[Design] Re: [Chandler-dev] Suggestions on Quick Item Entry in the Search bar

[Mike Taylor]

On Aug 11, 2006, at 5:18 PM, John Anderson wrote:

> If we add the ability to type commands that don't have anything to do 
> with search in the search box, I think we shouldn't  call it a search 
> box. It's more like a command line, so maybe a "command box". Also, 
> since it's like a command line, it would be handy if there were some 
> way to search for "/mail", so maybe we should invoke all the usual 
> command line quoting options.
>
> Finally, while I think this may be a good "expert:" option, I suspect 
> for most users it will cause more confusion than benefit. For my 
> sensibility it violates the "simple things should be simple" rule by 
> overloading searching (a simple idea) with complicated idea (the 
> command line).

I have to agree with John about having the search text box do 
double-duty as a command entry point being a -1 for a number of 
reasons.

One that John (I think) didn't mention is that because the command mode 
is triggered by /mail or /note that means I would have to escape the / 
to search on it - which for a novice user may be very confusing the 
first time they "discover" that feature.

My thought would be that since this is a power/expert user item we may 
want to consider the paradigm that has been used very well by the 
Quicksilver app and pop-up or show a dialog based on a hot-key.  This 
is a behaviour that expert users probably are very used to and also 
gives us a excellent way to make the pop-up very targeted instead of 
abusing a search interface.

---
Bear

Build and Release Engineer
Open Source Applications Foundation (OSAF)
bear at osafoundation.org
http://www.osafoundation.org

bear at code-bear.com
http://code-bear.com

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