SoK idea: Improve krunner result displaying and navigation.

[Luiz Romário Santana Rios]

2011/4/29 Aaron J. Seigo <aseigo at kde.org>

> On Friday, April 29, 2011 00:21:11 Luiz Romário Santana Rios wrote:
> > 2011/4/28 Aaron J. Seigo <aseigo at kde.org>
> >
> > > On Thursday, April 28, 2011 09:15:08 Luiz Romário Santana Rios wrote:
> > > > Currently, when we type something in, krunner displays the results
> > > > as it finds it, without giving a feedback of whether it is
> > > > searching or just didn't find anything.
> > >
> > > that would be a nice addition.
> > >
> > > > It also does not separate the results into its different categories
> > >
> > > that's because they are organized by relevance. if they are sorted into
> > > categories, and if there are 4 categories that match and 5 items in
> each
> > > category then the best match from the 4th category will be the 16th
> item
> > > in the list(!) even though it is more likely to be what the user wants
> > > than most
> > > of the items above it.
> > >
> > > i have yet to see a solution for this problem, but am open to such a
> > > solution
> > > being offered.
> >
> > Well, I thought about showing only the most relevant results for each
> > category and priorizing the category with the most relevant results. If a
>
> which is almost always going to be the nepomuk search ;)
>
> > user want to see more results for that category, they would just need to
> > expand it. I'll do some mockups for that and will post here.
>
> sounds good; mockups always help.
>

Here's one:
http://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_V8ZPvFyTxNc/Tbty2kU7CII/AAAAAAAAARs/v_Ut1J8P4DQ/01%20-%20Expand%20and%20Shrink%20less%20relevant%20results.png

It's bad, I know, I suck at making mockups, but it gives part of the idea of
what I mean. Notice that I show two different ways of expanding the results
in it. I think the button is better, but it takes too much space, so I'm not
sure. Anyway, it will show more results for that category and hide the other
ones.

I'll be doing some more mockups, but do you know of some tool to make this
easier?


>
> another thing that might work nicely is to show the favourite items
> launched
> by default so one doesn't even need to search to launch frequently used
> items.
>

Yes, of course.


>
> > > > and shows some irrelevant results.
> > >
> > > by definition, that is not possible. the results are precisely what the
> > > runners say match. if the results are not relevant, the runner at fault
> > > should
> > > be improved.
> >
> > Well, yes, but sometimes I'm looking for a file and a ton of Nepomuk
> stuff
> > get in the way, for example. That may a problem with the runner, though.
> >
> > But what I mean is that, sometimes, the exact match is not the most
> relevant
> > result.
>
> then the Nepomuk runner needs tweaking in how it rates results.
>

So this is the first thing we should do, I guess.


>
> > > > My idea is to give the user a better feedback of what's happening,
> > >
> > > telling
> > >
> > > > them that krunner is searching or that it didn't find anything about
> > >
> > > those
> > >
> > > > terms.
> > >
> > > would be nice, yes :)
> >
> > I think krunner should, first, just execute the command by default, just
> > showing the textbox, and, then, if the user waits a few seconds, all the
> > runner results would start to show up.
>
> what would be the benefit of that?
>

I didn't explain it quite well, my bad.

What I meant was that I think it's better to wait one or two seconds after
the user stops typing so that krunner doesn't start querying with an
incomplete string. I also think it would give focus to the main result, if
there's one, but I may be wrong.


>
>
> > Also, if the user just stands in the
> > front of krunner doing nothing, it would be nice to popup a "Type a
> command
> > or a keyword" text.
>
> that could be nice, yes.
>
> > > > which one of these will contain the default action.
> > > >
> > > > I also intend to make it possible for the user to navigate through
> > > > the
> > > > results using the arrow keys, instead of tabbing,
> > >
> > > you already can. :) as long as the user has not been using the arrow
> > > keys
> > > to
> > > back into the history, then you can just hit the down arrow to start
> > > going through the entries.
> >
> > Doesn't work for me. Is this in 4.6 or "trunk"?
>
> 4.6 and master, both.
>

Weird. Should it work if I just type in something and then press the down
arrow?

Well, I will stop and think over this project and get back with better
summarized idead and more mockups tomorrow.

Cheers.


>
> --
> Aaron J. Seigo
> humru othro a kohnu se
> GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43
>
> KDE core developer sponsored by Qt Development Frameworks
>
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>
-- 
Luiz Romário Santana Rios
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