[Usability] Re: Standardizing Find and Replace - 2nd pass

[Michael Toomim <toomim ocf berkeley edu>]

Gregory Merchan wrote:
> I have a solution I like much more than my last one.
>
> One of the complaints about Find and Replace has been that getting rid
> of the window is harder than it could be. The Escape key is only supposed
> to get you out of a mode, it's not an all-purpose window closer.
> Yet Cancel isn't really appropriate. Once something is found, how could
> you possible cancel finding it?
>
> Well, you could stop looking. And that's the solution I have.

Stop doesn't feel right to me.  "Stop" feels like "computer, stop all 
that processing you're doing", not "I'm going to stop finding things 
now, please go away".  My first reaction when I see that stop button is 
that it's something the user should be pressing when the computer is 
taking too long to find the next match, and he/she doesn't want to wait 
for it any longer.

If there absolutely must be some sort of button to close the window, 
what was wrong with naming it close?

I'd vote for removing the "close window" button altogether.

> The options are not present for just "Find". It should proceed quickly
> enough as a wrapping, partial-word, case-insensitive match, that fiddling
> with the options would only slow down the user.

Just curious -- did you consider including a "previous" button?  It's 
useful for the instances where you pressed "find next" one too many 
times, and need to go back by a match.

> "Find and Replace" is more delicate because it changes the document,
> so options are allowed to fine-tune the operation. If there were no options
> here, then the user would have to frequently "Find Next" and carefully
> "Replace". Here, the options can make the operation faster.

*Applause*  Keeping the options in the find-and-replace dialog and 
removing them in the find dialog strikes me as like a great idea, for 
the reasons you listed.