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

[Reid Ellis]

+1 on power-user searchbar mode.

I have Safari set up in a similar way (using the excellent SfariStand  
plugin) to do different things with the search bar. Granted, like  
Lisa they are all domain-specific searches (IMDB, Flickr, OSAF Wiki,  
Chandler Bugzilla, etc), but having a /command capability would be  
very powerful and useful. The /command "special" syntax is all over  
the place now, with it being used in both IRC and many online games  
(e.g. World of Warcraft. There are also the "special" URLs pointed  
out by Philippe.

I agree we have to avoid surprises for the user, so there should be  
an affordance for that.

(eek, I used the a-word)

Reid

On Aug 14, 2006, at 21:30, Lisa Dusseault wrote:
> On Aug 11, 2006, at 2:49 PM, Darshana Chhajed wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>>> I'm worried that using the text search field as a text entry box  
>>> will be confusing.
>>
>> I think, the text entry widget is not just a search bar. It is a  
>> "command line" which can be used to perform several tasks one of  
>> which is searching.  It was being called a search bar till now  
>> since it had no other functionality to it. So I dont think a new  
>> UI feature would be required then.
>
> FWIW (data point of one single user, use accordingly), I "replaced"  
> the search entry field in FireFox with a YubNub Web command line.   
> (Technically this was just making the yubnub site the default  
> "search engine".)
>
> How this works for me is if I'm doing a search I type "g amelia  
> raitte" or some such thing and it does a google search -- g is the  
> command for a basic google search.  If I forget the 'g' and just  
> type in my query, unless the first term in my search is identical  
> with a yubnub command, yubnub does the smart thing and does a  
> google search anyway.  If I want something more specific than a  
> google search -- to jump to an RFC number, find an Internet-Draft  
> by author, search Technorati or jump to a thesaurus entry, I type  
> something like
> 	rfc 3744
> 	ids desruisseaux
> 	tec sunbird
> 	thes piquant
>
> Of course the commands could start with a slash or something, I  
> could learn something simple like that trivially, but I just wanted  
> to explain how well it works for me to have one text entry widget  
> in my browser rather than two.
>
> Lisa