Ask halfwheel: Is the Review List Searchable?

Each Friday, except for last week apparently, we try to tackle a question asked by one of our readers.

Reader Stewart(?) wanted to know whether the review list was sortable:

I’m relatively new to the cigar scene. Been smoking a little over a year now, and your site has helped out with discovering new brands, flavors, and labels to discover what I like. At this point, My humidor needs a restock, and I return to your review list to see what you’ve reviewed and eye my next sampling for purchase. The problem that I have is that I can’t seem to sort your review list by anything other than the default sort in chrome. It would be great to have some additional search options.

Example. I love Tatuaje Black Corona Gordas, but they are basically impossible to find. So, after reading a bunch, and smoking a bunch, I know that Charlie’s palette and mine are similar. So I would like to be able to sort Charlie’s reviews by date instead of just scrolling through the list of thousands of reviews. Some of the older reviews are on products that I can’t buy from major vendors anymore. If I can’t find what I’m looking for, then un-select Charlie as the only author and read all your reviews, sorted by date.

Should really be a simple redesign on the Review List page.

For those that don’t know, we have a Review List that contains all of our reviews by name, country, factory, reviewer, date reviewed and score. And the review list is not only sortable, but also searchable.

While the review list is sortable, it’s unfortunately not the most advanced piece of software in the world. That being said, with a bit of creativity the search/sort features can go along way.

So Stewart wants to be able to see just my reviews, smart man. He can use the search button located in the top right corner to filter out only reviews with “Charlie” in it by typing in “charlie.”

Now, I should note, this will still include any cigar with “Charlie” in the name, so a Toraño product that I coincidentally reviewed will be included. He can then sort the review list by date, by clicking on Date, and see the most recent reviews from me (or at least through January).

Let’s say Stewart wants to get more specific. Only my reviews, from cigars made at My Father Cigars S.A. and only in 2015—sorted by highest score.

The rudimentary sort and search features aren’t perfect, but you can get pretty close.

Type in “charlie /15 my father.” This will limit out all the entries that don’t have that. Now, it could produce two different errant results: a. cigars with the word Charlie in the name, b. cigars that were reviewed on the 15th of the month, instead of last year.

Once that’s complete, once again click on the score area to sort. You have to click twice for it to sort from highest to lowest.

Unfortunately, trying to get this to work on your phone is a bit challenging due to size constraints, but if you use your phone in landscape mode and zoom all the way out, it should work.

Hope that helps. Now we just need Brian Burt to update the review list.

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