, spells and things.  Like "Avada
Kedavra" for "AK," etc.  Not to mention correcting misspellings, to be
thorough.  I notice Barry has taken to refering to Salazar Slytherin
as "Sally" these days <looks askance>. 

Anne
who hope we can get through this before the book 6 avalanche comes
out, but still thinks it's worth it