Finding Things: Search, Filters, and Shelves

Chapter 35, The Rules Reference, covered reading. This covers looking. Two ways to find an entry: type its name, or walk the shelves.

The search field

The search field sits on its own row in the top bar, on both the Contents and Browse faces, so it is always within reach. Its placeholder, "Ask or look up a rule, spell, monster…", describes what it takes. Typing and submitting do different things.

As you type, the field offers live suggestions after a short pause: a Top match, then Other matches under it. Each row carries an icon, a book for a rules page and a bookmark for an entry card, and a label saying where it lives. Tap one and you land straight on it, no search step left behind you.

When you submit, the app builds a result screen and leaves it on your trail, so you can open a result, press Back, and land on the list again. Submitting also records the query to Recent.

A submitted search comes back in one of four shapes:

• Exact match. You named one thing and it exists. You get its card.
• Matching list. Your words describe a set, like all the spells of a school. A titled, counted list, a line of detail per row.
• Rule section. Your words match a passage of rules, not an entry. You get that rule page.
• Answer from the SRD, the System Reference Document the app ships. For questions the reference can answer, you get a written answer citing its source, with other matches underneath.

When nothing fits, the app names which kind of nothing it found.

Recent sits on the Contents landing and holds your last two lookups. They survive closing the app. Tap one to run it again.

The X at the end of the field does two jobs: it wipes a query you are still typing, and it backs you out of a submitted search.

Browsing categories

Browse opens on a grid of category tiles, each with cover art, a name, and a count: six under the 2014 edition, nine under 2024. Tap one to open its shelf, which displays three ways. The default is grouped shelves: horizontal rows of art thumbnails, one row per group. The others are a plain grid of captioned thumbnails and a flat A to Z list.

The Grid and List toggle sits beside the heading, next to a button labeled Filter and Group by. That button appears only for categories with something to filter on, and it wears a badge when filters are active. A summary band under the heading names what you are looking at: the whole category and its count, or the filters in force and how many entries survived them, plus the grouping and a Clear control.

Your choices stick while you stay in the category, drilling into entries and coming back. Leave it, or flip the edition pill, and they reset.

Filter and Group by

The button opens a sheet from the bottom with two jobs in it, and the app is deliberate about keeping them apart:

• Filter narrows. Fewer entries.
• Group by arranges. The same entries, sorted into shelves.

The first time you open it, a note explains that split with a tip for the category you are in. The info icon brings it back.

• A facet with only one meaningful value becomes a switch, for example Ritual only on spells.
• Equipment reveals facets as you go. Choose Category as Weapon and Tier, Range, and Properties appear; choose Armor and an Armor Class row appears. Unpick the parent and those hidden choices clear themselves rather than filtering invisibly.
• Source, meaning shipped content versus your own entries, sits first.
• Group by chips are three-state. Tap one to group by it, tap it again to fall back to a flat A to Z.
• Groups sort the way the game does, not the alphabet. Levels run in order, challenge ratings band up, rarities run common to legendary.
• The commit button at the bottom counts your result as you build it.

The Mine latch

The Browse landing carries a pill labeled Mine. Latch it and the hub becomes your own library: the heading names your library and the edition, only entries you authored are counted, and the Source facet drops out of the filter sheet, because everything on screen is yours.

Every category still shows while latched, including ones you have written nothing for. A zero is an invitation, not an error: opening an empty category gives you a card pointing at the + button in the top bar.

That + is the doorway. It appears on any list of a kind you can author, latched or not, and tapping it starts a new entry. Chapter 40, Homebrew: Your Own Pages, picks up there. The backup and sync controls that also appear while latched are chapter 43, Your Library: Backup and Sync.