View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | View Status | Date Submitted | Last Update |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0018286 | MMW 5 | Playlists (Auto) / Search / Filters | public | 2021-09-13 08:59 | 2021-12-10 09:25 |
| Reporter | barrym | Assigned To | |||
| Priority | urgent | Severity | major | Reproducibility | always |
| Status | resolved | Resolution | fixed | ||
| Platform | Windows | OS | - | OS Version | 10 |
| Product Version | 5.0 | ||||
| Target Version | 5.0.2 | Fixed in Version | 5.0.2 | ||
| Summary | 0018286: Searching within a collection node is confusing | ||||
| Description | Original Title Edited by Rusty: Filtering; flaky, inconsistent, hard to understand, hard to explain And impossible to defend IMO Filtering has smarts, which generally help users get wanted results with minimal skills or input. The smarts break down in some situations, giving inconsistent and confusing results. There also needs to be a way to override the smarts, because in some situations they rule out useful valid Use Cases. "++++>" in the steps below indicates a bug or or inconsistency or weakness that should be fixed IMO video: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nh1ouqv11j8y22s/filter%20flaky.mp4?dl=0 | ||||
| Steps To Reproduce | See attached video link (highlights): A) Switching between views causes the search scope to change 01) Be in a Collection 02) Pick a phrase used in any tag outside of AlbumArtist and Album name tags 03> Open Grid view 04) type the phrase 05) empty result ... grumble, no what I was wanting, but moving on. EDIT [Rusty]: this occurs because the search scope is 'search current view' and searches in the album view search visible album fields (which is, I think, expected) 06) switch to List By Album ... view not empty, shows two matching tracks 07) switch back to Grid View, still empty 08> switch to Browser View 09) ++++> MM5 shows GRID View (?) ... and VIEW IS No LONGER EMPTY .. btw: clapping, it now shows the results I was wanting in step #05 EDIT [Rusty]: the bug being that somehow the search scope changed by itself to 'Global Search' B) Global search results are sometimes constrained to a Collection 10) Take dropdown menu option to switch across to Global View 11) MM5 opens global search box on the rhs, and transfers across my criteria 12) ++++> the results in the main panel are still constrained by the Collection ... ie. just 2 tracks ... press Enter in the global search control ... still wrong EDIT [Rusty] I'm unable to replicate this C) After a Global Search, performing a contextual search initiates a Global Search, changes the View, and removes Custom Views 12) cancel the global search, and manually enter the same criteria 13> main panel is now filtered correctly EDIT [Rusty]: I'd argue that it's incorrectly filtered at this point since the search results contain various albums that don't contain the search criteria within the displayed metadata 14> close the global search 15) MM5 returns to my collection (as per the breadcrumbs), with the previous contextual filter still applied 16) ++++> but the main panel is still showing GLOBAL filtered results 17) ++++> open the View dropdown menu ... my custom views have all vanished ... you see that I had 2 custom views at the start of the video EDIT [Rusty] - Type to initiate a contextual search ----> a Global Search is performed and the View switches to that associated with Global Searches Not covered by video: 18) open Grid View 19) type criteria album:foo, where album(s) exist with foo in title 20) ++++> no results .... this is bad. I am making an explicit query ... it should be valid because it is an album level view, and I am filtering using album level criteria ... it is especially bad if I made the query in a List View, and then switched to Grid View ... ie. why is the main panel empty suddenly? All I did was change View. 21) type title:foo 22) ++++> no results ... this bad also. I am making an explicit query. This should override your AI-like behaviour ... I clearly want to see albums having any tracks which match my explicit criteria, I can get this but only via bug at step #09 ... i.e. your smarts are closing down this Use case | ||||
| Additional Information | https://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=486878#p486878 https://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=486892#p486892 | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
| Fixed in build | 2514 | ||||
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I'm able to replicate much of the above (I've edited the repro steps for clarity). The root of the issues seems to be that scope of contextual searches sometimes changes in response to view switching. |
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We need to establish some agreed definitions for the purposes on this discussion. Propose that "global" means whole database, not confined to context of just the current Collection. And the "constrained by View" means that the filter looks only at specific columns associated with the current View. At point #4 of my original post, I was in Grid By Album View. There is an empty result because while the tag "crazy" was matched for some album tracks in the Collection, it was not in any of the Artist or Album Artist tags ... and these are the only tags that this View is interested in. New Point (A): You say that this is the "expected" result. .. Well it didn't expect it. I am not in a sub-node. I would have guessed that this would happen if I was in Album node. but since I was not in a sub-node, I would have expected an AllText search on all columns within the current context, ie. not an AllText search on just some columns ... I presume that the reason is because you are concerned that the user would get confused we they cannot see evidence showing why the album was selected ... But the thing is that this already happens in List mode if the matched column is hidden due to horizontal scroll. ... Also searching this view with a 4 digit number like 2000 ... this lists any album released in 2000. By your argument won't the user get confused here, because 2000 is not displayed anywhere. New Point (B). Point (A) was a whinge. This is a bug. Grid By Album had returned a empty result from the contextual string "crazy". ... If I then toggle to Browser View, and then back to Grid view, the Grid view is not empty any more. This is because it is no longer "constrained by View", but it is still "contextual" and not "global". ... Although this is a confusing bug, I then commented that it was a happy bug, because that was what I was hoping for in the 1st place. Your comments meant that also? ... Just making sure. Point(12) I can still replicate this. I ask to be switched to a "global" filter via the dropdown control. ... The UI tells me that has occurred, but I am still seeing a "contextual" result. I have to clear the Global search control, and re-type the filter string before I get a "global" result. |
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Your edit at point #13. No, I still think that the display is correct at this point. I have made a Global filter, and see Global results. In step #12 the UI was saying that I was seeing the results of a Global filter, but the results were still constrained by the Collection. Point 16 was that I had cleared|Closed the Global Search control, but you had not refreshed the main panel. Point 17 is that the List of available Views is broken at this point ... ie. my Custom Views have disappeared from the list of available Views. I still think that points 18 through 22 are issues, but there is enough going on here already. Back to point #12. The issue appears related to the earlier steps. .. ie. I can replicated with that series of steps, but cannot replicate the issue in isolation. |
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To clarify what I meant when I indicated that the scope of a contextual search changes to a global search: https://www.screencast.com/t/h68Ni1Se |
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Note that that the scope of contextual search isn't changed to global search as Rusty thinks. What actually happens is that the "Grid (by Album)" takes the cached list of albums from "List (by Album)" , therefore it now contains also the albums for which just some tracks includes the search phrase (no necessarily just album/album artist fields). Note that performing the same test with "Column FIlter" enabled does not result in the issue, i.e. with "Column FIlter" enabled it needs to perform the search on "track level" thus shows albums for all tracks including the phrase in any field (as Barry would expect, but Rusty thinks it is unexpected). So to unify we should (in "Grid (by Album)") either: a) always show just the albums including the search phrase in the 'album' or 'album artist' fileds (which Rusty thinks is expected) b) always show all albums for which a track contains the phrase within _any_ searchable field (like in "List (by Album)" view or "Grid (by album)" + "Column Filter") |
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Ludek: <<Note that performing the same test with "Column FIlter" enabled does not result in the issue, i.e. with "Column FIlter" enabled it needs to perform the search on "track level" thus shows albums for all tracks including the phrase in any field (as Barry would expect, but Rusty thinks it is unexpected).>> Ludek, what do you think? The video clip also exhibits three other issues IMO a> failure of main panel to refresh when the Ui changes b> Switching of View goes to the wrong View c> Custom View temporarily vanishing from the list of available Views Rusty emailed, and I misunderstood thinking he wanted a reworked version of the attached Video. Here is the new Video. It is shorter, with less digressions. https://www.dropbox.com/s/jhu8a701yfkz274/filter%20bug%20revisited.mp4?dl=0 It starts off showing configuration of my custom Collection and my custom View. Then demonstrates what I am claiming to be bugs. Notice these sections: 0:49 I changed to Browser View, but it took me to Grid by Album View 1:02 Switched to Global filter, but main panel not refreshed 1:10 Open closed Global Filter control, and pressed Enter, ==> panel still not refreshed 1:25 Closed Global filter ... the UI looks like it has switched back to my Contextual View , but main panel not refreshed .. I am still looking a Global view, ie. toolbar breadcrumbs are wrong 1:25 Custom View has vanished from the list of available Views ... video does not show it, but this happened at 0:49 |
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Re. the question of what contextual search results should appear in a given view, for MM5, we've until now taken the approach of returning items that matched for fields displayed in the view. So for instance: - In Music > Genres [Grid], search for 'Love' --> Love songs, but not every Genre that contains a track with the word 'Love' - In Music > Artists [Grid], search for 'Rock' --> Kid Rock, but not every Artist that has a song with Genre:Rock This approach was implemented because the alternative resulted in searches in these views returning overly broad results. So I think that this approach makes sense. But if we decide to change it, that should be tracked as a new/separate issue. The problem that I was pointing out is that the search results _change_ for the same view. And regardless of which approach we take, they shouldn't. Also, I'd say that this along with some of the other issues raised are quite severe and should probably be examined for 5.0.2. Can you re-triage? |
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OK, I understand from where the confusion comes now. The main problem is that searching a collection in Browser view isn't actualy true Contextual search, but rather global search restricted to given collection content. So what actually happens after the switch is performing the collection's "global" search and thus it goes to "search view" which is common for global search and collection's search. The "search view" is the view where [Switch to advanced] appears in the right-top corner. To reduce the confusion: 1) We should still show the [Search current view] in the search bar dropdown like Rusty indicated in his video https://www.screencast.com/t/h68Ni1Se 2) Somehow deal with the fact that after performing a search in collection [Browser] then the view is changed to "search view" and the only way to get back to collection [Browser] is to cancel the search (otherwise it just shows different variants of the search results -- like in case of global search) OR alternatively replace 1&2 by 3) Implement true contextual search (filter matches) for collection [Browser] view, i.e. instead of current going to "global search limited to collection's content" we would really filter the [Browser] view i.e. filter the 'Collection browser', 'Suggeted Artists', 'Suggested albums', 'Pinned list' sub-views to the items matching the search word/phrase? |
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2)/3) We probably shouldn't change the search mode from 'Search current view' to 'Search view'. From a user's perspective, Music [Browser] is representative of _all_ Music tracks (even though only a fraction of them are displayed). So a contextual search should show 'Search current view' and should return all matching items associated with that view (i.e. _all_ Artists, _all_ Albums, and _all_ tracks in Collection=Music). Note: the same holds true for other views in which the tracks represented by the view aren't all displayed. e.g. a) If the view is List (by album) and albums are collapsed, and the user searches for 'CollapsedTitle13' --> MM should return the matching result (even though it's not currently displayed) b) If the view is Browser with Tracks element enabled, and tracks is collapsed to only show the Top 10 tracks, and user search for 'CollapsedTrack11' --> MM should return the matching result (even though it's not currently displayed) The above makes sense when contextual search is set to 'Filter matches'. But if the UI is set to 'Scroll to match', users would probably expect that collapsed sections that contain a match would be opened automatically so that the next match could be highlighted. |
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Agree with all Rusty's points, although I think that it would be ok if a filter operation un-collapsed the view. It would be much better if the only hit was in a collapsed row .. and it kind of makes a plausible story that the computer had to un-collapse all rows in order to perform and display the filtered result. |
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Fixed in 2514 |
