[Digikam-devel] Search UI

[Marcel Wiesweg]

Hi all,

in 0.10, we have now a working search backend, now it's time to look at the 
frontend.
Currently we have the Advanced Search Dialog. This allows to construct a list 
of search criteria, linked with AND or Or and possibly grouped (one level 
deep as far as I see). There are 11 different search fields (album name, 
rating, tag etc.)
For 0.10, the database stores much more information. We can easily come to 
more than 40 possible search fields. Some of these fields can be useful to 
the user - if he knows about their existence.

So with the current interface we have these advantages:
- flexibility creating the search rules
- good overview

and these problems:
- discoverability: imagine a combo box with 45 entries.
- usability: at first use, interface may need learning

My thoughts currently go into these directions:
- present all useful search options at one glance, in the style of web search 
engines' advanced search page
For standard users, this gives a well-known kind of interface, shows the 
options that we offer.
- for advanced users, there must be all possibilities of constructing complex 
queries: allow to combine several such groups of search options (even 
building subgroups?)

There are no screenshots yet (and not much code).
I would like to know how much you like the