Feature request: deep hyperlink support in the interface

[noisyscott]

Hello,

First off thank you again for the pedias. They are always a pleasure to work with.

I would like to suggest adding in a deeper sense of hyperlinking into all of the pedia applications. As an example; for each entry field of primary interest (actor name, director, studio, author, publisher, artist, genre, etc) the interface would display the information as a hyperlink in the info view, that when clicked instantly performs a search on that field. You'd have to add support for a back and forward button as well, but I really think such a feature would allow people to explore their data in a much more fluid way rather than the current scroll up and down or explicit search method.

I don't know if you have access to or have used Spotify, but it is a great example of the kind of interface I am describing. Nearly every field that a user is interested in is clickable. This allows for very fast navigation around a huge dataset.

Just some food for thought.

Regards,
Scott

[Conor]

Thank you Scott for the feedback. It something we've been experimenting with in the info view as it already allows this kind of linking. The sample link below can be put around a name that when clicked will automatically trigger a search in the search field as well as oppose a limit such as "director" if available.

Code: Select all

<a href="pedia://bruji.com/filterBy=[key:director]&field=director">[key:director]</a>

As you mentioned a done button might be something a user expects and that is why it's not a shipping feature of one of the info templates yet. We are still figuring out if hitting the "X" in the search field is enough for a user to undo the search, or if it's to big a leap to realize that clicking a link would start a search (especially for someone who is not showing the toolbar and would not see the search field). Also not sure if that would take users out of their current collection and display the main library or just filter the selected collection. Many issues to explore, but thank you for bringing it up again and letting us know how you would expect to use it.

[noisyscott]

Cool! Thanks Conor,

I implemented the linking in an info view template and like it. As you mentioned, it's a little unclear the best way to let a user know that they are now navigating within a search. I'll think on this as well for a bit and post back if I have any insights on how I would expect this to behave. As it is it's very useful. Thanks!