Re: [Usability] search is not easy to find aka "a few minutes with gnome virgins"

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Sun, 11 Jun 2006, Michael Gilbert wrote:

> Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 17:26:15 -0400
> From: Michael Gilbert <michael s gilbert gmail com>
> To: Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt myrealbox com>
> Cc: Gnome usability <usability gnome org>, 371882 bugs debian org
> Subject: Re: [Usability] search is not easy to find aka "a few minutes
>     with gnome virgins"
>
> hello Matthew, thank you for looking further into these issues.
>
> On 6/9/06, Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt myrealbox com> wrote:
> > Hardly surprising: a file search definitely isn't a "place". It's not
> > an application either, but at least "Applications" looks vaguely like a
> > Start menu.
>
> the best solution is probably an item called something like "File
> Finder" placed in either "Applications" or "Applications -> System
> Tools."  my gut tells me system tools is better, but that menu is
> already quite cluttered.
>
> > The default should be to  search everything you can access, just like in
> > Web search engines,
>
> agreed.

I would agree too but the problem with that is how horribly slow a full
search would be on most systems.  The tool was designed with the intention
of search for user files (documents) which the developers would have
expected to find in the users home folder, if perhaps the search checked
$HOME first and then the rest of the system it might provide be a good
balance.

If I understand the original message correctly the underlying task you
want to achieve is "searching for available programs" and specifically to
do that using the existing find tool so that even programs which have not
been correctly listed in the menus could also be discovered.  So perhaps
the tool could be modified to better allow it to search for programs, to
offer options for that specific task.  In that case too searching the
whole system would not be as efficient as searching in a few specific
places first could improve the search.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan