I searched for “umbrella project” “include projects” #bug-reports before submitting this. There were no results found.
Platform (Android, iOS, Website): Website
App version number, if a mobile app issue (shown under Settings or About): NA
Browser, if a website issue (Firefox, Chrome, etc) : NA
URLs (aka web addresses) of any relevant observations or pages: NA
Screenshots of what you are seeing:
Description of problem (please provide a set of steps we can use to replicate the issue, and make as many as you need.):
Step 1: Edit an Umbrella Project
Step 2: For Observation Requirements select the Include Projects field (as you would for any Umbrella Project).
Step 3: Attempt to add the Project A Bee or Not a Bee?. (See first image)
Results: iNaturalist returns a list of 10 unrelated Projects with names that partially match the intended Project. The intended Project cannot be added. (See second image)
Expected Results:
- iNaturalist will filter to just that uniquely named Project
- iNaturalist will show all matching Projects (which could be hundreds or thousands)
- If the Project name, or a unique portion thereof, is placed in quotes, e.g. “Not a Bee”, iNaturalist will search for that exact string to return matching Projects.
Problems:
- iNaturalist provides no means to search for an exact string or sequence of characters. Even when enclosing the search text with quotes - a common idiom for “exact search” - a keyword search is done.
- The list of matching Projects is only 10 Projects long. There is no visible way to increase that limit, or search for more Projects.
- iNaturalist is only doing a keyword search. Projects with elements common to many projects - e.g.: “bee” - will never be found.
Circumvention: The only way I’ve found to circumvent this is to search for anything BUT the useful words in a Project name. For example, to locate the Project in this example, searching for “or not” returns a short (<10 items) list that includes the intended Project so it can be added:
