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chaley · 03-21-2010, 08:09 AM

@rollercoaster: I am considering implementing some version of saved searches, so I have been thinking about the question.

Some comments on your interesting ideas:

1. It is my impression that someone is working on 'real' multiple libraries, so I hesitate to introduce searches onto the libraries line.
2. A saved search can match books that do not have the special tag, making the use of the tag unreliable. It doesn't seem reasonable either to force a user to ensure that the special tag is attached to every matched book or to automatically add the tag to the result set every time the search is executed.
3. Saved searches will by nature produce overlapping virtual libraries, making it difficult to know which tags must be added during import. This issue would add more unreliability to the implementation.
4. One must be careful with confusing the semantics of library vs search. Libraries have one set of behaviors, searches another. For example, what does it mean to delete a book in a virtual library? Is it deleted from the file system? Is it deleted from the saved search (how?). What happens if the search involves formats and a format is deleted while looking at some other search: how does one know if a tag should be deleted? Can one import from one virtual library to another, and if so, what does it really mean?

These issues lead me to question whether we should intermix libraries and search. Experience with music playlists vs libraries also push me to be skeptical.

My current thought is that saved searches should work like playlists, with the hope that their behavior will be less mysterious. They would appear in the tag/genre/etc browser as names within a new category. This approach would automatically deal with overlapping result sets, new and deleted books, and altered metadata. The search name gives the hint. A method would be provided to manage the saved searches (view, edit, delete). If done carefully, the current +/-/ignored interface used by the tag browser will work, facilitating composition of saved searches with new search terms.

03-21-2010, 08:09 AM	#5
chaley Grand Sorcerer Posts: 12,393 Karma: 8012652 Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Notts, England Device: Kobo Libra 2	@rollercoaster: I am considering implementing some version of saved searches, so I have been thinking about the question. Some comments on your interesting ideas: 1. It is my impression that someone is working on 'real' multiple libraries, so I hesitate to introduce searches onto the libraries line. 2. A saved search can match books that do not have the special tag, making the use of the tag unreliable. It doesn't seem reasonable either to force a user to ensure that the special tag is attached to every matched book or to automatically add the tag to the result set every time the search is executed. 3. Saved searches will by nature produce overlapping virtual libraries, making it difficult to know which tags must be added during import. This issue would add more unreliability to the implementation. 4. One must be careful with confusing the semantics of library vs search. Libraries have one set of behaviors, searches another. For example, what does it mean to delete a book in a virtual library? Is it deleted from the file system? Is it deleted from the saved search (how?). What happens if the search involves formats and a format is deleted while looking at some other search: how does one know if a tag should be deleted? Can one import from one virtual library to another, and if so, what does it really mean? These issues lead me to question whether we should intermix libraries and search. Experience with music playlists vs libraries also push me to be skeptical. My current thought is that saved searches should work like playlists, with the hope that their behavior will be less mysterious. They would appear in the tag/genre/etc browser as names within a new category. This approach would automatically deal with overlapping result sets, new and deleted books, and altered metadata. The search name gives the hint. A method would be provided to manage the saved searches (view, edit, delete). If done carefully, the current +/-/ignored interface used by the tag browser will work, facilitating composition of saved searches with new search terms.