KDE Search Widget

[Ingo Klöcker]

On Saturday 22 January 2005 13:16, Benjamin Meyer wrote:
> On Saturday 22 January 2005 7:53 am, Ingo Klöcker wrote:
> > On Thursday 20 January 2005 22:44, Benjamin Meyer wrote:
> > The
> > problem is that currently the placement of the quick search in
> > KMail/JuK (directly above the message/song list) makes it
> > immediately clear to the user that the quick search influences the
> > list view. The quick search in Konqueror OTOH is something
> > fundamentally different because it doesn't influence the view.
> > Instead it initiates a search on the web.
>
> Well actually you can have it search the page by clicking on the
> Google button and selecteding "Find in this page".

Too bad I've immediately disabled this plugin or else I might have 
actually found this hidden feature. :-)

> > Another quick search is in KAddressBook. It's also a view filter.
> > It consists of a lineedit + a "where to search in" dropdown (which
> > is superfluous IMO) + a "Filter" dropdown (which makes it easy to
> > filter for categories and is very useful IMO). Hmm, in fact
> > KAddressBook doesn't even seem to have an advanced search dialog. I
> > guess that's why there's this "where to search in" dropdown.
>
> Yah KAddressBook is an interesting case.  Its search goes the entire
> length of the application and looks *very* similar to a toolbar (and
> frustrated me to no end when I first tried to hide/move it), but
> really doesn't go with the list, but all the widgets.  Would this be
> a case where it should be in the toolbar because it modifies the
> entire window?

I think with regard to Kontact that it looks better where it currently 
is.

> > > The key idea is that it is a quick search.  It should always be
> > > present, easy to use and take up little to no room on the screen.
> > >  If I was able to figure out how to get the Clear button inside
> > > the line edit I would advocate that, as it is simpler.
> >
> > Can you post a screenshot of this? I can't imagine how a clear
> > button inside a combobox lineedit with an icon on the left can be
> > anything but confusing.
>
> It was actually my wife (who has a iBook) who pointed this one out to
> me on her laptop a simpler way.
>
> Empty search widget:
> http://developer.apple.com/macosx/tiger/images/saved-search.jpg
> Search widget with text in it and clear button:
> http://images.apple.com/ilife/iphoto/images/organizesearch20051011.jpg

Those lineedits are no combobox lineedits. I wondered how the clear 
button would look like in those (in which there's already the dropdown 
arrow on the right).

> At first I thought it was bad design to have the button show/hide
> like that, but after playing with it for ten minutes I was most
> impressed with the design.  It was clean and intuitive.  When the box
> was empty I don't need to clear it so why present that option to the
> user?.

Sure. If just the lineedit is cleared by the button. But in KMail the 
Clear button resets the whole quick search. Therefore it can't be 
placed inside the lineedit. And even if we'd use a combined 
dropdown-lineedit it would be confusing (IMO) if clicking on the clear 
button would not only clear the text in the lineedit but also reset the 
dropdown.

> Taking small steps would anyone object if I only added the search
> icon to KListViewSearchLineWidget and KIconViewSearchLineWidget?

At least I don't object.

Regards,
Ingo
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-core-devel/attachments/20050123/60e71e34/attachment.sig>