Re: [Evolution] Searching in the calendar.

[Nick Jenkins <nickpj gmail com>]

> I don't know if I'm missing something but when a search an event on
> the calendar, Evo shows no results. I have to manually scroll the
> months until I find the keyword I was looking for, meaning that if an
> event was 10 years ago I have to scroll 12x10 pages before I get to
> the search results.

Yes, I've run into this too, knowing that there was a matching
appointment in my calendar from many months ago, and having to scroll
through 6+ screens looking for the one visible/matching appointment that
matches the text I typed in the "search" box.

The basic usage scenario is outlined in
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=230449 - "calendar search
interface is less useful than it could be". The dialog box solutions
discussed in that bug from 2002 sounds a bit out-of-date now, but the
same search problem remains.

In terms of a more modern design, perhaps ideally there should be
"previous" and "next" buttons on either side of the "search" box, when
in the day/week/month calendar views, that would jump to the
previous/next match? Ideally, should probably also jump to first match
found on pressing the enter key.

> If you want a list view, pick it in the toolbar.

Ideally the user probably should not have to switch views in order to
search. (e.g. I set the views how they like them and then leave them
alone, and I suspect the majority of users do the same).

But, leaving that aside, I have just tested it, and the search in the
list view seems to have a bug, so that when searching it only finds
matches within the current month.

Steps to reproduce:
* Switch to calendar. (View -> Window -> Calendars)
* Switch to month view. (View -> Current View -> Month View)
* Add an appointment on 4-May-2010 called "RBA interest rate decision".
* Add another appointment on 1-June-2010 also called "RBA interest rate
decision".
* In the "summary contains" search box, type "RBA" and press enter.
* Scroll the calendar and observe that that 2 appointments added
previously match / are visible.
* Select a date in May (e.g. click on 6-May-2010, by going "Go To -> May
-> 2010 -> 6")
* Go View -> Current View -> List view.
* Observe that only one item appears in the list view, not two. The one
that appears is the one from 4-May-2010.

Above happens on Evo 2.28.1, with a local calendar.

The list-view only matching results in the current month is a known
problem, and is logged as
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=612602 - "After searching in
Calendar, 'List View' button does not work" ... although "'List View'
searches only work for appointments in current month" is possibly a
better summary.

As a result of the above 2 bugzilla entries, it appears that there is
currently no really satisfactory way to search the calendar over a wide
range of time (e.g. the 10 years of appointments I have in my calendar).
Searching over a single month or less of time is fine, but for a longer
timeframe Evo's calendar search currently does not scale.

-- All the best,
Nick.