Filters
Filters help to craft your topic to be even more relevant and specific to your interests. When adding filters to backstitch there are two options:
and they can each be added as either Topic Filters or Source Filters.
Basic Filters
Basic filters let you specify keywords or phrases that should be included and not included in the content of your topic.
Basic filters are made up of include filters and exclude filters:
Include Filters
Setting an include filter will ensure that your topic will only show content from your sources that contains at least one of the words or phrases specified.
Example: If you want content that mentions either Toronto or Calgary.
Exclude Filters
Setting an exclude filter will ensure that your topic will not show any content from your sources that contains any of the words or phrases specified.
Example: If you don’t want any content that mentions tourism, travel or sightseeing.
Advanced Filters
Advanced filters lets you chain together groups of keywords or phrases where any, all and none of those specified should be mentioned in your topic’s content.
Any Filters
Setting an any filter will ensure that your topic will show content from your sources that contains at least one of the words or phrases specified.
Example: If you want content that mentions either urban farming or urban chicken coop.
All Filters
Setting an all filter will ensure that your topic will only show content from your sources that contains every word or phrase specified.
Example: If you want content that mentions both Detroit and ordinances.
None Filters
Setting a none filter will ensure that your topic will not show any content from your sources that contains any of the words or phrases specified.
Example: If you don’t want any content that mentions tree farms.
AND/OR Operator
The operation that evaluates the list of any filters with the all filters can be toggled from the default and operator to be instead evaluated as an or operator.
To toggle simply click the operator between the any and all filter tabs.
AND Operator
If you wanted content that mentioned urban farming or urban chicken coop AND Detroit and ordinances.
OR Operator
If you wanted content that mentioned urban farming or urban chicken coop OR Detroit and ordinances.
Adding Another Filter Group
Multiple filter groups can be chained together to build more complex filters.
To add another group click on the purple + Add filter group button underneath an existing filter group and select the operator (AND/OR) to determine how the two groups should be evaluated together.
Hide Obscene Content Filter
Available only as a global topic filter when checked backstitch will attempt to filter out any potentially offensive content from your topic.
Topic Filters
Topic filters act as a global filter across all of your topic’s sources collectively.
From the topic edit screen topic filters are managed on the right side of the screen:
From the add sources dialog topic filters can be found by expanding the drawer underneath Filter All Sources:
Advanced filters aren’t manageable from the filter drawer
Source Filters
Source filters allow for setting filters only on a specific source. This is great for building topics that contain both very on subject sources alongside generic content sources with filters.
From the topic edit screen click on an included source to manage its filters:
From the add sources dialog a source’s filters can be found by expanding the drawer underneath its name in the right-hand column:
Advanced filters aren’t manageable from the filter drawer
Frequently Asked Questions About Filters
Q: How do I make sure my filter has been saved?
Once you are finished typing your filter simply press Enter on your keyboard to save your filter. It should turn a solid color to let you know it has saved properly.
Q: Do I need to add both the plural and singular form of my filters?
backstitch takes word variation such as plural forms into account so there is no need to add both the singular and plural form.
Q: Do I need to put quotes around a phrase?
Filters that consist of multiple words are automatically quoted and match as an exact phrase.
Q: How long does it take for my filter to start taking effect?
As with any changes to a topic (such as adding or removing sources) it may take a few moments to re-index your content. Try refreshing your topic after 10-30 seconds to see the changes have taken effect.
Q: How do I know why is this content is in my topic?
backstitch will attempt to highlight sentences that match the filters set.
Q: What parts of the content can I filter by?
Every part of the content including the body, title, author name, and even social media usernames are filterable.
