Searching

While Matrix may have powerful search capabilities similar to ProSearch, it's often not obvious what needs to be entered to get the desired results. I can and will document other search issues, but this example seems to be typical of something that's technically correct but certainly not obvious and could be implemented much better.

Let's say you were interested in a swimming pool. Perhaps you want the property to have a pool. Perhaps you don't want a pool or maybe you don't care one way or another. With Matrix, this is the search concerning a pool:

Just what are you supposed to enter here?

If you wanted a pool, click on "Pool" and the "Or" radio button (or "No Pool" and the "Not" radio button.)

If you don't want a pool, click on "No Pool" and the "Or" radio button (or "Pool" and the "Not" radio button.)

If you don't care one way or another, select both "Pool" and "No Pool" and the "Or" radio button, (or don't select either item and select the "Not" radio button.)

You can also not have any properties show up by selecting both "Pool" and "No Pool" and the "Not" radio button.

If that wasn't perfectly clear, you can always click on the help button. Then you'd be presented with the following window:

Not really all that helpful...

I can think of some other ways this could be implemented that would would better:

How about using three radio buttons?

How about a couple of check boxes?

Or maybe a field to enter a Y or N?

While I like the radio buttons the best, any of these would probably be better than how Matrix implemented it...

Transition Postponed!

MLSListings just announced that the full transition to Matrix will be postponed until December 31, 2011.

Thank You!

We'll be able to continue using ProSearch until then and Matrix will be worked on to address many of the issues that have been reported. It may yet become a useful tool for us.

Thank you MLSListings for listening to your clients.

Selecting Additional Search Fields

Matrix sets up search screens for various classes of searches that contain common search fields for those classes. They do allow one to customize these screens to add most any other search field. You just select the items you want from a scrollable list of hundreds of items, select the item and press the Add button to add the selected item to your list of selected fields. When you've added all of the fields you want, you return to the search screen and your selected items are added to the bottom of your screen.

However, using Safari on a Macintosh running OS X 10.6.4 this doesn't work properly.

If you select an item and then scroll down the list of items, after a few seconds that item is added to the list of selected fields and the scroll list moves back to the selected item. Continue scrolling and after a few seconds it tries to add that same item again and displays following message:

Item was not added because it is either on the search page or was already one of your Frequently Used Fields

This certainly isn't the correct behavior, and I suspect it's due to some nonstandard coding used to implement this website.

While Tarasoft can certainly choose to implement their software using whatever tools they want and support only a subset of browsers and operating systems, they do state the following on their website:

Browser Compatability [sic]

Tarasoft Matrix® is 100% compatible with all internet browsers including IE 6, 7, 8, Firefox, Opera, Chrome and Safari. Tarasoft Matrix® is very light on browser resources not requiring any browser add-on. There are zero Operating System requirements.

Really?

Photo In Headers

A feature in Matrix that's not available in ProSearch is the ability to include low resolution, graphical headers and footers in various generated reports. I gather the idea was to allow the inclusion of the agent's photo, but this is how you're supposed to specify if you want to include the photo or not?

Seems like there should be a space to enter either a 'Y' or an 'N' or the question should be Include Agent Photo followed by "Yes" or "No" radio buttons.

Regardless of what was meant, checking or unchecking that box doesn't do anything. If you haven't uploaded your picture you'll end up with a blank head shot in the header. If you've uploaded a picture it'll use that picture forever, or at least until you upload a different image.

Deleting Contacts

When I attempt to delete a contact, I'm presented with the following screen:

The first time I tried this, it looked as if the contact was still there. The contact was still showing up in the "Recent Use Contacts" on the Matrix home page. If I clicked on that contact and would get the same error screen.

I closed the browser and started again. The contact that I tried to delete was gone. I created a new contact, deleted it and was again presented with the above error message.

The contacts are getting deleted, but you're presented with a strange error message and may need to restart Matrix before everything looks proper.

Addressing E-mails Enhancement Request

When addressing e-mails, I see the following when I type in the e-mail address:

As I type in the e-mail address, the address beings to scroll after typing just a few characters, even though there's plenty of room in that address field.

Then when I press the comma or semicolon key to being entering in another e-mail address, it duplicates the e-mail address I just entered.

I can of course enter in the address even if I can only see a few characters at a time, and I can hit the delete key a few times to get rid of the duplicate address, but it's annoying and not something that should be there.

The premature scrolling for the address occurs using both Safari and Firefox on a Mac running OS X 10.6.4 and on an iPad. The duplicate address doesn't occur using Firefox, but does using Safari or the iPad. I haven't tried this with any other computers.

Color Choices Enhancement Request

Everyone has their own ideas about what colors are pleasing to them or what works best for their web site. Usually it doesn't make much difference. However, sometimes the colors used make it rather difficult to use a site. I find the gray word "Manage" a bit difficult to see when displayed on the light gray background, although not nearly as difficult to see as the white text over the light colored backgrounds in the boxes below that.

Make all the text, and indeed any component of the web site that you want people to see, a contrasting color from the background it's displayed on.