Add URL param for ease of sharing filtered views

[dylanatsmith]

I had this idea and I’m curious if it would be of any use.

• The filter query someone types into the input would be added as a URL param like howtotarget.email?filter=outlook
• Visiting a URL with a filter param directly would add that query to the input and show filtered results immediately

I’m hesitant because individual entries already have their own shareable anchor links generated by their added date and client. Example: howtotarget.email/#2019-03-26-android

Would this filter be useful for you?

[husseinalhammad]

Looking at links shared in the Email Geeks Slack, I see people only sharing to howtotarget.email without specifying an hack. Not sure where else the traffic comes from.

I unintentionally broke this in #30. You can't link to deprecated hacks now:
https://howtotarget.email/#2019-03-26-aol

Perhaps switching to URL-based filters would address this?

?q=outlook&status=deprecated
?client=Yahoo&status=any
?q=android&client=Gmail&status=working

[dylanatsmith]

You can't link to deprecated hacks now ... I see people only sharing to howtotarget.email without specifying an hack.

Maybe it doesn’t matter then. "Working" hacks are fine and that feels most important.

Not sure where else the traffic comes from.

Me neither. No analytics. 😅

Perhaps switching to URL-based filters would address this?

Perhaps, but my instinct is that 1) it’s not worth the refactor, and 2) the URL generation or filtering UI would have to become complex?

[JayOram]

With the above PR merged you can now use URL parameters to share specific targeting:

URL parameters will pre-fill the filter search with the url parameters:

client= This is the email client being searched for.
platform= This is for the device/platform, such as iOS or webmail
q= To be used for general search queries

I also added the ability to precheck the deprecated checkbox:
deprecated=true to check the deprecated hacks box

So this would allow a link to be created for Outlook Android with deprecated hacks checked:
https://www.howtotarget.email/?client=outlook&platform=android&deprecated=true

Whilst doing so I needed to update the search to allow for multiple words, so now you can search for 'iOS Outlook' for example.

An important part of the issue was that the filtered view could be shared, so lastly I added a 'share filtered view' button below the deprecated hacks, to facilitate easy sharing.