259587 - Quick search no longer has keyboard accelerator (Restore label)

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Thunderbird :: Search, enhancement)

Description

[Jay Levitt]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040626 Firefox/0.8
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040626 Firefox/0.8

In 0.7, alt-S selected the quick search window.  With the new quick search
functionality, the label for that field was removed, and so was the shortcut,
making quicksearch a slowsearch...

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1

[Scott MacGregor]

ctrl-k focuses the search bar

Comment 2

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

> ctrl-k focuses the search bar

That's nice to know, BUT... I'd like to see the label returned anwyay.  Unlike 
Firefox, there isn't a space crunch in the search bar.

xref bug 255643.

Comment 3

[Simon Bünzli]

> ctrl-k focuses the search bar

While this makes sense if you use Firefox's search box, Ctrl-K isn't very
obvious otherwise. Hadn't I been looking for this bug, I'd still not know of it.

Using a keyboard shortcut is the obvious choice for accessing the search box (as
you have to type in there, anyway), but without a visual cue for what the
shortcut is, many users won't be able to take advantage of it. And a good visual
cue would be a label with one underscored letter (which is what most menus,
dialogs, etc. do).

Apart of that, why are there labels for "View" and for "Name or Email contains"
(in the Address Book), but not for quicksearch? A label would also make the
function of that box (still) more obvious, at least to the casual user.

Comment 4

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #3)
> ... why are there labels for "View" and for "Name or Email contains"
> (in the Address Book), but not for quicksearch? A label would also make the
> function of that box (still) more obvious, at least to the casual user.

A label (for every field) would also increase consistency and design confirmity
in the interface.

And expanding on Simon's comment, since this is a "quick" field - *everything*
possible should be done to make sure it's use is indeed quick.

Comment 5

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #3)
> Apart of that, why are there labels for ... "Name or Email contains" 
> (in the Address Book), but not for quicksearch? A label would also make the
> function of that box (still) more obvious, at least to the casual user.

I'm not sure when this happened, but the Address Book no longer has a label on that field either.

Comment 6

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #4)
> A label (for every field) ... increase consistency and design conformity
> in the U interface.
> 
> And expanding on Simon's comment, since this is a "quick" field - *everything*
> possible should be done to make sure it's use is indeed quick.

while it would be nice to see keys in context, accellerator keys are slowly eroding as the UI becomes more sparse.  And the shortcut keys are well documented in FF and TB help for keyboard shortcuts.

ctrl-K is the new standard. works also in address book.

Comment 7

[Onno Ekker [:nONoNonO UTC+1]]

Maybe "Quick search   Ctrl+K" or can be added to the main window Tools menu?

I happened to stumble upon this keyboard shortcut, and had been looking for the keyboard shortcut for a while.

If this is added to the menu, you make this often-used search option a lot more accessible for the people who prefer to use the keyboard...

Comment 8

[Onno Ekker [:nONoNonO UTC+1]]

I think that Ctrl-F should go to Quick search of Find in message depending on which pane had focus, the message list pane or the message-pane.

Ideally it should also work to quickly navigate to a folder when the Folder Pane has focus, though I now use the Nostalgy extension to accomplish that task.

Comment 9

[Onno Ekker [:nONoNonO UTC+1]]

It would be nice and easy to show the keyboard accelerator as tooltiptext "Quick Search (Ctrl+K)", just like *cough* IE does with its quick search function.

Comment 10

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Marco, Bryan, (Ignoring the question of what quick search might look like a year from now) do you see a need for improvement?  Or is this headed to wontfix?

Comment 11

[Marco Zehe (:MarcoZ)]

The one idea that sprang to mind when I read the above is give the Quick Search an emptyText property (you know the slightly blurry label that you also see in Add-Ons manager, for example). But I don't know if that does expose an underline for a potential accesskey.


Moreover, since this is the main window of Thunderbird, and not some dialog, I would expect Alt+keys to go to menu bar items and not necessarily to items in that main window. Ctrl+K is fine with me.

Comment 12

[Jay Levitt]

CTRL-K is fine with me too, and I'm the OP; I think in 2004 I either didn't know about CTRL-K, or it didn't work yet.  

As it happens, I'm now on a Mac, where the standard keystroke for "quick search" fields has become Command-Option-F.  Maybe that should be the default on Mac?  Is it more important for Thunderbird to be like Firefox, or for for Thunderbird to be like other same-platform apps?

Comment 13

[Bryan Clark (DevTools PM) [:clarkbw]]

I like and have always advocated showing the accel values in the emptytext of input entries.  This would make a quick search entry set for subject/from to say "Subject or From (ctrl-k)", at least on win/lin.

I don't think we need to restore the label, especially assuming we can make this accel change happen.  Should that work proceed in this bug, or another?

Comment 14

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #13)
> I like and have always advocated showing the accel values in the emptytext of
> input entries.  This would make a quick search entry set for subject/from to
> say "Subject or From (ctrl-k)", at least on win/lin.
> 
> I don't think we need to restore the label, especially assuming we can make
> this accel change happen.  Should that work proceed in this bug, or another?

filed Bug 500747 

so, does there remain unmentioned compelling reasons to do this bug, or not do it?

Comment 15

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Bryan, now that we have followup Bug 500747 which has your support, can we wontfix this bug? As we've established less intrusive ways of presenting access keys, I think it's unlikely we'll ever want to start cluttering toolbars with access labels for things that are keyboard accessible and clearly recognizable without label (magnifier icon).

-> This bug should be wontfixed.

Comment 16

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

interpreting bryan's comment 13 as wontfix.