Suggestion: Database filtering

Looking at the database browsing atm, specifically using runewords as an example (though it applies across the board), there's 3 suggestions I'd like to propose for the way filtering works:

1) Let the toggle filters be an exact filter, rather than a wildcard match. If you filter for "weapons" for example, you also get "missile weapons" and "melee weapons", rather than only those for all weapons.

2) Allow multi-selection of filters in an "and/or" fashion ("and" naturally being mostly mutually exclusive). E.g. if I'm looking for A2 merc runewords, I may well wish to browse for spears and polearms at the same time, rather than check all spears first and then polearms afterwards in a separate search.
On a related note: spears actually seem to not be available as a filter yet. With 2.4 adding specific spear runeword options, it may be worth adding that.

3) Group filters by implied meaning. This is really just specific to weapon types I believe. E.g. if you look for swords, you get runewords specifically for swords. What you do not get returned however is runewords that fall in the "Weapons" or "Melee Weapons" category, even though all of those would inherently also be applicable for swords specifically. This particular one would naturally become less of an information gap if multi-selection were possible though (as noted above) as one could then combine them manually at least.


An additional suggestion, though I believe I made this one before is based on using base items as an example:

- Let the toggle filters be specific for their intended property. Filtering bases by "normal" (as opposed to exceptional/elite) for example returns not only those items that match normal quality but also those with for example normal weapon speed for any class, due to the filter seemingly just searching for "normal" anywhere within all of the items properties, rather than only the one being filtered for.

Hey Schnork,

This is the oldest code on the site - before I even knew how to connect to a database in PHP hehe
As a result it is very limited in terms of what I was able to put together using a frontend JS library that basically just filters results by a regex match as you have worked out.
The data relations are all there now back end of course, and if I were ever to put this back together (properly this time) it would make logical operators like this possible.
But that would require a lengthy rewrite.... So in the meantime, you'll have to make do with switching between item groups for example.
A few extra clicks and still possible to meet all your use cases, if you can ignore false positive results and other quirks of the system.

I see. So you built this whole place in kind of a "learning by doing" exercise then I take it?

I like it

Schnorki wrote: 3 years ago

I see. So you built this whole place in kind of a "learning by doing" exercise then I take it?

I like it

I'd styled and modded phpBB forums before, some were diablo related sites - most died or were ghost towns lol.
In 2019 I made a WoW Classic forum that had about 4k members after launch, my first successful site but still just a discussion forum.
So yeah, kind of was forced to learn because the extensions out there weren't cutting it anymore for what I wanted to do for my 4th? 5th? D2 site.
The database filters were the first 'feature' I wanted to have on the site, and the first thing I built. Here's an early mockup:
I actually originally wanted it to just be a static website with the front-end filtering you see, but then phpBB pulled me back in when I wanted a comments system.
So as time has gone on there are layers of the site that were written when I was way worse than I am now, which is still bad in terms of what's going on behind the UI lol.

Some other early concepts/what alpha looked like:

You used to have avatar frames? Cute. Did those disappear or am I just blind now?

Schnorki wrote: 3 years ago

You used to have avatar frames? Cute. Did those disappear or am I just blind now?

Nah they never made it into the first build.

Originally my plan was to incentivise people to contribute to the site by letting them earn 'gold'. You would have then been able to spend the gold in a shop to buy avatars, username colours, signature images, avatar frames, and basically a fully customised profile. I wanted to gamify the site to the max so that people would have a reason to help build the data, forums, and comments up.

This was around January 2020 I think, when 'Diablo 2 HD' was just a rumour. Then they actually announced D2 Resurrected and also its release date whicu was only 9 months later so I had to bust my ass to finish something in time and decided to scrap these planned features altogether.

Plan back then was also to monetise the site without ads at all and rely only on these 'in-site cosmetics'. I may be forced to revisit the idea of the item/cosmetics shop next year as cookie-based advertising is being phased out of Google Chrome in 2023 (eek).

When @

Stormlash started suggesting things like a trade forum (about 3 months before launch) he pointed out that in hindsight people might have confused the 'gold' with the familiar d2jsp gold, and thought it was just another RMT market for the game!

Gotta admit, I'm kind of glad you then opted against the gamification and all.

Though I get revisiting it if ad stuff ends up going down too far.