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Odd Advanced Find behavior


Fred Slota

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I enter new books through the ComicBase Mobile app and temporarily add the current date in the Notes field.  After import, I can search for the date to produce a sorted list so I can verify that all the books were added, the quantities are correct, I can add the cover scans with drag-and-drop without mucking about with the directories, and then I can delete the date in the notes field.  My search, which I have been using for many months now, is:

Where:   I.[Notes] LIKE "%3/2/22%"

Order by:   ComicTitles.AlphabetizedTitle, I.[ItemType], I.[IssueNum], I.[Variation], I.[Printing]

 

Today, my additions included a magazine, which did not scan, but I added manually, including the date in the Notes.  This lead to some confusion on my part, but has also lead to the observation of inconsistent behavior under four different initial conditions.

 

When I started, the last thing I entered was the magazine, so the main screen was set on the medium of Magazines.  When I went to the Find, that too was set on Magazine.  Under those conditions, when I perform my Find, an error is thrown over "no such column: ComicTitles.AlphabetizedTitle".  After realizing that I was focused on Magazines and that was probably the cause, I changed the main screen medium focus to ComicBooks.  When I went to Find, I didn't notice that it was still set to Magazine.  When I now performed the Find, there was no error, but the search results switched back to Magazines, returning a list not of Magazines with that Notes field, but a list of all the entries in the Magazine Title that was last viewed.

Changing the Main Screen focus to ComicBooks, launching the Find and setting its focus to ComicBooks, my search returns a sorted list of the ComicBooks (without the one magazine) with the matching Notes field.

And, for completeness sake, if the Main Screen is set to ComicBooks and the Find is set to Magazines, I get a repeat of the second result, switched to Magazines and a list that consists of all the entries in the Magazine Title that was last viewed.

 

Normally, I would be calling this to your attentions because the program threw an error, but I understand that this is an error of my own making, mucking about with Advanced Find using secret words from magic languages and meddling with forces beyond my understanding.

However, in this case, I think the deeper issue is in the fact that I'm getting three different behaviors, not two...  Why don't I get two different behaviors, one when attempting to do the Find on Magazines and one when attempting to do the find on ComicBooks?  Why does the system throw an error in only one of the four above scenarios, instead of either doing it for two of the four, or for none of the four?  Why do I get a successful list of matching Comic Books only when the Main Screen is focused on ComicBooks and the Find is focused on ComicBooks?  Shouldn't the selection in the Find window override the selection in the Main window?

Actually, the question of "Why" is of lesser importance than the question "Is this the way we want this to behave?".

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First, this isn't limited to Advanced Find. All the Finds operate the same way.
Current behavior.
When you run a Find, it remembers (stores) what you last did (and where).
When you open a Find again, it restores this information (even if you changed to a different Type in CB.

Not saying this couldn't be changed but that is how it is currently set up to operate.

By the way, when using Title columns in Advanced find, the first part needs to match the Type you are working with.

ComicTitles.AlphabetizedTitle
MagazineTitles.AlphabetizedTitle
BookTitles.AlphabetizedTitle

 

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Thank you for responding, but I'm not sure that you addressed the point of my question...   

My question was not "Why when I open Find does it not open searching in the same Media that I was browsing in the Main Window?"

My question was "Why does a search for Comics work if I was browsing Comics, but if I decide to search for Comics while browsing Magazines does it fail?", or put differently "What is the point of allowing you to change media in the Find dialog if changing the media in the Find dialog doesn't consistently work?"

I'm not pointing out an inconvenience; I'm pointing out that the program presents a feature that doesn't appear to consistently do the thing that it seems it was meant to do.

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Again, you're not addressing what I'm actually reporting...

 

Browse in the main window for Comic Books.  Wandering through "Uncanny X-Men, The".  Decide "I want to search for currently entered Comic Books".  Open Find.  Make sure Find is set to search Comic Books.  Load my stored search as described above.  Run the search.  Search results is a list of currently entered Comic Books, sorted.  As Expected.

Dismiss the search results.  return to browsing "Uncanny X-Men, The".

In the main window, switch to browsing Magazines.  Wandering through "DC Connect".  Decide "Hey, let me do that search I just did a moment ago for currently entered Comic Books"  Open Find.  Find is still set to Comic Books.  My search is still loaded.  Run the search.  Search results is a list of all the issues of the last Comic Book title I had been browsing, "Uncanny X-Men, The" (which, incidentally, does not include an issue that matches my search criteria).  Not as expected.

 

This is the essence of what I'm reporting.  Why does the search in the second scenario not give the same results as in the first scenario?

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Ah, got it (finally, a little dense sometimes...).

I have experienced this before but not quite in the way you problem processed.
In my case, whenever there is an error when running Advanced Find (syntax error like misspelled column), the display changes to a Find display (the line below the splitter shows Search Results and has an X box on the right) BUT, it only really displays the last Title lines you were on (which).

Your case is a little different in that a valid Comic Type Find when displaying Comics, fails when you are displaying Magazines but change the Find type to Comics.
Since the Find type is Comics that is why the last displayed Title information for Comics is displayed.
But the real question is Why is it Failing?
Sounds like a bug.

 

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I think that a part of the Find process is acting on the media you were browsing before changing to the media that you selected in the Find dialog.

 

In my initial post, look at the first two scenarios  BrowseMag/FindMag vs. BrowseComic/FindMag.  I had requested to sort on ComicTitles.AlphabetizedTitle.  That raised an error and died in the first scenario (Browse selected Mag), while it did not raise an error (Browse selected ComicBook) but did switch media to Magazine and loaded a list of all the issues of the currently focused Magazine.   

I'm thinking something like this...

The search is done on the Browse media selection, not the Find Media selection.  Scenario 1, throws an error (Comic term on Magazine data), and the process stops right there, leaving you back at the original browsing view.  Scenario 2, I think the search actually happens as I thought was going to happen without error (Comic term on Comic Data), but then it wants to display in the Find Media context.  The media is switched from Comic to Magazine, and instead of showing the Comic search result that was run, it tries to show a Magazine search result (which wasn't run), and ends up showing as a search result the last set of Magazine entries displayed, which was the last browsed set of issues.

 

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