Combined Keyword Search Restriction

Motorider

Does anyone know a way to allow users to see & search my photos by combining multiple keywords from a list of all my keywords?

Here's the problem.
On my main menu I have a 'Search by Keyword' button that takes users to a page that shows all the keywords from all of my public photos (awesome), but they can only select one (OK), the results of that selection opens a page that shows up to 10 additional keywords (in no particular order) that a user can select to 'Combine with' their 1st keyword selection to narrow their search (OK). That limited list of 10 however does not include other keywords that I need them to see & be able to select, keywords that I know are on some of the photos in that page (problem).

I've already spoken with the heroes & submitted a feature request to increase the amount of additional keywords as well as to add a sorting option, but I was wondering why I wasn't able to find more people with the same request for such obvious functionality in here. Am I missing something?

Daren

pilotdave

You can add a search box to your keyword page. There's an option to show results in a keyword gallery, which makes it a keyword search box instead of a normal site search. Then keywords can be combined with commas or dashes. I just put a text box on mine with instructions.

Dave

Motorider

Thanks Dave, I've tried that but unless I'm mistaken, it doesn't seem to auto-complete the text box (with my keywords) when they start typing, so it then forces users to type in a guess at whatever they think they might be. That's why I like the list. Please send me a link to see what you mean if I've missed what you're saying.

pilotdave

Yeah, you're correct. They need to get all keywords exactly right.

If you have combinations of keywords in mind that you think people will want to find, you can create smart galleries for them... But they might not be practical if you have basically endless combinations.

Dave

Motorider

Thanks for clarifying Dave. That way of searching seems unreasonable to me when there's already a much better way to do it (choosing from my existing keyword list). Here's an example of the problem I'm experiencing while trying to find photos of 'completed tables'. The screenshot below shows the list of 10 additional KWs I'm allowed to select from (refine my search with additional KWs using "combine with") after my 1st KW selection of "completed" was picked, but as you can see the KW "tables" is not available, even though there's a photo on that page with the KW "tables" in it.

Motorider

NOBODY else finds the random 10 keyword limit strange!?

Allen

completed+tables does not work but reversed
tables+completed does work.

For tables search page
Combine with: +clear finish+completed+baltic birch plywood+desks+waterbase+aluminum+furniture+games+oak red+oak white

https://www.drawntowood.com/keyword/tables;completed/

Motorider

I appreciate you taking a look & giving me your feedback Allen. Especially impressive to me is that you have nearly 10,000 posts but your sig line says "Just a volunteer here having fun". Also, your title "tweak 'til it squeaks" seems ever more appropriate the more time I spend with photos & my SM site. LOL, sheesh!

As for your experience regarding keyword search order: That's a perfect example of another part of the problem with SM only displaying a random set of 10 additional keywords. I believe SM needs to display ALL keywords in alpha-numeric order (exactly like they're displayed in the primary keyword search list). Otherwise there's no reasonable way users can select additional keywords, which of course are crucial for filtering photos into reasonable collections that leverage the full potential of combined keywords.

For now, I've created a special page on my site that attempts to explain how users can manually add keywords from my main list to their URL, but it's certainly not user friendly & it requires special considerations for multi-word keywords like "cherry black" [which is actually named Cherry (Black), but I'll leave that for another topic] and I didn't even get into that because I thought SM would have this resolved shortly because it seemed so obvious to me. Obviously not. Here's that page & my attempt to explain it:
https://www.drawntowood.com/D2W/Website-Features