Re: Auto completion patch for search in GtkTreeView

[Jaap Haitsma <jaap haitsma org>]

Gustavo J. A. M. Carneiro wrote:
> On Sun, 2005-04-03 at 13:40 +0200, Jaap Haitsma wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > The find as you type search functionality in the GtkTreeView which came 
> > in GTK 2.6 is really cool in my opinion, because it saves a lot of 
> > typing or scrolling.
> >
> > When I was editing nautilus with gedit I noticed I still had to type a 
> > lot because a lot of files have the following format nautilus-<some 
> > name>.[ch]
> >
> > I implemented a patch such that you need even less typing. If there are 
> > no other viable options for the characters you typed it will try to 
> > complete the text as far as possible. E.g. if you have a directory which 
> > contains a lot of files with start with nautilus- the search entry will 
> > complete automatically to nautilus- as soon as you type an n and if ther 
> > e are no other files which start with an n.
>
>
>   IMHO, it would be much more useful if typeahead search was always
> based on substring match, like the way mozilla searches in web
> pages/links.  This would more useful because sometimes you want a file,
> but you have no idea how it starts, and you only know a word in the
> middle.
I like that idea but I think it could be very confusing. Because you 
first have to select an item in the tree before search as you type 
becomes active.

Imagine you have the following tree

Metal Shield
......
......
......
......
Shield

.... are just other words

You first select metal shield in order to select the appropriate column 
for searching. Then you want to select Shield. So you start typing 
Shield but nothing seems to happen. Metal Shield remains selected.

Somehow there should be a visual cue that it's actually only the word 
Shield of Metal Shield is found otherwise this behavior will really 
confuse the user



Jaap