Re: [Evolution] Search boxes and UI meddling

[Andrew Montalenti <ajm pixelmonkey org>]

Hi,

On Fri, 2007-02-09 at 12:45 -0400, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> Totally agree. I'm nervous every time I search. Should I use the Search
> menu, or the Search box? Do they do the same thing or not? What about
> Advanced Search? Is it going to make me give a name to save the search
> or can I use it just once? etc. etc.

Even more interesting is that I'm experiencing a bug since I upgraded.
If I do use a saved search from Search -> 1. My Saved Search, it doesn't
actually get applied unless I go into the search box, press "enter" so
that the Advanced Search dialog comes up with my saved search, and then
press OK.  How annoying.  Will file a bug about this when I get a
moment, don't know if it has to do with some stale state in
my .evolution folder.

> The whole thing needs to be rethought IMHO.

I think the whole thing needs to be REALLY rethought.

Evo's mailer has some real design innovations, but at the core of an
e-mail application is search.  E-mail applications need to have two main
use cases in mind:

1. Receiving and reading NEW mail (which Evo does decently well, but
still not optimally)
2. Searching OLD mail (which Evo used to do exceptionally well, but now
does abysmally)

I want a mailer with great search capabilities, so I can track down that
JetBlue receipt for a flight I booked three months ago, or find an
e-mail my friend sent me 6 months ago but that I never got around to
replying to.

I would also really push for some standard query language capabilities
in Evo.  I'd like to be able to type "unread messages containing
'Andrew'" in a search box (with shortcuts, like "unread contain
'Andrew'"), rather than having to create a search called "Unread",
creating the "message is unread" condition, and then filtering those
based on "message contains 'Andrew'".  Sometimes, a GUI isn't the most
usable UI.

Evo also needs to get more keyboard friendly.  What happened to our UNIX
roots?

> BTW, I didn't even realize the little magnifying glass was clickable!
> Its location makes it functionally invisible and it lacks what the CHI
> people call "affordance".

Evo gets affordance better than most other applications for most things.
But this search box redesign definitely ruins affordance, as you say.

I know Evo's designers/hackers don't like to see themselves in
competition with Gmail, but... we really need to start looking at what
works.

Andrew

> On Fri, 2007-02-09 at 10:54 -0500, Andrew Montalenti wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I've been an Evolution user for a long time.  The main reason I use
> > Evolution is for its search/indexing features, since I have huge mail
> > boxes and like to be able to search through them quickly.
> >
> > In recent versions of Evolution (I guess beyond 2.7, I'm using 2.8.1)
> > the Search Box at the top of the message view was "redesigned".  I think
> > this redesign was actually a step backward, and would like to know if
> > other people have raised this concern.
> >
> > Aside from the silliness that the box is just too small, I don't
> > understand why it seems to make sense to have a click on the tiny icon
> > of a magnifying glass change in what part of a message you are
> > searching, and to click a paint brush to clear the message (you may tell
> > me that's a broom, but at that size, it's a paint brush).  When I am
> > searching within a message, I don't even know I am because the gray text
> > for "Message contains" only appears when my search query is empty.
> > Considering these searches are "sticky" to the folder I'm in, I may very
> > well return back to a folder I previously searched for "dinner" and not
> > know whether I search the subject/sender or the message itself, unless I
> > click that silly magnifying glass again.
> >
> > I also don't get why the "Show" pull down exists.  I think it would make
> > more sense if that Show pull down showed _your_ saved searches, rather
> > than some hard coded ones some other developer thought I'd find useful.
> > I don't even use labels (and why should I, Evolution doesn't even let me
> > customize them), but even so in the "Show" menu I have not one but six
> > options related to labels.  Likewise, I don't use Evolution's built-in
> > Junk mail filtering (I use spam assassin externally since for some
> > reason it's much faster that way), and have another wasted option there
> > for "Messages Not Junk".  Less than half the options are therefore even
> > usable by me, but I can't get rid of them and what's even more
> > frustrating is that any of them could be emulated by a Saved Search,
> > which _don't_ show up there.
> >
> > Does anyone else agree with me as to the silliness of these UI
> > redesigns?  I hate to be a whiner and if I had more than a few moments
> > I'd scratch the itches myself, but I really would like to know what
> > inspired these steps backward, and see if there is any agreement about
> > undoing them.
> >
> > Andrew
> >
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>
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