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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Search dialog vs. search bar
From:       Luciano Montanaro <mikelima () cirulla ! net>
Date:       2005-02-16 9:05:19
Message-ID: 200502161005.20109.mikelima () cirulla ! net
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El Martes 15 Febrero 2005 19:51, Jason Keirstead escribió:
> On Tuesday 15 February 2005 2:33 pm, Luciano Montanaro wrote:
> > Now I have fould out that Firefox too has this functionality, and does
> > indeed work this way. The toolbar also has some additional fields, just
> > like a linearized search dialog.
>
> The search bar in Firefox has a number of large, glaring problems.
>
> - It is at the bottom of the screen rather than the top. This is not so
> bad, once you are usaed to it. but if this is the first time you have
> ever searched in this browser, and you are expecting CTRL+F or Edit->Find
> to bring up a search dialog, it is a *bad* place for it to be. The first
> time the introduced this new behaviour, it took me probably 2 minutes to
> figure out what was going on (I did not see the box at all ).

This may be a problem at first...
I'm so used to look at the bottom of the screen in my shell that it's not 
really a problem for me. However:
- People are adaptable, and this can be learned. How much did it take to get   
  used to that? After the first period of puzzlement, did you manage to use 
  it?
- It does not have to be at the bottom. I think it's more practical to have 
  it there anyway, since then, there is no need to make space for the bar at 
  the top of the window, but experimenting with alternative placements can
  be done.
- Currently the quicksearch is even less discoverable. So, the search bar 
  would be useful at least to improve it alone. But then, I would rather use 
  the same interface to searching everywhere.  

>
> This is mistake is compounded by the fact that the bottom portion of your
> browser window is quite often not even on the screen, so you hit CTRL+F,
> only to find you then need to grab the whole window with your mouse and
> move it to see the bar (assuming you even know the bar is there!)

I don't find the bottom of my window are often off the screen, that happens 
to me rarely, actually. But once you start typing your search, the first 
matching word begin being highlited, so you have a feedback anyway. 
Incremental search should be used as often as possible, I think it makes 
sense from the user perspective, and as long as the search does not block 
for too much time, there are no problems from the programmer's perspective.

>
> - It does not automatically remve itself after you are done searching.
> Now, I realize that it is hard to know *when* you are done searching with
> this setup (with a dialog, you just tab to 'Close'), but IMO this is
> another serious flaw. Basically, you can't get rid of this dialog easily
> once you are done with the search, you need to *again* grab the mouse and
> click the X. Either that or hit TAB a million times to reach the close
> button (because you are searching, so the text focus is currently inside
> the browser window)

This is not really a problem: it has been solved for example in vim.
I think you can suppose the user is never "done searching". 
The user types a "return" to close the dialog, and further searches are done 
with "find next" or "find previous" actions.

>
> - Because the search is no longer a modal dialog, other modal dialogs
> coming from the browser will **actually inturrupt the search**
>

I don't follow you here. Can you give me an example?

> - No way to search backwards without, once *again*, moving your hand to
> the mouse.

Uh? A "Find backwards" shortcut and menu entry can be provided. For example 
"Shift+F3"

>
> Now, I am not toally against the idea of asearch bar - I really love the
> one in KMail. but I don't think that the one in Firefox should be used as
> an example. It is probably the worst search tool I have ever used in my
> whole life.

Yes it is useful. But it is a different concept from the one I'm thinking 
about here. KMail problem is that it shows the message list and the 
messaghe body in the same window, so a choice has to be made on what has to 
be searched.

With a different interface the same interface could be used.

The main window, for example, could show only the message list at startup.
By selecting a message, the list pane could be switched with a message 
reader part, or maybe a new tab could be opened with the message content.

I'd like to experiment on the "easy" konqueror/kpdf/kate case first, 
however, before digging in complicated kmail/knode cases.

Luciano

-- 
Luciano Montanaro 

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a yo-yo
                                                          - Enoch Root
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