Re: [Usability] Activating find with /

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Mon, 2005-11-28 at 22:29 +0100, Diego Moya wrote:
> On 23/11/05, BJ�Lindqvist <bjourne gmail com> wrote:
> > I'm a pesky emacs user and guess how many times I've been frustrated
> > that apps think Ctrl+S should be save instead of search? :) My point
> > is that options are bad because they have weird side-effects. What if
> > you tell the average user that you can use either '/' or Ctrl+F to
> > invoke find? Some will start using '/' to search because on English
> > keyboards it is one keypress less. Then they will be annoyed because
> > it only works in some apps and not in others because it is impossible
> > to make '/' as search a standard shortcut since it doesn't work when
> > editing text.
> 
> The solution, of course, is defining a standard behaviour that will
> solve all posible cases of interaction (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy ).
> 
> It�s a shame that this standard exists, but it has a patent on it.

Well, in this case, it's largely a discussion of what keys should
put you into text search mode.  We have Ctrl+F already, and the
question is merely whether / should be another hidden keybinding
for text search.

Raskin's leaping concept has two parts that are different from the
text search you'd find in most interfaces around five years ago.
First, it's incremental search.  And second, it requires you to
hold down the search key while you type.

The first point is what made Raskin pat himself on the back and
declare how revolutionary his ideas are.  If anything is patented,
it's the incremental search part.  Unfortunately for the current
patent holder, emacs has been doing incremental search since
approximately the beginning of time.

On the second point, requiring users to do key chording for more
than about two successive keystrokes is just, well, inhumane.

// Shaun