Problems with Search Facility

[Richard Briggs Profile]

I am having problems finding effects using the search facility. For example, if type in 'Water' I get zero returns and plainly there are many effects named 'Water.....". I am doing something wrong or is this a bug? I am running the latest 64 bit Windows version on Windows 10.

Richard

[admin]

I'm not sure there is any possibility to have zero returns. If you type in a search term that has no matching effects, it just returns all the effects, so I've not managed to get zero returns whatever I type in, so something else might be going on. Can you see any effects at all? Could you post a screenshot, that might help.

My only other guess is that you have some other options turned on to narrow down the search a lot, but I can't think what.

[Richard Briggs Profile]

I may be completely misunderstanding what 'search effects' is looking for. I am assuming it will search effect names for any effect starting with the string I type. So, if I type in 'Water' there are no effects listed in the dropdown list for me to choose from. Thus implying there are no effects in the libary starting with the letters 'Water'. And yet if I type the exact name of an effect I do know exists (in this example, 'Watercolor & ink effect 100'). It finds the effect. If the search facility searches on effect names then why did it not offer this effect as an option? On the other hand, if search focuses on categories then why does it find an effect by name if it is fully typed in? Here's some screen shots as requested....

[eadams Profile]

Richard, I've always had problems with the search functionality and never discovered if I was doing something wrong or not. In any case, if I access the Effects Gallery and type "water" in the search field, I get 11 results upon hitting the return button, including 7 effects which don't have the word "water" in their name. For example:

Fantasy by david
Dehaze by Tony
Local contrast by Tony

I assume that these effects have been tagged by the author with the keyword "water", but I know of no way to validate that. I don't get any effects that have "watercolor" in their name. One is called "Underwater refraction" but that one may be tagged with the keyword "water" as well.


Of course, I can elect to vote on whether these effects are good or poor effects for water. I never bother to use that functionality.

[Richard Briggs Profile]

Hi, yes, that was another possibility I'd considered but forgot to mention. Maybe the search facility searches on tags. Even if it does it does not fully explain what actually happens.

Yours puzzled!

[admin]

Hi

To clarify how search works: If you type in Water it looks for effects with water anywhere in the name as a whole word i.e. not watercolour (the top effects returned when you search for water are splashes or ripples, which is intentionally different from watercolours paint style. It will also return effects that are tagged with water. It's sorted by popularity so that badly tagged effects get sent to the end of the search.

Now, your screen shot looks like you are getting a completely different result from me with the same picture (thanks for using our demo picture, that makes this easier!) There are two possible reasons for this: One is your effects library has been corrupted somehow, doing a complete uninstall and reinstall should fix that. Secondly, you have some other options set that narrow down the search so much, it can't find any water effects. Unfortunately, you've cropped the screenshot, so I can't see what other options you have set. If you post a full screenshot, that might help. I've posted what I see for reference.

Kind regards

Tony

[Richard Briggs Profile]

Thanks, Tony, for the explanation. It goes a long way to explaining the behaviour of the search facility.

I tried to capture another screen shot but, amazingly, found the result was identical to your screenshot above. So I don't know what was going on there.

In general, it certainly is very convoluted, the way search works. Almost trying to be too clever! Maybe a future version could have options for searching on tags, effect name or both.

Regards
Richard