IP.Marketplace of this community

[MEVi]

Hello,

Could you allow developers to put TAGs because it's not very easy to find a specific product for blogs or forums? Or maybe add a multiple choice so that the developer can say that his product is for blogs IP-Downloads,... , that it offers an admin interface...

 

[Jordan Miller]

14 hours ago, MEVi said:

Hello,

Could you allow developers to put TAGs because it's not very easy to find a specific product for blogs or forums? Or maybe add a multiple choice so that the developer can say that his product is for blogs IP-Downloads,... , that it offers an admin interface...

 

Hey there. 👋 

In other words, you are looking for a way to further categorize your submitted applications/plugins? 

[MEVi]

Yes but for products already categorized (because I don't develop anything).

[CoffeeCake]

Additional points that were super confusing to a new person in this community involving Marketplace and search. I think this may be what @MEVi is running into:

• Use the term "Marketplace" everywhere. It's great that IPS uses their own product, but it's completely lost on a new person that "Marketplace" is "Downloads." ACP > Translate those strings, so that when I'm doing a search my brain doesn't have to think, no wait.. downloads.
• In Marketplace, when performing a search, the search box doesn't default to Marketplace results. This is counterintuitive. Might be a nice feature to provide an administrator option to have quicksearch prioritize the context in which it is called from. If you're in gallery, then search gallery only by default unless specified, or offer a radio box in the drop down upon typing (not the full list when you hit the magnifying glass icon) to quickly choose current context or all, i.e.:  [x] Gallery [ ] Entire Community [more...]
• Provide a place for me to send invoices for all these valuable tips. 😁

Edited February 2, 2021 by Paul E.

[Jordan Miller]

3 hours ago, Paul E. said:

Additional points that were super confusing to a new person in this community involving Marketplace and search. I think this may be what @MEVi is running into:

• Use the term "Marketplace" everywhere. It's great that IPS uses their own product, but it's completely lost on a new person that "Marketplace" is "Downloads." ACP > Translate those strings, so that when I'm doing a search my brain doesn't have to think, no wait.. downloads.

 

Hey. I see what you're saying. When searching in Marketplace, and defining you only want to search for marketplace-related items, you would need to select "Downloads," which isn't intuitive to a new client. Is that what you're saying? 

 

 

[CoffeeCake]

Just now, Jordan Invision said:

Hey. I see what you're saying. When searching in Marketplace, and defining you only want to search for marketplace-related items, you would need to select "Downloads," which isn't intuitive to a new client. Is that what you're saying? 

Yes. It took me a very long time as a new customer to figure out that you could even search Marketplace entries. We don't use Downloads, so I had no idea what that was.

Additionally, when you're on the Marketplace landing page, and you see the search in the header, you would expect that your search results would assume "Search here in the place that I am." But they do not. So, in Marketplace, you think... hey, I need an application that addresses my want of an integration with Wordpress. So you type in Wordpress, and the default selection is "Everywhere" and you get 2,800 results, not landing on anything Marketplace related until (as of right now) the very last entry on page one of search results:

https://invisioncommunity.com/search/?q=Wordpress&quick=1

As an admin, I think it would be nice to have a "default search context" option that on a per community basis could make the default search in certain applications include only that application's results.

So here, when looking at Marketplace, the search box chooses "Downloads" (appropriately renamed Marketplace) and instead of the first relevant result being at the bottom, I see the 20 results that really what I'm likely looking from when I'm at that page:

https://invisioncommunity.com/search/?&q=Wordpress&type=downloads_file&search_and_or=or&sortby=relevancy

As a new customer, I resorted to navigating each of the categories and trying to find something. I did not have positive happy feelings doing this. I would even try going to a developer's profile, see that they had X number of files, but having no link to see what those files were. I remember having an "ah-ha" moment when I finally realized that I could just search by Downloads. 

I think this might inform the request of the thread, or add to its consideration from a UX perspective.

So, in closing, maybe on my community, I want searches on the pages section to default to a set selection of database entries and pages and exclude forums when you're on a pages page. Someone else's community might want it to work exactly like it does now. I think an option, at the application level, to define the search parameter defaults, would be a useful addition.

[Jordan Miller]

6 minutes ago, Paul E. said:

or add to its consideration from a UX perspective.

This is the biggest sticking point for me. I'm also personally always looking for ways to simplify. Invision is inherently complex in a sense because there is sooo much that can be done. However, I think if we can shift things so that someone who has no idea about community building can sign up and successfully launch their own community in a week... that is one of my goals. 

Your feedback here is great. Simplify how to search. 

Let me make sure I understand.

If you are in the public-facing Marketplace section and search for something, we should by default be shown Marketplace results.

If you are in the forums and search for something, we should by default be shown forum results.

Am I understanding that correctly? 

[CoffeeCake]

2 minutes ago, Jordan Invision said:

Am I understanding that correctly? 

Close. I'm not suggesting changing the out of the box behavior. I'm suggesting the addition of a needed administrative configuration.

If the administrator has modified the settings in a given application to select the default application context, then do that. Here, it would make sense that Marketplace search search Marketplace things. At someone else's community, they might use downloads differently... and maybe they'd want pages and downloads to both be included by default.

This should be a setting at the application level (ACP > System > Applications > Gear icon > Default search context. Out of the box, it's set to "Everywhere" but an administrator can go in there and say for this application, search these contexts by default.

This would be especially useful for third-party things, like say Adriano's Movies application on a community about general discussions. Maybe you'd like to search for a film, and you're on the movies homepage. If I ran that application, I'd want the context to be the Movies application by default. But! Maybe my entire community is about movies, so instead I'd want the search to look everywhere by default because there may be threads about the same movie as well as the entries in the third-party app.

[Jordan Miller]

20 minutes ago, Paul E. said:

Close. I'm not suggesting changing the out of the box behavior. I'm suggesting the addition of a needed administrative configuration.

If the administrator has modified the settings in a given application to select the default application context, then do that. Here, it would make sense that Marketplace search search Marketplace things. At someone else's community, they might use downloads differently... and maybe they'd want pages and downloads to both be included by default.

This should be a setting at the application level (ACP > System > Applications > Gear icon > Default search context. Out of the box, it's set to "Everywhere" but an administrator can go in there and say for this application, search these contexts by default.

This would be especially useful for third-party things, like say Adriano's Movies application on a community about general discussions. Maybe you'd like to search for a film, and you're on the movies homepage. If I ran that application, I'd want the context to be the Movies application by default. But! Maybe my entire community is about movies, so instead I'd want the search to look everywhere by default because there may be threads about the same movie as well as the entries in the third-party app.

Thanks for clearing that up! Let me pass this along and if there's an update I will circle back 🙏 

[MEVi]

Indeed I am a little lost when I make a search for a specific page I have a global answer and everything is "mixed.” (I'm looking for an add-on to move an agenda from one club to another) and I have thousands of results because my formulation is incorrect or unclear. Personally I would like to have a tab that gives me the result of the area in which I am located.

• Tabs: In this page (3) | Downloads (88) | Pages (5) | Blogs (28) | Forum (458'244) | Gallery (1) | All

With a possibility to refine my search when I in one Tab like by relevance, name, ...

Edited February 3, 2021 by MEVi

[Joel R]

Thoughts:

1.  IPS Search is bad.  Just accept that it's horribly, horribly bad. 

2.  Use Advanced Search, so you can filter by app:

https://invisioncommunity.com/search/

Will our users ever understand the Advanced Search?  No.  See Point #1.  

3.  As an alternative to translating Downloads in the langstrings, they could also simply used the Word Expansion to explain that Marketplace is the Downloads app (eg. you can see the Word Expansion feature in action on the word "ACP")

4.  Ironically, IPS did used to search the app by default.  

I remembered arguing that where you search from shouldn't dictate where you're trying to search to.  This is one of my Great Mistakes in feedback to IPS.  

[Fast Lane!]

1 minute ago, Joel R said:

Thoughts:

1.  IPS Search is bad.  Just accept that it's horribly, horribly bad. 

2.  Use Advanced Search, so you can filter by app:

https://invisioncommunity.com/search/

Will our users ever understand the Advanced Search?  No.  See Point #1.  

3.  As an alternative to translating Downloads in the langstrings, they could also simply used the Word Expansion to explain that Marketplace is the Downloads app (eg. you can see the Word Expansion feature in action on the word "ACP")

4.  Ironically, IPS did used to search the app by default.  

I remembered arguing that where you search from shouldn't dictate where you're trying to search to.  This is one of my Great Mistakes in feedback to IPS.  

I just use google custom search engine for our site as default.  And basically hide the built in search except for a tiny link that calls it "advanced search".

[Joel R]

4 minutes ago, Fast Lane! said:

I just use google custom search engine for our site as default.  And basically hide the built in search except for a tiny link that calls it "advanced search".

Do you have a lot of private, members-only content though?  

[CoffeeCake]

7 minutes ago, Joel R said:

I remembered arguing that where you search from shouldn't dictate where you're trying to search to.  This is one of my Great Mistakes in feedback to IPS.  

It absolutely should not do this, as it should not do what it does now. It should be configurable at the application level by the administrator.

For some communities, how it works now is perfect. For certain communities depending on how they use applications (as is the case with Downloads on this community, but not all), the administrator here should set the default for the Downloads app to be app first, unless end user picks "everywhere" from the scope selector.

Adding granularity at the application level to set a default search context increases flexibility and user understanding.

I say all this knowing that for our community, I'd keep it on a global search. But I possess the critical thinking skills necessary to know that one shoe does not fit all.

[Fast Lane!]

1 hour ago, Joel R said:

Do you have a lot of private, members-only content though?  

Nope.  Doors open to everyone with the exception of our mods forum. 

Edited February 6, 2021 by Fast Lane!