Can the interface for searching with tags be improved?

To me, the visual cues when I'm searching with tags are pretty weak or conflicting. Here are some examples of what I mean:

When I search for a word, I see that word in the box at the top of my search results, when I search for a tag, the tag names are displayed lower down, in the part I (and maybe others) usually skip between the search box and the list of results.
When searching with tags, the tag names are printed, but they're not displayed as "tags" the way they are elsewhere on the site.

Suggestions: maybe parse the search text so that "tag:word" in the search box searches for the tag named "word", and use this to indicate to the user when a tag is being searched for. Or instead, maybe display the tags that are being searched immediately below the search box, maybe a little bigger than usual (if that's easy), and maybe with little "x"'s near them so they can be individually excluded from search too.

Ok; sorry for the rambling, not-totally-explained question/suggestion; Let me know if I should try to clarify.

13.2k

Evgeny

updated 2011-07-01 20:53:58 -0600

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niles

asked 2010-09-09 07:58:12 -0600

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yes, I see clearly what you are talking about. It's definitely worth the experiment, I'll post an answer here when the feature is available. Btw, I want to remind anyone who might be interested - feel free to fork askbot on github and contribute some code.

Evgeny (2010-09-09 12:08:28 -0600) edit

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I think if you took a Poll of the user-base, you could find the features and use-cases desired. :^)

http://askbot.org/en/question/134/a-poll-feature

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ccanonc

answered 2010-09-10 17:40:04 -0600

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People should vote for the feature suggestions they like, it definitely helps set the priorities. Some very good suggestions are coming out of your community, I really appreciate it.

Evgeny (2010-09-10 17:48:40 -0600) edit

You are very welcome. I hope I can find time to contribute code too, and not only ideas. Thx Evgeny!

ccanonc (2010-09-10 18:09:10 -0600) edit

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edited done in 0.7.4: the following is supported in the search string:

Searching for users questions:

@john, @'john doe', [user: john]

For tags:

#search, [tag:search], [search]

Title match:

title:"search interface, [title: search interface]

Of course - there may be room for the improvements. Thanks!

13.2k

Evgeny

updated 2011-07-01 21:00:18 -0600, answered 2011-01-20 22:08:02 -0600

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Definitely much better, Still potentially confusing for less savvy users.

graeme (2011-01-21 01:11:20 -0600) edit

Made a small fix just now - maybe too small to notice. Could you describe what you think might be confusing, from the users point of view?

Evgeny (2011-01-21 13:51:03 -0600) edit

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Can the interface for searching with tags be improved? edit

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Can the interface for searching with tags be improved?