Re: [Usability] Some usability feedback

[Maurizio Colucci <seguso forever tin it>]

Kalle Vahlman wrote:

> For showing the results, hiding the non-matching items sounds like a
> bad idea. If I type 'abd' when I really mean 'abc', it would hide the
> real target. But the worst thing is that it looks like the items are
> disappearing, possibly without any indication why this is happening or
> a obvious way to cancel the process.
>  
I must say I am not that convinced. Suppose the quick-search box is 
always visible, and that it _blinks_ very apparently when not empty. 
Then it seems to me that both problems you raised are solved: 1. the 
user could fail to notice he typed `abd' instead of `abc', and 2. he 
would never be puzzled why some files have disappeared, because he is 
constantly reminded the files are being narrowed.

> Instead, the view could be altered so that the items having exact
> match could be at 100% opacity, items having partial match at 66% and
> the rest at 33%. 
But, most of the time a search matches very few items. Most items would 
be greyed out, and it would be difficult to locate the important ones. 
The user would need to scroll a lot, or you would have to supply "goto 
next" button, which would complicate things. And for what?

> Also, since we are categorizing the items, they
> should be also ordered by relevance. This would have the following
> benefits:
>
> - visual feedback of the matches
> - no files are lost from the view
> - sequental matches would show up
> - typing errors have less effect on the results
>  
I'm afraid I don't follow you here :)

(I also don't get why you think that who needs a recursive search, and 
is using spatial mode, should not be able to have the search folder 
entered automatically in gnome-search-tool.)

Cheers,
Maurizio