Please use human-readable syntax for library filtering

PetahChristian

Facet breadcrumbs are written in a user-friendly style (e.g., Type: Systematic Theology) which differ from the syntax that the Find box uses.

If you try to use that string in the find box, it doesn't do what you'd hope it would.

If the Find box could parse user-friendly syntax, I think it would help improve the user experience, and help flatten the learning curve.

Dave Hooton

Unfortunately, spaces have meaning in the syntax i.e. space = AND.
When you read
Type: Systematic Theology
you come to understand the significance of Type: versus Type or Type :
but the actual syntax for the Find box has to exclude spaces or indicate that an actual space character is intended i.e.
type:"systematic theology" ==> the quote marks delineate a phrase of two words
type:systematic-theology ==> the hyphen is an alternate way to separate the words in a phrase
Otherwise, type:systematic theology ==> type:systematic AND theology

PetahChristian

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1335996#Comment_1335996

@mailmedav-48 That’s how the current parser treats spaces, but a rewrite could handle optional spaces instead of only treating them as AND.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1335996#Comment_1335996

@PetahChristian The convention follows Google usage, who also require quotes to escape spaces being treated as AND. Logos also treat the hyphen for this purpose, together with most punctuation (except comma, colon, ? and *).
So Bible.N.T.1 Peter (in the Library Find box) will give spurious results and Bible.N.T.1Peter won't work because a TEXT parser is used. Bible.N.T.1-Peter, Bible.N.T.1.Peter, or Bible-N.T.1-Peter will work (as well as use of lower case). And "Bible.N.T.1 Peter" will always work to escape spaces.
We adapt to using 1 Peter in Bible Search, and 1Peter in the Reference box of bibles/commentaries because of the DIFFERENT parsers (and 1Peter doesn't work in Search boxes).

So "optional spaces" WILL require a rewrite and likely make our collection rules much less efficient. Note that the more efficient {Extension} syntax requires a space after the field name, but the values have to be EXACT and enclosed by quotes. The current syntax is much more flexible.