[KPhotoAlbum] Idea for quick search feature

[Shawn Willden]

On Thursday 26 April 2007 12:12:03 am Martin Hoeller wrote:
> My idea for this is the following: come up with one syntax that supports
> all requirements, so every frontend can use it. Then make any UI (or better
> a layer below it) transform the user input to the complex query by just
> adding the "AND"s, "OR"s, "{" and "}" and the like. This way the complexity
> is hidden by the user but may still be enabled by a special checkbox or a
> setting.
>
> What do you think?

I like the idea in principle, with one reservation:  The user-visible syntax 
has to be sufficiently expressive to cover all of the cases the UI implments.  
I'm afraid that may still leave us with a moderately complex syntax.

One area where your idea may be helpful is in allowing the search bar to 
implicitly search tags for prefix matches, while allowing the underlying 
syntax to be more general.  If we were to use some regular expression syntax 
in tag specifiers, then:

	person:ma

in the search bar would be transformed to:

	person:^ma.*

underneath.

	Shawn.