I don't look around very much on this site except for browsing categories, but I'm having a really hard time trying to search for specific assets.
For example, if I want to search for low-poly tagged assets, but only look for "swords" ... I can't find any way to do that. Typing text in the search bar just searches directly on the entire site, and if you use categories and tags, I'm not seeing any other way to search...
But I'm not sure how they do it.
Search was changed a while ago. You can switch categories classification. Maybe css is not showing the option? Default is everything. You can click for games or assets. (And yes, the last &type=games is odd, as it stays)
https://itch.io/search?classification=assets&q=swords&type=games
https://itch.io/game-assets/tag-low-poly/tag-swords
I do not understand the question. Did you miss the second box to chose tags maybe, or the switches to browse/search for assets? Search has one too.
Of course, browsing by tags needs the developer to have used the tags. Like low poly and swords.
Searching, as in using the search box, needs the developer to have used the actual word swords in the title of the asset. Which many asset creators do, unlike game creators. A game with a hero that fights with a sword, usually does not have sword in the title.
Hmm. I think you meant how to combine tag search with title search maybe? You cannot. But for your situation, as asset creators often use the words in the title, you can do this.
https://itch.io/search?classification=assets&q=low%20poly%20swords&type=games
Itch has two methods of "searching". One is literal title search. The other is browsing tags.
You do not search for keywords. There are no keywords. The title of the search box is kinda misleading in that it does not tell how it searches and that it claims to search "tags". But it does not search by tags, it searches in the suggested tag list.
If you enter a word in the search box and the word matches a "suggested" tag, those tags will appear above the results. The tags. Not games with that tag. The results will be literal title matches. And games whose developers are matching the search query. Results will be capped at around 60 results.
If you type a word in the tag box, it will browse all games that have that tag. A tag does not need to be in that list. Itch has freestyle tagging. But the search above only "searches" tags in that list.
https://itch.io/search?q=banana
https://itch.io/games/tag-banana
Genres are special tags. But as far as I can tell, for all intents and purposes, they are just tags that are named genre-something-something instead of tag-something-something. You can only select a genre as your main genre for a game. And they can be selected directly as genres, instead of using the tag box.
And one cannot do a title search within a filtered tag list. One can try using a regular internet search page. Itch pages are ranked high in relevance for indie games.
That’s a very silly limitation. – If I’m searching for game assets (not games), and I want to search for swords, but limit the results to those that have the #3D tag, then I should be able to.
Literally it’s less overhead on the database to search a subset than it is to search the whole thing, so, it would be both more user friendly, and more performant. – I don’t understand why that limitation exists.
For example, if I search for “Sword 3D”, I only see assets with both words in the title, and assets like this one: https://mecanes-assets.itch.io/sword simply do not show up in the search results.
It just looks for those words in the title, it doesn’t search by tag at all.
What you ask is only an issue for some assets because there is the bad habit of asset creators to have a descriptive title, but not tagging all relevant information.
For games there is no use case for searching a game by title, but filtering results also by tags. And if you use tags, you do not search a specific game.
