Monitor only real data changes, ignore order change - Feature request

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1

Hi guys,

I really like using distill to monitor changes on websites (especially ecommerce websites).

On some of the websites which I monitor (I prefer monitoring the product listing pages, because I can see a lot of prices at the same time, for example all iphone prices) they frequently change the order of the products while no other changes happen on that page which results a lot of false alerts.

It would be great if you could add an option (maybe in advanced options or config) which ignores the order of the divs and notifies only when actual change (price update) happens. I see a lot of real life scenarios where this could be helpful for other distill users too.

Is that something which you can add in one of the next updates?

Thank you and really appreciate it,

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2

Hello @outwork, we do have plans to solve this issue in a more general way. We are thinking about two different approaches:

  1. Having a condition to help ignore all such changes where all additions and deletions cancel each other out. This should be simpler to implement.
  2. Or to have a way to sort the list so that things are always ordered. This can work if we can parse the items in the list into an array.

The ETA for this should be Q4 this year. Thanks for using Distill and sharing your feedback!

1 Like
3

Did this ever get released?

4

Thanks for following up @yonajon. This is planned to be added in Q3 this year. Cheers!

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5

Q3 is passed. I tried to search, but this feature is not added yet, right? @ajitk

6

It is under active development. :slight_smile: Do keep an eye on the changelog for an announcement.

7

I am checking weekly, but still not added. After waiting more than one and a half year can we expect this feature anytime soon or it is better to find an alternative?

8

any update on this?
have a site that retuns records in random order, sorting before comparision would solve this annoying issue.

10

two new conditions were added. check out https://distill.io/docs/web-monitor/using-conditions-to-get-alert-on-important-changes/ and look for net added text content and doesn't match any previous text condition type. these two are very powerful and can be used to silence most of the change notifications due to change is order or flip flopping content.