Issues with Grammar Search UI

[wct]

[NB: I plan to update this post in the future, after feedback from BP folks…]

So, I was just playing around with the Grammar Search interface – especially the “Select Grammar” / “Selecting Grammar …” feature – and I started to notice not just one issue on occasion, but several issues, interrelated and potentially requiring very many individual issue-reports if I were to start submitting them as individual ‘bugs’.

So, first of all, I’d like to ask the @moderators (in particular @Asher , if the ‘moderators’ tag doesn’t work as I’m hoping):

What is the current state of affairs regarding the Grammar Points page, especially the search aspect of that page?

The reason I ask is that I’d like to know if it is already being heavily worked on – or more-or-less overhauled – before I invest a bunch of time making a bunch of issue reports (or a single long one).

Simply: Is the current interface actually current? Or has there been a lot of work on it which hasn’t been made public on the site yet?

And, as a follow up: If there has been some or a lot of work on it that’s not public, then could we get some information on what kinds of changes these are?

Because, if there’s been some changes, but not to the features I plan to write-up issues about, then I could still write-up those issues.

But if there’s been work that overlaps with the issues I’m looking at, then it would be good to know if such work changes will be addressing these issues already, making them moot.

Summary So Far …

TL;DR: At this point, before I write-up a ‘critique’ of the Grammar Points page’s search features, I’m hoping someone in-the-know can reply with an overview/update on what changes are already in the works for that page. Thanks in advance!

[Bonus points if we can also get some update information on any upcoming changes to other search features, like Vocab, Decks, etc. ]

[Asher]

Without more information about what part of the search page was bugging for you, I unfortunately cannot give too much info about if there are fixes in the work for it. Feel free to go ham on the critique!

As for things that I personally know about that we are in the process of fixing, they’re mainly in relation to the way the grammar points are displayed and searched for themselves. A prime example of this is grammar points that have maybe 2 or 3 ways of being said, but will only show up if you type 1 of the 3. This is actually a really big problem as it leads users to believe that we don’t have grammar which we actually do. What good is a dictionary if the entry is missing in the glossary, right?

Other things that happen that don’t really make sense is the N levels remaining in search, even if the item you searched for was in N1. This means that you have to scroll past N5, N4, N3, N2, etc until you get to the entry you searched for. Ideally all of these N levels should just collapse completely if they come back empty on a search.

In the future the N-levels will be getting subheadings as well with the goals of individual lessons written there.

As mentioned, if you’ve noticed quite a lot specifically revolving around search, feel free to let us know about it! Chances are we’ll know some of the errors and not know some others. It all helps!

[wct]

Okay, so, it’s not like there’s a whole new Grammar Search 2.0 UI currently 90% done and going to be deployed in early 2024 then, right?

Okay, looks like the issues I’m thinking of don’t overlap much with what you mentioned.

I’ll start posting stuff here as replies to the OP, once I come across them again. IMO, it’s better to post them here publicly than use the feedback system; and since there’s a bunch of related ones, I’d rather post them all together rather than flooding the Bug Reports thread.

[Asher]

No worries at all! Worst case scenario is that there IS a search 2.0 that I don’t know about being worked on and I look silly for not having that information . But looking silly is part of life so it’s really not all so bad! I’ll notify the dev guys about this post and maybe one of them can give a bit more info

[Daru]

Can’t say specifics about a date, but it is on the roadmap to overhaul search in the same vein we’ve rebuilt Reviews, the Grammar Point/Vocab Page, Dashboard and others.

I even have some sketches of ideas here and there…

(You can tell this one is old due to it being desinged in the very old blue UI colors)

I’d like to turn the conversation not on what doesn’t work well in the current iteration (cause we all know it’s hardly ideal) but on what should an ideal iteration be! With that in mind, I’d like to pick your brain with some questions:

• If you could have an ideal version of Search, what would it be?
• Is there any search function on any other app/service/etc you already know of that could work as good reference?
• When using search, what’re you typically trying to achieve? (IE Find a grammar point, lookup grammar to refresh your memory on it, etc)

Thanks for bringing this to our attention!

[wct]

Okay, good ideas. I will keep those thoughts in mind as I go. Thanks!