Directory FILTER problem

When using a ward directory and using the filter option at the top - when typing in letters, such as m, then a, then r - the filter function gives me every iteration and every instance of those letters in every name - that is pretty much useless.

What it Should Do is this: Type in a Letter and it sorts by the first letter of the LAST name, another letter and it sorts by the first and second letter and so on.

Example - when searching for Marin, I type in M and get every name with an "m" in it then an A and get every name with an "ma" in it etc. - pretty much useless, when I'm trying to find Marin.

The function should be to find the first letter of the Last Name then the first and second letters of the Last Name, etc.

Ideally it should have a selectable function to PICK either LAST Name or ANY Name. You may only know Joaquin but not know last name, but it should default to Last Name unless picked. but in NO Case should it just give you every instance of the letters in every name - useless

PS CAPS are for emphasis - this is not a social media site where CAPS means yelling - either full caps or first letter caps.

DannyC wrote:Ideally it should have a selectable function to PICK either LAST Name or ANY Name. You may only know Joaquin but not know last name, but it should default to Last Name unless picked. but in NO Case should it just give you every instance of the letters in every name - useless

I understand what you are saying, but I prefer the current setup if there is no way to pick an option. I rarely search for the last name. I am always searching by the first name to find the proper last name, i.e., which family has the Linda I need to contact.

DannyC wrote:PS CAPS are for emphasis - this is not a social media site where CAPS means yelling - either full caps or first letter caps.

I have never in my lifetime had a monitor yell at me, no matter how may caps were displayed on the screen. [grin]

I was thinking that an improvement would be to search starting on a word boundary. That way you can still find someone who is known by their middle name, but not get back all the hits that contain that letter combination unless you entered a wildcard value.

However, we are biased by western names. I'm not sure how such a change would affect world-wide use.

I like the way it works now. By the time I've typed a few characters, the list is sufficiently filtered that I can scan and find the person I want. I sometimes search by first name (which might actually be the middle name for some people) and sometimes by last name. The proposed option would clutter the interface for little benefit, in my opinion.

russellhltn wrote:However, we are biased by western names. I'm not sure how such a change would affect world-wide use.

Word boundaries would be less of an issue than searching on surname/family name. Searching on surname would essentially break the search function in Korea, where about half of the population shares three surnames. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ko ... mily_names

There are also cultural difference in how names are displayed and sorted that would be involved in this kind of a change.

One way that the current system is less than optimal is when dealing with very short names. Like last names of "Ng" or "Ho". Or first names like "Roy" or "Lee". There simply isn't any more letters you can enter to pair down the list. That's where the word boundary would be nice.