Re: [Usability] Find bar variants

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Wed, 2005-02-16 at 16:27 +0000, Alan Horkan wrote:
> On Wed, 16 Feb 2005, Christian Persch wrote:
> > there are now at least 3 GNOME applications which employ a firefox-style
> > find bar. However, every one is doing is differently, as demonstrated in
> > this screenshot [http://www.gnome.org/~chpe/find-bars.png]:

[snip]

> > Epiphany uses Evince's EggFindBar widget with modifications; Yelp has
> > its own implementation.
> >
> > IMHO, all find bars in GNOME should look and behave the same way.
> 
> I agree, and I'll make some quick points but I'm going to address a
> different issue first.
> 
> Find in page is not very useful compared to fully searchable help files
> like Microsoft Windows provides.  I do not use the help files very often
> but I find the lack of this functionality extremely annoying.  Find in
> page is particularly useless because most of the documentation pages I've
> used have been exteremely short.
> I can understand browsers wanting to have a compact unobtrusive search
> tool but it doesn't make sense to be discrete about it in a Help Browser.
> Ideally Yelp would be fully searchable and have a prominant search bar
> near the top.
> Yelp has a much larger problem to fix.
> 
> I wouldn't normally be so critical of Yelp but with the discovery of
> GnoCHM (terrible name but useful software) I am extremely tempted to
> convert a load of Help files into CHM format so that they will be easily
> searchable.
> http://gnochm.sourceforge.net/

Find in page is useful whether or not you have full search.  What would
be even more useful is the snazzy highlighting Firefox does with search
terms.  Then make Yelp automatically highlight the search terms on pages
you get to from a full text search, and you've got one ass-kicking app.

And these "waaaaah, yelp needs full text search" rants on mailing lists
are getting tiresome.  I know it does, you know it does, and everybody
else knows it does.  People need to put their money where their mouth
is.

By royal decree, I hereby forbid anybody from ever speaking about full
text search in Yelp again, unless the conversation begins with "I have
a patch to implement full text search in Yelp."

> > So:
> > - Should they have a Close button ?
> 
> The programs identified all have a Status bar and should all have a View
> menu where such toolbars could be enabled and disabled.  From using the
> Find toolbar in Firefox though I expect these toolbars have the same
> unusual interaction model and aren't necessarily implemented as standard
> toolbars.  Do these applications provide this instead of a Find Dialog?
> The find bar in Firefox baffled me and was so unobtrusive I was left
> wondering why the search dialog had not appeared.
> 
> If they insist on having a close button it should definately be on the
> extreme right in keeping with what the most popular window managers do.

I was mostly copying Firefox on this one.  I don't see any compelling
reason not to have a Close button.  In fact, how would one get rid of
the thing without a Close button?

> > - Should they span the whole width of the window, or exclude sidebar
> > areas?
> 
> I'd tentatively say they should span the whole width like a proper
> toolbar.

I don't think this is something we can mandate.  The sidebar in Yelp
is a wholly different beast than the sidebar in Epiphany.  They serve
entirely different purposes.

> > - Next, Prev of Prev, Next button order?
> 
> In terms of convenience I'd expect to want to search forward using Next
> more than 90 % of the time so it could be considered ergonomically better
> having the Next button nearer the text entry.  I wouldn't rate the
> importance of ergonomics very highly in this though, hitting return in the
> text box should activate search next anyway.
> 
> So I'd say it makes more sense to go with the logical button order of
> Previous then Next which is what is used everywhere else.

I went with Next first for the reasons you give.  But I do think it
looks a little silly, so I'd be perfectly willing to swap them.

> > - Is case sensitivity common enough to warrant a checkbox in the find
> > bar?
> 
> It is not something I'd ever use, particularly not in the examples
> provided.

Agreed.

> > - Should Enter activate Next, or some other action (for example,
> > activate the link if the text searched for occurs in a web page link)?
> 
> Yes.
> 
> Also Yelp should have used stock icons but it looks as though Yelp was
> smart enough to use toolbar items on a toolbar instead of a row of
> buttons which is really freakin' ugly.

We don't have Find Next and Find Previous stock icons.  Evince and
Epiphany are abusing the stock icons.  Give me icons and I'll use them.

> Using F_ind is in breach of the Gnome Human interface Guidelines, as there
> is a recommendation against putting mnemoncis on narrow letters like 'i'
> 'j' or 'l'.
> 
> I would have avoided the problem entirely by using the term Search for
> this label.

I didn't bother giving it a mnemonic at all, because Ctrl+F will focus
and select that field anyway.  I considered it redundant.

--
Shaun