Feature request - exlcusion filter

[steve-o]

Sometimes I'd like to be able to filter by game that DON'T have a particular category.

Example: I have an "Archived" tag that I use to track which games I've made a backup copy of, since it helps me to sleep at night if I have an offline backup copy.  It would be handy if I could filter for any games that DON'T have that "Archived" category, so I can quickly see which games still need attention in that area.

I don't know if this would be as simple as negating the logic that filters "positively" or if there would be more to it, but it would be a neat feature to have

[Crow]

There was already attempt to do this:

https://github.com/JosefNemec/Playnite/pull/881
https://github.com/JosefNemec/Playnite/issues/837

The problem is that we haven't found a way how to do this properly from UX point of view. I really don't know how to represent this visually properly to make sure that it's easily understandable why games are being shown of not shown.

I would appreciate any idea if you have some, how to do this in the UI.

[CriticalComposer]

You could include a checkbox next to each dropdown menu. Then use marks for include and exclude. This would have the additional benefit of allowing a user to disable a search criteria without erasing the selected tags (a niche situation but one that exists). I don't know how universal this knowledge is but for the symbols inside of the checkbox why not use the current checkmark for including a criteria and an exclamation point to exclude it. From a programming perspective, ! just makes sense for "not," as in do not include in results. Otherwise, I don't think there are any generally accepted symbols for exclusion. I supposed you could use an X to denote exclusion but some people equate checkmarks and Xs when it comes to ticking a box. Then just toggle between the three states when the box is clicked on: Empty (Don't use Selected Tags in Search), Checkmark (Use Selected Tags), Exclamation Mark (Exclude Selected Tags).

[steve-o]

Well, my vision of how it would work is something like this (ignore the Explorer bar on the left, I was just too lazy to remove it from the screenshot):



Checking the "bar" check box beside any filter field would exclude the tags in that field, rather than include them.  Basically stick a NOT in front of the logic for that field.  Also note that, per symbolic logic, NOT (A OR B) = NOT A AND NOT B.

Using the filters I actually have showing in the screenshot, it would be displaying all games that have the source GOG and NOT the Category "[ARCHIVED]"

If Source had "Steam" and "GOG" selected, normally it would display all games that are Steam OR GOG.
With the exlcusion box checked, it would show all games that were NOT Steam AND NOT GOG.  ie: any sources other than the selected ones.

With this system, you wouldn't be able to include one Category while excluding another.  It would be all or nothing (so to speak) within a single field

[Crow]

Thanks for suggestions. I'll take them into consideration once I get to implement this.

[audiosurf]

Thanks for suggestions. I'll take them into consideration once I get to implement this.

I'm a bit late to the party but building off steve-o's suggestion I think from a UX standpoint it makes sense to reuse the existing checkboxes with a modifier key, and a simple message to the user that said functionality exists. I guess a tooltip could inform the user "alt-click checkboxes to exclude", but here's a rough mockup of my suggestion.

This way you can include and exclude items within the same category:




come to think of it you could probably get away without the green, seems to still make sense:





The collapsed categories box would probably need some highlight to indicate there's exclusion filters checked, otherwise out of sight the user might confuse them as to why half their library isn't showing up.

That's just my 2-cents anyway. I'm loving Playnite it's made my game library actually manageable, keep up the stellar work!!

[AlexRiker]

Hello- also late to the party here, but wanted to chime in.
1: As others have said- thank you so much for this amazing application; I have a huge library spanning multiple launchers and being able to tag and organize them in such a streamlined/visually pleasing way and centralize all game launching has been amazing.
2: I second the request for the ability to use categories as an 'exclusion' filter. In my case, I tagged very old games in my library as 'retro' and when otherwise looking at my catalogue for games in a genre (for example, all RTS games); it would be nice to be able to filter out the 'retro' games from that genre, unless I'm in a particularly nostalgic mood. One could arrange their categories differently to work around this (tag newer games as 'modern' for example) but it would just add some nice versatility overall.

I'm not very good at mockups, but my suggestion for how to implement in the UI would be to allow an additional 'state' in the category check box as follows:

Click the checkbox once, it is checked. Click it again, and a red X appears to represent an exclusion/subtraction filter. Click it a third time, it goes back to being unchecked. A tooltip or brief help text could appear when mousing over the red X state to indicate what this is doing.

On that note of UI adjustments, I would consider moving the categories filter to be closer to the top of the sidebar (I imagine this is one of the most frequently used items in the sidebar), and perhaps also prechecking the "Match all filters" box by default, as again I imagine this is how most people would expect this feature to behave if they have used other search engines or similar applications in the past. That's obviously just my subjective opinion, though.

[Rectangle]

Found this thread from Googling this issue... I would very much love this feature, and think it would be an awesome addition to an already-awesome piece of software! I have a bunch of games tagged as "play it when it's patched more" and would love to exclude them from certain filter views. I like AlexRiker's idea but naturally I recognize that I may not understand the full complexity of this.

[profucius1]

Thanks for suggestions. I'll take them into consideration once I get to implement this.

I am very much finding the need for this in my usage of Playnite. I often need to exclude a tag, category, etc field from a filter. Currently there is no way to do that. Please implement this feature!

[Wordsmith]

Re: UI

I've seen it done with + and – very effectively.

Calibre (ebook organizing software) does it this way, and it's very clear:



Count me as another person who'd really love this feature!