IMDb Advanced Search Redesign Beta

You can filter out documentaries and shorts under the Genre selections.

Thanks. It is a little better, but still a little more work to do. "Improvement" suggests that things should be easier, and not the other way around. The fact is that IMDb was a perfect site that didn't require any changes. For instance, some years ago we could get results in perfect rating order, but since the last change movies with the same rating (7.0, for example) started to appear in popularity order. And they never fixed it. Never. 

I suppose, I will take care to make a copy of the last gen form.

Hi @bderoes​ -

The direct link to FAQs/Help is available on sprinklr and we are additionally working to add the links to the top of Title, Name, and Collab search soon.

Concerning your comment: 'I filled in a year only on Release dates (upper), and nothing about release date was added to the url." - We appreciate your feedback and valuable insights here, the team will continue evaluating for future optimizations. 

@plur62​ Can you provide more details on why it is now complicated? Which browser on which system do you normally use? 

The release date fields are now proper date fields, so depending on the browser, you can either type the date as before or use the calendar icon to navigate to a specific date (some browsers may only support the calendar navigation mode, for example, Safari on an iPad).  The release date fields are designed to be easier than the previous version and they should be localised outside of the English language too. 

@Col_Needham​ Chrome Android and Chrome on laptop.

I can't find how to type the date as before, like this:

@plur62​ On a mobile browser so you should see something like this when you tap on the field:

which can be used to select the dates. On iOS you can scroll the year independently from the month and then in the calendar view you can tap on the specific date (or you can navigate month-by-month if a recent date). For example:

Is this not the same on Chome on your Android phone? 

Hope this helps. 

@plur62​ I missed your "Chrome on laptop" comment at the top, sorry.  What operating system is this with?  On Chrome for Windows I get: 

where you can type the date manually as before. 

Do you have any plugins or ad blockers installed which might be impacting the display? See https://help.imdb.com/article/imdb/common-issues/why-is-imdb-displaying-differently-on-my-browser/GF2ZAR69V859XLHF

Likewise, I prefer the manual input date search over the calander view available on mobile. The manual input date search is both quicker and easier to navigate regardless of the device or OS, IMHO.

Best

Good

One of the concerns I brought up was not being able to navigate backwards to calendars from multiple decades ago with a single click or a few simple clicks.

We can't simply put the year anymore. We will always have to put the year, the day and the month (attending the wishes of a vast minority of very specific users who could simply put the date on the URL, and giving more trouble for 99% of the users). Like I said before: the advanced title search, as it is, is almost PERFECT. These changes will only give more trouble and difficulties to the user. Besides, from an aesthetic point of view, it is all simply UGLY. Could you just once, NOT change IMDb?

@angelopilla47​ Truth. As if most users care which title was shown from March 12, 1963 to May 17 of the same year. But IMDb wouldn't be what it is if it didn't "fix" things that shouldn't be fixed. :)

@plur62​ If you tap the “1987” in your example above, you should get a scrollable menu of years from which you can navigate to any date. 

@Col_Needham​ from October 17th to January 1st, I have to click 10 times (9 months and then set to January 1st), and that's just to set one year. Sorry, but this is in no way an improvement of Advanced search page.

What?

@jeorj_euler​ yes (in my case).

It is a complete mess. In the "improved" version we have to open every item to see the options. In the "old" version it is clear, every option is exposed. It is EASY to find what we want. We don't have to assume nothing. We don't have to be spend FIVE minutes trying to generate a list of movies. The "improved" version demands more of the user, including, mainly, more patience. 

Not sure if its eye pleasing, but saves me the time of going back and forth to the search filter and results page!

Hi @Elwood_Blues​ -

To clarify,  if a company page number is used, the chip will show that number. Instead, you will need to use the company name text. 

FYI, I have opted for at least a half dozen of these beta tests, but have yet to receive a beta test badge for my participation in any of them.

I agree with urbanemovies​ that the greyscale example values are confusing/concerning. It felt as though titles with more than 700,000 would be excluded from the results.

"The few dropped search criteria like film location were likely little used and won't be missed." Just because you won't miss them, doesn't mean that most people won't, but maybe fewer than two thirds indeed won't, any one third always being a gigantic minority (even one tenth is pretty damned big). 

• https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?locations=Jerusalem 
• https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?locations=Kinshasa 
• https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?locations=Brazzaville 
• https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?locations=Aleppo 
• https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?locations=Janeiro 
• https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?locations=Prague 
• https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?locations=Istanbul 
• https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?locations=Rome 

Some of the filming location data may be inaccurate, and sincere IMDb contributors usually would like to know it. To be fair, the way that the locations search works could benefit from an upgrade, like involving union operators and intersection operators, preferably the latter if both could not be had..

@jeorj_euler​  We are not sure what you mean with:

"The few dropped search criteria like film location were likely little used and won't be missed." Just because you won't miss them, doesn't mean that most people won't, but maybe fewer than two thirds indeed won't, any one third always being a gigantic minority (even one tenth is pretty damned big)."

No search criteria have been dropped -- locations are in the "Page Topics" menu:

In the case of everything in that menu, the search has been massively improved because before you could only do a search across all titles for this content, with only one sort order -- now you can filter by all of the other criteria and sort by all available sorts.

For example:

Movies in which Arnold Schwarzenegger says "I'll be back" -> https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?role=nm0000216&title_type=feature&sort=release_date,asc&quotes=%22i%27ll%20be%20back%22 

Movies in which Martin Scorsese uses "Gimme Shelter" on the soundtrack -> https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?role=nm0000217&title_type=feature&soundtracks=%22gimme%20shelter%22 

We encourage you to take a closer look at the features offered. 

@urbanemovies​ Please see our comments above ... location search has been improved and not removed -- the new advanced title search should be backwards compatible with the previous version, aside from some little used undocumented and unsupported features.  If you still think we have missed anything, please let us know. 

Yeah, thanks, Col, and I see that's the same problem with the way the "All topics" menu (on title pages and name pages) has so many submenus to click/tap through, until the person doing it remembers where everything is, even if not understanding the grouping of the hyperlinks and the nomenclature of the subject heading of each submenu. The irony is how we've recently moved away from that same logic as it applies to the display of the where-to-watch options (on title pages). Hence, "confusing" here and there, or all around.

@jeorj_euler​ In that case you may find the "Expand all" link useful:

Uh, yeah, and I usually have to "reprogram" these things to be expanded by default.

@Col_Needham​ 

The link to Expand All is too subtle. Suggestion: make it darker (same bold as "Search Filters") and move it closer to those words, perhaps even to the left.

_I_ certainly missed the link until you pointed it out.

I suppose, it is not as terrible as I earlier thought, but I can't shake the feeling that the layout isn't actually better. Undoubtedly there are some form fields (query types altogether) available in the new that weren't available in the old, so that part is cool. On the mobile version, I don't like how there doesn't seem to be an option to type in dates or parts thereof manually instead of having to mess around with a calendar that apparently cannot zip backward or forward by multiple decades.

@Col_Needham​, My mistake. I think I have used the location feature a couple times over the past decade.

@Col_Needham​ 

The existing searches under "Search Within a Topic" at https://www.imdb.com/search/ have search results which are sorted by match and display the matching text. These search results don't appear to be available after enabling the beta.

For example, when I want to add a filming location I search for the location to see how it has been entered before.

@Col_Needham​ 

The Filming Locations section may have its own fanbase, but please do not pay attention to those who disregard it. They just don't know yet!

As it already happened some years ago at the last major site upgrade, the filming locations search results do not show the locations any more, just the corresponding titles.

Peter_pbn shows the example of an "Eiffel" search result showing how it was labelled within the field under each title.

This feature is absolutely essential for Film Locations contributors like myself (a few 1000s of contributions), spending sometimes hours to find the right spot, and looking for the right way to label it. It also helps a lot to rationalize and merge same locations labelled differently.

Also, if Filming Locations search returns should be improved in some way, it would be to allow the search of a term in a specific area: i.e., if I want to look up for films shot on Broadway in Nashville, I would like to exclude the results from New York or London.

This could be done by reinstating the long-gone Location Tree, but we lost hope on this.

Hi @bderoes​ -

Following up on your comment about the gray scale -

To clarify, the gray scale is intended to show an example only. We are in the process of making the example state more pronounced, so look for an update coming soon!

Hi @bderoes​ -

Concerning your comment: "The link to Expand All is too subtle. Suggestion: make it darker (same bold as "Search Filters") and move it closer to those words, perhaps even to the left."

Thank you for your feedback - the team is in the process of evaluating options to make this more pronounced. 

Even though it is designed for the smartphone, it doesn't much manifest as an improvement for the smartphone. Seems like the only decent thing about it is being able to modify the search query or change the type of the query within the same Web form.

Hi @angelopilla47​ -

Thank you for your feedback - we prioritized the exclusion functionality based on extensive user research but are continuing to look for ways to improve. We appreciate you being an IMDb user. 

Also, navigation forward and backward through the Web browser's tab's history doesn't always work out correctly, and sometimes the search results page redirect to a blank search form.

Hi @jeorj_euler​ -

Thank you for this feedback - we are continuously working to improve accessibility and have provided your feedback to the team.

Languages are "ands" too.  I think "or" would be more useful for both.