[KPhotoAlbum] UI-Glitch?

[Andreas Schleth]

Hi Johannes,

I had to try the search box in thumbnail view *for the first time ever*
to be able to answer.

It seems to do a global string search across all labels and category
entries to filter the thumbnails on the fly.
OK if I ever wanted to find my image file P1240312.jpg this might be a
use case for me, but who looks at the filenames anyway (as long as they
are reasonably unique).

I use the search box in many other cases (when sifting through
categories or so) but then I always know which data pool I am fishing in.

So my preference would be #3:
- when in thumbnail view: focus on the thumbnails,
- when in other views: focus on the search box.

This might be inconsistent from the view of the programmer, but I guess
it is much more natural for the user.

If you look at the different views and what do we do there, we come up
with three different animals:
* For each category we have a list: mouse click on the icon in main
window - mouse click on item (short list) or keyboard input into search
box and then a mouse click - view closes by itself (good).
* Then we have the two special items Exif and Search (and the Geo
Position which in my case hangs indefinitely (but I also do not use it))
- there we get a new UI (also OK)
* Finally we have the thumbnail view. This is where we spend most of the
time scrolling, selecting and whatever.

Sometimes I do my selection with the Search Dialog (using combination of
items, sometimes with negation) or a few selections via the category
lists. After that "view thumbnails" - and then crtl-a & do something
with the whole selection
Or, I think this is my most important use case: I have a set of new
images and tag them with tokens (A-Z) in full screen mode or in
thumbnail view. Then I select this token, switch to thumbnail view and
do crtl-a, crtl-2 and start tagging all these tagged images together.

Are there other opinions on this?

Best regards, Andreas



Am 01.02.21 um 23:50 schrieb Johannes Zarl-Zierl:
> Hi Andreas,
>
>
>> When switching to thumbnail view, my finger memory tells me, that I
>> should be able to immediately hit crtl-a (to select all).
>>
>> But nowadays, I first have to click with the mouse somewhere into the
>> thumbnails and only then I am able to use the shortcut.
>>
>> I guess this is not intentional or is it?
> No, not really intentional. It is a direct result of the new freeform search
> feature: the search bar now gets focus because it's no longer disabled in the
> thumbnail view.
>
> Before I implement a fix I'd like some input from you all, though. What's the
> best overall user experience?
>
> 1. Status Quo
> The search bar always has focus. Thumbnail page needs explicit focus. Other
> browser pages (overview page, category page) behave as before.
>
> 2. Search bar without focus
> The search bar does not get focus when a page is activated. Thumbnail page
> behaves as before. Other browser pages (and thumbnail page) need click on
> search bar to activate.
>
> 3. Compromise / inconsistent behaviour
> Thumbnail page behaves as before; search bar needs click to focus. Other pages
> behave as before; search bar gets focus when page is activated.
>
> For variants 2 and 3 I would probably bind "/" to activating the search bar
> (Ctrl+F is already bound to the search dialog).
>
> Actually, now that I think about it, maybe this lends to variant 4:
>
> 4. Remove search bar
> Remove the search bar and provide a search pop-up as found in most browsers.
> The pop-up could be triggered by pressing "/".
>
> If I missed the optimal solution, I'm of course open to other suggestions as
> well ;-)
>
> Cheers,
>    Johannes
>
>
>
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