Search: filter ideas for the UI/UX

[humitos]

We talked a little about the filters in readthedocs/readthedocs-sphinx-search#130

I think that screenshot is from https://readme.com/, but I'm not sure. In any case, there some good filters on it. In particular, the categories. We could do something similar if we have that data indexed in ES and we can communicate that with the API.

Front conversations

[humitos]

Today I read this other issue readthedocs/readthedocs-sphinx-search#138 and I think it will be interesting to let users define their own filters. In this case in particular where the user uses intersphinx I can image a filter called Related projects that makes the query with project:ewb project:rdfabout 💯

I imagine the user could define these filters from the project admin's page and sort them as they want to appear in the search addon UI. I cas see something similar to our Automation Rules' page to define these filters:

[humitos]

I'm writing and update for this issue here of what I'd like to see regarding search filters and its UX.

1. I want to expose pre-defined filters to users (e.g. "Include subprojects" and "Include related projects" checkboxes)
2. Each of these filters will use the search query syntax
3. Allow users to define whether the filter will be checked by default or not (see Search: default "Include subproject" in the search #289)
4. Allow users to order the position of the filters so they can define how these filters are going to be displayed in the modal
5. Support fuzzy queries (see Search: fuzzy checkbox UI element #84)
6. (Advanced usage) Allow users to define a custom filter providing:
   • the search query syntax
   • the display name for the filter
   • whether or not it's checked by default

With that, I think we will covering all the use cases, considering basic users and advanced users.

It's worth to note that most of this work is UI/UX on the new dashboard since the frontend (addons client) and backed (API response) are already prepared to support this.

[AlexX1999]

Hi @humitos ,
For 3) on your list, is it possible to enable checking "include subproject" by default from the backend? Would like to use it as a temporary solution until the UI has been implemented.

[ericholscher]

I've opened readthedocs/readthedocs.org#11674 which adds the filter back for projects with subprojects. I think this is a reasonable first step, so it's exposed to users.