Re: RFC: On-line Content Filtering of directories

[Diego Gonzalez <diego pemas net>]

> My main concern is trying to limit the amount of overlapping features,
> so that each addition of a feature adds something important over the
> existing ones. Each overlapping feature increase complexity, make the UI
> harder to understand/more crowded and increase maintenance costs. 

I think that glob matching can be included in the filtering bar, and remove that feature, as Maciej 
suggest. This way advanced users can use glob matching and common users would just use the
common filtering mechanism.

> What are the ways we can make this more obvious to the user?
> Here are some ideas:
> * Have a remove button in the filtering bar, similar to the one firefox
> has in its search bar.

  Ok, will do this, it's very easy

> * Perhaps make it more obvious that the filter is on the name, by having
> "name" somewhere on the filter bar. (Do we want to filter on other
> fields too btw? say type, or owner)

I will look into some wording to put into the filtering bar, I can extend the filter to other fields if we
think it is useful, but i think that most people would want to filter by name, also including other fields
will involve placing a combo-box or something similar on the filter bar, this will make the UI more crowded
and may be difficult for newbies.

> * Sometimes you might not see the whole window, or just not look at the
> bottom. Maybe we could figure out some other (additional) way to say
> that this is a filtered view that is visible in the whole window, or at
> least in more places. Maybe we can use colors? background color? some
> sort of border around the view? different window title?

I can change the title of the window to explicitely indicate that it is a filtered view.

> * The status bar should perhaps say something like "3 items (of 28)" to
> make it obvious the count is of the filtered items

Ok

> Also: 
> * Need a mnemonic on the filter label
> * I think ctrl-g might be more useful for "next typeahead match" than
> for filtering. We should pick a different accelerator.

Agreed, i will try to look for a mnemonic and accelerator.

> Some behavioural questions:
> * What happens with your selection when you filter? Say you have
> something selected, and then you filter so that item is not visible,
> then you delete. Is the file deleted?

No. That would be crazy, I think.

> * Same with selection changes when filtering. Is select by
> pattern/select all limited by the filter?


> * What happens if you create a new folder/templated file or copy a file
> into a filtered view. If we do nothing, the new (say "untitled folder")
> file won't be visible until you remove the filter (not letting you
> rename the folder), which is sort of strange. Another perhaps surprising
> behaviour (or perhaps not) is when you rename a file and it disappears
> (because it was filtered out).

Ok, right now nothing happends the signal is emitted and the file added/deleted is filtered using the
filter, if it matched the file automagically appears on the view, if not it doesn't show. 

I agree that this behaviour needs to be changed Maciej suggested to cancel the filter, I think that would 
be good enough.

> * How does filtering work in manual arrangement mode. Do we keep the
> positions, leading to lots of empty space? I guess one could say you
> just shouldn't use this mode with filtering. But it leads to the
> question, do we allow filtering on the desktop?

I just tried filtering on the desktop, that was something that i did not want to do, I think that
we must not enable filtering on the desktop. As for manual arranged folders we could just 
disable the filtering on those or switching to automatic layout as Maciej said.


> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>  Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
>                    alexl redhat com    alla lysator liu se 
> He's a benighted dishevelled werewolf possessed of the uncanny powers of an 
> insect. She's a violent tempestuous bodyguard from out of town. They fight 
> crime!