How to Filter the AutoAO3App

The AutoAO3App was made by a fandom coder who wanted a more visually pleasing way to look at requests during exchanges. It has a few benefits over the traditional google sheets used by lots of exchanges, including the ability to bookmark prompts you’re interested in, and the ability to filter prompts, even if you don’t own the sheet. The tips below show you how to use this powerful tool.

Which Filters To Use

The most useful tab for finding specific requests (and Treatless!) is the All tab, but there are several filters available which simply won’t work for our exchange.

• since we use Dragon Age - All Media Types to sign-up filtering by Fandom won’t help.
• Characters only works if the Sign-Up sheet itself uses the Characters field; since our sign-up sheet uses the Relationships field this will not work for us.
• we do not allow Optional Tags during sign-up.
• we do not use Archive Warnings or Ratings during sign-up.

Filtering Relationships

If you’re looking to create for a specific character or ship or want to see what’s been requested for a specific character or ship this is the place to start. Using the Relationships field you can search for an entire tag (for example, Solas & Mythal), or for just an individual character (for example, Bull).

It’s important to note that by default the filter does NOT look for exact matches. In fact it uses an “and” to search. This means that entering Bull Hawke would pull up any tags where both The Iron Bull AND Hawke (Female Hawke, Male Hawke, Carver Hawke, Bethany Hawke, Leandra Hawke, etc) show up. To pull up an exact match for a character who shares first or last names with another character you need to enclose it in quotes (for example, “Male Hawke”).

Other search short cuts include:

• Using | (vertical line) for “or”. Tabris | Mahariel would provide a list of requests where either Tabris or Mahariel (of any gender) shows up in the ship.
• Using ! (exclamation) for “not”. Aeducan !Female would provide a list of requests with Male or Nonbinary Aeducans.
• Combining multiple options. Alistair Morrigan Amell | Cousland !Female would look for requests with Alistair and Morrigan and either an Amell or Cousland not containing the word Female (so Male or Nonbinary).

Filtering Prompts

The Prompts field is useful as a filter if you’re looking to write or draw a specific trope, kink, etc. For example, if you’re really in the mood to give someone a BDSM treat you can filter on BDSM. This field is more limited than the Relationships field as the “or” and “not” designations do not work. However, using quotes for an exact match on a phrase does work. This means you can filter for "coffee shop au" and find only that phrase rather than searching coffee shop au and getting results which have coffee and shop and au as separate searches.

Notice the filter without quotations returns more results than the filter with quotations.

Caution

Please be sure to read the prompts that are returned thoroughly. This filter can’t tell if the person has listed your search as a want or a DNW, it can only detect that the words are present in the request.

Filtering By Type (And Treatless)

In order to help with matching, our sign-ups use the Freeform field to designate whether fanart or fanfic are being requested. For your assigned recipient, you should look for the Fanfic or Fanart tags on their prompt which designates their desire for their main gift.

If you’re looking to complete treats of a specific type, you can search for participants who want those treats using the below tags:

• Treats - Fanart for Fanart treats.
• Treats - Fanfic for Fanfic treats.
• Treats - Other for alternative fanwork treats.

Tip

This field is not case sensitive, but it is limited to searching for only one tag at a time.

Caution

Be sure to use the full tags listed above for searching for treats to give. Entering just Treats will return every tag that has the word “treats” in it including No Treats Please, and searching for just “fanfic” or “fanart” could return requests which are only looking for those as a Main gift and not a treat.

In addition, you can tell if someone has received a treat, because the Mods will be adding a Treat Received tag on their prompts. That means you can find Treatless participants by searching for !"Treat Received" in this field.

You can read more about treats in the Treats & Treatless FAQ.

Searching For AO3 Users

On the far right of the screen there is a User Search tab which allows you to find a specific user’s prompt. You can use this to find an easier to read version of your assigned recipients’s requests or look for friends’ sign-ups. The search requires the exact username with punctuation, capital letters, etc, in order to work.

Simply enter the username in the search and hit go.

This will pull every request from the user and display them below.

Filtering The Tag set

AutoAo3 also loads the entire tag set for viewing into the app. You can see the entire list or filter by character on the Tag set tab to the right of the All tab. To view the tags included in our tag set, click on All Fandoms in All Categories → Dragon Age - All Media Types. This brings up the entire nominated tag list. You can then use the Filter Characters field to look for ships which have a specific character or scroll through to view the whole list.

Note

The Nominations Spreadsheet does remain up throughout the exchange, so you can always check it for tags as well.

Bookmarking Requests

You can use the app to bookmark fandoms (not very useful for this exchange) or specific requests you’re interested in fulfilling. The bookmarks are stored per browser. There are instructions for how to move your bookmarks across browsers if you need/want to under Show Backup Instructions. To bookmark something, simply click the heart next to the name.

Anything you bookmark is moved to the Bookmarks tab for you. To remove, simply click the heart again.