Forums » Suggestions & Development Discussion » Searching for character tags

Apologies for the ramble! If this is already a thing I'd love to know how to do this, but I've gotten a few friends to try too so if it is possible then it's not super clear/could maybe use some tweaking.

So, we have the nifty option now to add custom character categories for sorting, and the ability to search for those tags within someone's character list, but there doesn't yet seem to be the option to use the site's search bar for the same purpose.

I think it would be tremendously useful as a way to discover potential new partners, as currently the only way to make use of categories to narrow results is to already be on someone's profile. I'm aware that there is technically already a work-around solution for this by using game tags, but I feel like it would be better to keep that function separate, since custom categories are already ideal for this.

Perhaps it can work like:

I type 'vampire' into search, but in the dropdown list there is a new search category called Character Tags, and the results show only characters which people have tagged as vampire. So far what I get when I search 'vampire' is characters with vampire in the name, groups involving vampires, and vampire LFRP posts - which is a great start, but doesn't fully represent the options available! From there I could maybe 'Add another search' and search 'romance', 'LFRP' etc?

I'm not sure if this feature would be possible/how hard the coding would be, but if it's doable I think it would be an awesome feature!

You can do searches for characters in the default categories already from the community character page: http://www.rprepository.com/community/browsechar.php

Adding custom categories to that is very much in the works.

Wow! Totally didn't realize you could do that from this page. Thanks Kim!

ahh, wonderful! thank you!

i think my next suggestion then would be for this option to be more visible - perhaps suggested when people use the search bar as another option for looking for characters? (i just told those friends about this and they were as surprised as me!)

also, when Community is hovered over, could it be expanded to 'Browse Characters' as it is when Community is clicked? when i was new here i remember clicking Characters and Groups a few times thinking it would take me to my own.

i must admit, while i appreciate how concise the taskbar is, sometimes the vagueness of the terms can make it a bit hard to figure out where to go. the shop being tucked under Dashboard > Upgrades is another thing i had issues with, and have helped others find too.

Edit: Forget it

thanks for sharing your views on this! i'm not sure it'll look too bad though, since the 'groups' can become 'browse groups' for the same reason, but i'd say that the benefit of a little more clarity would outweigh any aesthetic awkwardness anyways.

I actually think doing both would be our best maneuver for adding clarity and user friendliness. I will put that in an upcoming patch.

But for a little more info on the existing character search options, check out this news post http://www.rprepository.com/community/newspost.php?post=467

oh man, this is awesome! you're awesome!

Custom character categories are now searchable on the browse character page: http://www.rprepository.com/community/browsechar.php

WOW! Kim this is fantastic!!