Re: [Usability] Standardizing Find and Replace windows

[Calum Benson <calum benson sun com>]

On Fri, 2003-07-04 at 01:25, Gregory Merchan wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 03, 2003 at 12:17:08PM +0100, Calum Benson wrote:

> > I don't know if that was a typo or not[1], but a modeless Find window is
> > much more useful than a modal dialog... it's hugely irritating to find
> > something and then not be able to overtype it without closing the Find
> > window first :)
> 
> I disagree.

You disagree that a modeless find dialog is more useful, or that that I
find modal find dialogs really irritating ? :)

When you analyse it though you're right: in the specific example I
cited, provided you use keyboard shortcuts, you don't have to any more
work with a modal Find window than you do with a modeless one. 
Assuming, that is, that after closing the Find window and overtyping,
you can open it again and immediately be in the same state you were in
had the Find window never disappeared in the first place.  

If you're the sort of user who chooses Edit->Find from the menu every
time, though, there's more of an interaction penalty associated with a
Find window that you can't just leave open all the time.  There's also
the penalty of an extra click (the one to close the Find window) if
you're using Find to locate and edit text in the vicinity of the term
you searched for, rather than the term itself.  That's obviously more of
an edge case so it doesn't make sense to optimise for it, but it doesn't
change the fact that I just find modal Find windows inherently
irritating :)

> > [1] I presume it probably was since you mentioned the not unreasonable
> > possibility of being able to dock it as a toolbar, and a modal toolbar
> > would be kind of unusual :)
> 
> Not really. Gnumeric has one: it's input bar. Nautilus has one: if the
> location bar is normally hidden, then Ctrl+L will show it and going on to
> a path will hide it. 

Hmm, I would dispute that the Nautilus location bar is modal : it's just
a toolbar that happens to go away the next time you focus it and press
Enter, which any modal or modeless window is equally capable of doing. 
The clincher for me is that interaction with all other parts of the
system remains completely unchanged while the 'mode' is active, which to
my mind means it's not a mode at all :)

(I've never used Gnumeric though so I can't comment on that one.)

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson sun com            GNOME Desktop Group
http://ie.sun.com                      +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems