[Shotwell] [Discussion] How the escape key should behave in the search entry?

[Abel <akronix5 gmail com>]

I started the conversation in bugzilla (see bug here), but as Jens has pointed out, It's better placed here.

So, I re-write it here:

akronix5 2017-03-05 19:56:05 UTC

Hello.

I've been playing around some things of the UI and I don't find very consistent the behaviour of the ESC key in the search entry.

Currently, if you press Esc key in the search entry it clears it. In the code (SearchFilter.vala:702) it says that this is a behaviour asked in ticket #3124. I haven't been able to find that ticket (is it in bugzilla or..?), but I'd like to re-discuss that.

In any web browser, I'm used to open the Search bar with Ctrl^F, I write something and when I'm done with the search, I close the search bar with Esc.
If I make any mistake typing, I can clear the search box very quickly by using Ctrl^A + Backspace or Ctrl + Backspace.
If I open again the search bar through Ctrl^F I see the last search already written.

To be consistent with web browsers and for better user experience:
1) Do the behaviour I explained above. It'd just imply change the current behaviour of Escape key to hide the search bar and save the content of the search entry for next time it shows.
2) Hide the Search Bar if search entry is empty. It'd allow to close the search bar in two hits of ESC.

PS: Currently Shotwell doesn't open Search bar by hitting Ctrl + F, but I've already written a patch to do it. I hope it's in soon.

Comment 1Jens Georg 2017-03-05 20:06:14 UTC

This would have been more fitting for the mailinglist it has a broader audience.

But the thing is changing behavior in something that's now rather "old" will break a lot of other people's workflows. I'm not really convinced that this is a good idea.

The bug number is from one of yorba's old bug trackers. You probably won't find it anymore.

ctrl-f should work since 0.25.3:

commit a9e4ef6df60822cf2feb8eb621f81d82504e4806
Author: Jens Georg <mail jensge org>
Date:   Thu Dec 22 13:23:30 2016 +0100

    Add <Ctrl>-f as shortcut for search bar
    
    As mentioned in the documentation
    
    Signed-off-by: Jens Georg <mail jensge org>

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Regards,

                                                       Abel.