Library search ranking always wrong order

I love Logos and have used it nearly every day for almost 20 years. One thing that has bugged me over the past several years is the ranking of search results are never returned in order. For example, in the picture below, I ran a search of my resources for the word eternal. Notice that the first book title with that word is the seventh one on the list. The first ranked book is way at the bottom. If I click on "rank" it will reorder the list so that they show up in order. But why doesn't it do that automatically? I know the title of the book I want, so I start typing it in, but Logos never returns the results in a way that makes sense. Is there a setting I can adjust to fix this?
Thank you.

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Comments

DMB

Excellent post.

But here's the deal. If you found the book you wanted, you wouldn't notice the books you don't want. See?

On Logos.com, same deal. By not showing you your desired book, you get to review pages of books you don't want (ever). Exhausted, you'll save money.

More seriously, I've little appreciation for the design-guy. Reading Bob's book would be beneficial for them.

I assume you know the backdoors: title:xxxx and author:xxxxxx. I use those mostly.

Dave Hooton

If I click on "rank" it will reorder the list so that they show up in order. But why doesn't it do that automatically? I know the title of the book I want, so I start typing it in, but Logos never returns the results in a way that makes sense.

Because you have the list already sorted by Title, the search will respect that when presenting results. title:eternal will give you a much shorter list and you may not have to sort it!

MJ. Smith

In your screen shot, you have requested a sort on title. If you close the library window and reopen it, it will remember that you last requested a sort on title. It will remember and reuse the series field, if you request a sort on the series. Similarly, for author etc. If you close the program and reopen it, again the last sequence you used for a library field will be used by default.

So why is Rank different? Because Rank does not exist as a library field. It does not exist when you filter by the facets. Rank exists only when you add a filter by library fields argument in the input box. What you are requesting is that when one enters a library fields filter argument, the default sort order is different from all other cases. This would also keep the users sequence request from being sticky ... it would be sticky except when the user enters a library fields filter request ... after which one would have to reset it. For myself, I rarely want rank order - my most frequent order is series followed by author, title, publisher, and mytag. To have a default of rank would seriously degrade my library experience.

If you want Rank order, it is always just a click away -- click on the rank heading of the column.

Andrew Batishko

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1240778#Comment_1240778

I believe the fact that the sorting doesn't reset to "Rank" in the "Details" view is a bug. In "Tile" view this works correctly, remembering that you had sorted by "Rank" the last time you had an active filter.

I've written up a bug report to fix this behavior.

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1240778#Comment_1240778

So why is Rank different? Because Rank does not exist as a library field

Again, not a good UI design. 'Users' should be able to 'see' how the list will sort. Normally this is accomplished with a 'menu' (as on Logos.com).

Tim Chaffey

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1240776#Comment_1240776

Hi Dave,
Thanks for the response. I see that it is returning results in alphabetical order according to title; however, the search isn't truly respecting that I'm sorting by title because most of the titles it shows do not even have my searched word in the title. So, I guess my frustration has less to do with how they are sorted and more to do with the ones that are being included in the sorting that make it harder to find the one I'm looking for.
If I set it to "Tile" view, then it works the way that I believe it should in that I don't need to add "title:" before the search word. But the "Details" view makes no sense to me.
Thanks again for your help.

Tim Chaffey

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1240778#Comment_1240778

...So why is Rank different? Because Rank does not exist as a library field. It does not exist when you filter by the facets. Rank exists only when you add a filter by library fields argument in the input box. What you are requesting is that when one enters a library fields filter argument, the default sort order is different from all other cases. This would also keep the users sequence request from being sticky ...

Hi MJ,
Thanks for weighing in. Perhaps I didn't clarify well enough in the OP what frustrates me about this. What I am requesting is that the "Details" view returns the same results as the "Tile" view, just in a different layout. For example, if I search for "eternal" under the "Tile" view, the first five titles all have "eternal" in the title of the book and the next 30 do not because there is an option to sort them according to rank. If I run the same search under "Details" view, then the five with eternal in the title are just scattered throughout the list, which is arranged in alphabetical order. The problem that I have is not that they are in alphabetical order, but that there are 30 extra books that shouldn't be included in the search, thus making it harder to find the one I'm looking for. And if the programmer insists on adding those 30 extra books, then we should be able to have them returned by rank so the books with the word in the title appear first.
I know this seems like a minor issue, but when you use the feature multiple times every day for many years, it gets frustrating that something so basic and intuitive has not been fixed.

Tim Chaffey

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1240823#Comment_1240823

I believe the fact that the sorting doesn't reset to "Rank" in the "Details" view is a bug. In "Tile" view this works correctly, remembering that you had sorted by "Rank" the last time you had an active filter.

I've written up a bug report to fix this behavior.

Thank you Andrew. Yes, the "Tile" view by rank works perfectly. My hope is that the "Details" sorting will eventually work the same way.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1240849#Comment_1240849

however, the search isn't truly respecting that I'm sorting by title because most of the titles it shows do not even have my searched word in the title

If you want the word in the title rather than simply somewhere in the metadata you have to specify that i.e. search for title:eternal rather than eternal. This has been true for as far back as I remember.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1240828#Comment_1240828

Again, not a good UI design.

Taking into account:

that I was incorrect re:the intended behavior of rank
that rank is calculated not fixed metadata
that the stickiness of search parameters is the result of users' requests
that the intended filter was title:eternal rather than eternal
that a bug report has been generated for the lack of stickiness of Rank

How would you improve the UI - FL can respond to concrete suggestions and improve the user experience.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1240849#Comment_1240849

the search isn't truly respecting that I'm sorting by title because most of the titles it shows do not even have my searched word in the title. So, I guess my frustration has less to do with how they are sorted and more to do with the ones that are being included in the sorting that make it harder to find the one I'm looking for.

The search word by itself means that it can be found in any of the resource metadata e.g. publisher, author, description, subject, title. The sort is correct, so the only way to guarantee your outcome is to search for title:eternal.The sort then becomes moot.