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A new search function for matching categories

Antvasima

Antvasima

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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
 
Minecraftlover67 said:
Man what would we do without you?
Click to expand...
That's nice of you to say. Thank you.
 
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.
 
Such functions are not available to us. We have to accept the script as is.
 
Cool new feature. Definitely useful.

DaFritzi said:
- enable the search engine to combine any number of categories (1 to X different categories; that way you can specify your search even more)
Click to expand...
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.
 
It seems like more than 2 categories did not work for me when I clicked your second link.
 
Hmmm... not?

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

000000000cat
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)
 
Sorry. That much worked for me. Your example is very useful. Thank you for the help.
 
I have asked the Fandom staff to add DontTalk's example to the page.
 
They have now added the example.
 
Well, it helps with finding characters who share various traits, and are within the same tier.
 
No problem.
 
Only staff members can do that.
 
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