Tags not displayed alphabetically under Advanced Search

z8080

In the Advanced Search window, the drop-list (AutoComplete) that displays all possible tags (when Tag is selected on the left) does not display them alphabetically sorted. This does not happen for other fields such as Creator or ConferenceName, and also doesn't happen for the auto-complete when entering a tag name - there, the tags displayed after pressing a few keys are sorted correctly.

adamsmith

(I just wanted to note that I have seen&confirmed this and that it's on my general list of things I want to look into, but with no promise and certainly no ETA).

z8080

sure, no worries, thanks adam

z8080

related to this, it would also be good for suggestion to pop up when typing tag names not from the beginning but any string from any part of the tag name. This works for the search text field under the tag list (left-hand side), but not when assigning tags to a new item (right-hand side)

adamsmith

less sure about that. I understand why, but it likely also makes things slower and provides more (too many?) options and if you're starting to type a tag you presumably start at the beginning, so changing this isn't without a downside.

z8080

not sure why this would have to add options, as it would simply function in the same way that the other text field that I mention already works in. I personally have my tags hierarchically named, e.g. methods|stats and methods|imaging, and I'd prefer to be able to just start typing im... and to get the suggestion of that second tag

adamsmith

options as in autocomplete choices, which are obviously going to be more when you make the match less restrictive (i.e. from "begins with" to "contains").

z8080

i see. but why is that a problem since that is how the left hand side search field is functioning?

adamsmith

well, one is a search box, one is an autocomplete function.
For one, users may expect different behaviors. I don't have a good sense of what software does with autocomplete generally, but the name suggests that it _completes_ typing that you have started and that's e.g. what Word, LibreOffice, and all typing aids for mobile devices do. Also, it's a speed issue - fewer choices means you get to your preferred choice mor quickly, so there is certainly a trade-off.

dstillman

Right, it's not the same as the tag selector search box.

Now, we could trivially have it sort left-bound matches first, followed by other matches, which would somewhat address the number-of-matches issue, but another problem is that a left-bound search is very fast and a non-left-bound search is not. To do this efficiently, I think we'd need to either asynchronously add additional matches to the end of the drop-down list from a separate search after displaying the left-bound results, which I'm not sure we can do (easily, at least), or use a full-text index on tags to speed up such searches.