Advanced searches can waste your time
When searching and shopping for things online, it can be helpful to use the filter option here on the left-hand side. For example, I have found my location, but it's given me almost 1500 results.
I need to whittle this down. So the filters here on the left-hand side are going to be very helpful.
Or maybe I'm shopping for something, and yeah, I've got nearly 1,000 results, so I'm going to use the filter on the left-hand side. However, many of these websites don't allow you to save these options.
So if I want to come back in a few days and see what has changed with my specific options, I can't do so. Well, in this video, I'm going to share with you a free tool that allows you to record whatever you're doing on a website and then play it back whenever you want so you can quickly come back to your specific search results in just a few seconds.
Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.
Shopping filter example
So let's take a look at this example here. Let's say that I'm in the market for a new pair of skis.
So I've come to this website, and it's giving me nearly 1,000 different results. Well, that's way too many for me to sift through, so I want to take advantage of the filters and the categories here on the left-hand side.
However, there's no way for me to save this, so I'd like to save the selections I make so I can come back tomorrow or next week or whenever I want, and it will save the options that I've chosen here. Well, that's where Katalon Recorder comes into play, a free browser extension.
Now, if I open up Katalon Recorder, it may look a little intimidating at first. There's a lot of different options here. There may even be some things that look a lot like development code.
Now, Katalon Recorder is excellent for those who are wanting to test their websites and if you happen to be working in software development. However, Katalon Recorder is just as useful for people like you and me.
So in this example, what I'm going to do, I've got something here called ski search. I've created this label already.
Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to select this record button. Now, when I'm returned to this website, I'm going to select my options.
I'm looking for all-mountain skis, and I'm looking for skis with bindings. Yes, I want skis with bindings, and I'm looking for men's skis, so I'm going to select that choice there.
And then I'm also looking for skis somewhere in the 180 to 190 length. So now I'm brought back with something which is a lot more manageable.
I've got 138 results, and I can continue to make selections here if I want to. What I'm going to do is come up here and select stop.
So what Katalon Recorder has done is just recorded all of my actions and activity on this screen. If we refresh our screen and I clear all my filters, we're brought back to our original search results of 984.
Now what I can do is select Katalon Recorder, and with ski search selected, remember, this is what we just recorded, I'm going to select play test case.
Now what's going to happen is that Katalon is going to apply all of those filter settings, all of those options that I made here on the left-hand side. It's going to take a few seconds and apply it and will return to, hey, 138 results. These are exactly the types of results that I was looking for.
Now I can come back in the future, and all I have to do is select play. I don't have to manually come down here and select all these options here on the left-hand side.
Katalon Recorder settings and options
Now, if we come back up and open up Katalon Recorder, we can see exactly what Katalon recorded. Here are the different options that I selected.
So if you need to make some small adjustments, you can do so. Let's say, for example, I don't care if the skis come with or without bindings. What I can do is right-click on this option and say delete command.
Now, the next time I go to play this test case, it's going to ignore that but keep my previous selections as well. So a very powerful yet free tool for us to sift through our results.
Advanced search example
Let's take a look at another example. Here I am on the internet movie database site, and I'm on the advanced title search screen.
Now there's an awful lot of options here, and this is a place that I like to go to search and filter down as to what I would like to watch next. But there's an awful lot of selections here, and I can never save my choices here.
Well, that's exactly where Katalon Recorder comes into play. I've previously recorded a simple test case where I've made a number of different selections, including what year a movie has been released, the type of language it's in, and a number of other choices here.
So now all I have to do is come up here and select play test case, and Katalon Recorder will do everything else for me. It's going to make the selections that I saved about eight days ago, so I don't have to come in here and waste my time selecting and checking off all of these boxes, and this is exactly what I was looking for.
A feature film released before 1978 within the top 250 and is a silent film as well. So I've got exactly the search results that I'm after.
Websites where recording & playback is helpful
So consider all of the places where you spend far too much time repeating yourself and making the same selections. Maybe you're searching for a hotel or a flight or an upcoming vacation.
Katalon Recorder can be a great solution for that. How about if you're shopping, such as amazon.com, and we've got all of these options here on the left-hand side? You can record it once and then play it back as often as you need to.
Now, if you'd like to use Katalon Recorder within your browser, be sure to click the link in the description below. Katalon Recorder is available for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge browsers.
Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.
