A new search function for matching categories

[Antvasima]

Hello.

The Fandom staff has installed a new search function that allows you to find pages with two matching categories.

It should hopefully help to simplify finding characters for certain versus matchups, or ones that are part of a specific tiering for a franchise that needs to be revised:

https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/Special:CategoryIntersectio

 

[Overlord775]

i like it

 

[Paulo.junior.969]

Finally.

 

[Minecraftlover67]

Man what would we do without you?

 

[NeoZex6399]

Cool

 

[Ryukama]

Very nice and convenient. Thanks for showing us.

 

[DodoNova2]

This would make things easier, thanks to those who developed this

 

[Minecraftlover67]

Yeah, thanks for making this wiki more findable and select and piece apart each catagory

 

[AKM sama]

Great

 

[Antvasima]

Perhaps somebody should insert a link to this feature in the Versus Thread Rules page?

 

[Antvasima]

Man what would we do without you?

That's nice of you to say. Thank you.

 

[Kepekley23]

Perfect as always, Ant.

 

[Celestial_Pegasus]

This is good.

 

[Matthew_Schroeder]

This is very great and useful.

 

[BattleReviews]

finally my dream, now i should not been having trouble with this

 

[ZacharyGrossman273]

This should be helpful

 

[Antvasima]

I have now mentioned this feature in a footnote in the Versus Thread Rules page.

 

[DaFritzi]

I appreciate this function very much, however there is one issue I have with it (might be a bug only I have though). That issue is the autocompletion function of this search engine that suggests a lot of things but no categories as it seems (and entering something that is not a category makes the engine return nothing). By the time you entered "Category: " in the search bar it stops showing suggestions completely.

Thus I suggest the following:

- remove the need of having to type in "Category: " (it is a category search after all, so it isn't really needed)

- have the autocomplete function show categories only (it is confusing that it suggests terms that make the search engine return nothing)

- enable the search engine to combine any number of categories (1 to X different categories; that way you can specify your search even more)

I don't know how much work it would be to implicate these suggestions but I am sure everyone would profit greatly from it. I know I sound very critical but this is a function I have desired for a long time and now that it exists, which I appreciate greatly, I want it to as good as it can possibly be. This is a function not only vs-battles but fandom in general could benefit greatly from.

Another thing that might be nice would be improving it's accessability. Regular users will have no problems using the URL to reach to search engine, but people new to this page won't even know it exists. It would be perfect if we could somehow add it to the main search function of the wiki. For example as a new button "Search by Category" under "Articles, ..., People, Everything" and this button links you to the search engine.

 

[Antvasima]

Such functions are not available to us. We have to accept the script as is.

 

[DontTalkDT]

Cool new feature. Definitely useful.

- enable the search engine to combine any number of categories (1 to X different categories; that way you can specify your search even more)

For a new feature I of course had to try what happens if one messes with the url a bit.

The page lists the API query used, which for example for Category:Marvel Comics and Category:Tier 7 is

https://vsbattles.fandom.com/api.ph...gories=Category:Tier+7|Category:Marvel+Comics

The structure is pretty obvious in regards of how the categories are written into the url, so let's add more categories like for example adding Tier 8 and Good Characters like this:

https://vsbattles.fandom.com/api.ph...mics|Category:Tier+8|Category:Good+Characters

What you get is an xml page, from which one can pretty easily read out the names of characters, that indeed have all 4 categories.


So it is a bit manual work, but apparently you can actually search for an arbitrary number of categories using this.

 

[Antvasima]

It seems like more than 2 categories did not work for me when I clicked your second link.

 

[DontTalkDT]

Hmmm... not?

I get a page that looks like this clicking on it:


behind the "title=" are the page names. (As said it is a quite manual method)


Iceman (Marvel Comics), Iron Fist (Marvel Comics) and Venom (Flash Thompson) have the correct categories.

You get a different looking page?

Edit: Hey, I actually got it working in an a bit more beautiful way:

https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/S...ry:Good+Characters&category_4=Category:Tier+8

This does the same as before, but instead of having to read it from the xml code one gets a proper page layout.

The url still has to be manipulated, though, but again the way it is build up should be relatively easy to understand (basically just add &category_=Category%3ANameofCategory at the end, but replace by which number of category it is (so 3 if it is the third category you want to include) and replace NameofCategory by the name of the category)

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

Good to see this. Definitely going to get some use out of it, I'm sure.

 

[Legion350]

Awesome

 

[Antvasima]

Sorry. That much worked for me. Your example is very useful. Thank you for the help.

 

[Nonickfound]

This is neat Nice

 

[Antvasima]

I have asked the Fandom staff to add DontTalk's example to the page.

 

[Antvasima]

They have now added the example.

 

[Minecraftlover67]

So, because I'm only new how does this improve finding specific characters? I'm only saying, not trying tobe rude or anything

 

[Antvasima]

Well, it helps with finding characters who share various traits, and are within the same tier.

 

[Minecraftlover67]

OH, OK thx

 

[Antvasima]

No problem.

 

[Minecraftlover67]

How do u highlight your announcements

 

[Antvasima]

Only staff members can do that.

 

[Minecraftlover67]

oh