GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 394800
Quick UI Review of Tracker-Search-Tool
Last modified: 2010-09-09 13:55:19 UTC
Since, I am the maintainer of gnome-search-tool. I thought it might be useful if I did a little mini review of tracker-search-tool. 1. No visual feedback when performing a search 2. The initial dialog size is very small 3. Why does the dialog have a status bar? It is always blank, and this violates the GNOME HIG. 4. There is no file total information 5. It would be useful if the title bar of the dialog contained the current search term, for example "*.RPM - Search Tool" or similar 6. The smaller text in the search results is difficult to read when selected 7. Why are the Next and Previous buttons at the bottom of the dialog, while the find button is at the top? 8. Cannot search by date, size, or owner 9. Cannot restrict searches to a particular path
Created attachment 79883 [details] Proposed Mockup of Tracker-Search-Tool This is a mockup of tracker-search-tool with some of my recommended UI enhancements. Since the code is borrowed from gnome-search-tool, I can provide patches. Let me know.
These are cool - thanks you. We will be doing a review of it shortly and will let you know what we decide on so you can send patches.
Created attachment 80131 [details] Proposed Mockup of Tracker-Search-Tool With Criteria Support (disabled)
Created attachment 80132 [details] Proposed Mockup of Tracker-Search-Tool with Criteria Support (enabled) This is a glade file mockup of tracker-search-tool with criteria support. The layout of the criteria was basically borrowed from evolution's filters. IMHO the layout is cleaner and more powerful than gnome-search-tool's select more options section.
Thanks - we will probably use that format for the extra criteria
Jamie, The g-s-t interface was based on feedback from the gnome usability mailing list. Their input was very valuable. Also, bugzilla contains a few closed g-s-t bugs that also influenced its design. You may want to review the bugs and the mailing list archives. Before you make a "decision", I highly recommend that you send mockups to the gnome usability mailing list for feedback (usability@gnome.org).
yeah will do thanks.
The search results window should also repeat the query terms (they "disappear" if you type in a new query)
This might deserve a separate discussion bug, but let me place the thought here: Because of the way a single "Search" item is implemented into the Gnome 'Places' menu, because both Beagle and Tracker are works-in-progress to some extent, *and* because projects ("Arrfinity") attempting to actually unify the interfaces are still in their infancies as well... It would be a courtesy for the UI to provide a link back to the plain gnome-search-tool for those times a GUI user is frantically trying to find something on a non-indexed volume. This could be removed once the appropriate solutions are fully baked, but it'll keep end-users from tearing their hair out in the meantime. Similarly, if it's possible for the Nautilus integration to display some indication that Tracker is being used (goes for Beagle, too) -- perhaps subtly in the window title: "Search for ____ using Tracker - File Browser" -- this would make life easier for the people who have to support the GUI users. If different search engines will return different results, people should be able to see which one they're using. This goes double when all the knobs aren't in place to get one backend to fully emulate another's result set. (Will Tracker as it exists today search a path -- say, removable media not automatically indexed -- if you ask it to?)
Please add rapid way to view many files. For example: 1. Number of items by page 2. Show icons or list (like Nautilus for images) 3. Order by date asc or desc 4. Jump to last page
(sorry for second comment) Also, more keyboard shortcuts would help UI. While in the list of files, I would expect - left/right arrows to go to previous/next page - CTRL-+ CTRL-- to increase/decrease icon size
(In reply to comment #6) > Jamie, > > The g-s-t interface was based on feedback from the gnome usability mailing > list. Their input was very valuable. Also, bugzilla contains a few closed > g-s-t bugs that also influenced its design. You may want to review the bugs > and the mailing list archives. > > Before you make a "decision", I highly recommend that you send mockups to the > gnome usability mailing list for feedback (usability@gnome.org). > Jamie & Dennis, From a pure users perspective, I would like to offer a suggestion that I believe are in line with the guidelines - Make the result view into a table with table headings that are context/search sensitive. E.g. the coloumns that are relevant for email are different than those for images or for files. This would allow a user (e.g. depending on screen size, use/need) to make e.g. Create Date a sort criteria (already reported by Andrew Ziem, I see) for searching document, files and emails. If the information is available (from trackerd), either use icons to show whether an email has attachments or make that a selection criteria ref Dennis' suggestions. Really do like the progress that the tracker has made over the last two years. Thanks all of you! I'm happy to assist with mockups but you will want me to stay away from any coding ;-)
Can the reporter of this bug set the _version_ so we can target bugs to work on more easily please. We can also have an idea about if these bugs are likely to be obsolete too. If you don't set the version, we are less likely to look at them. Sorry for the spam, but I don't want to say this 88 times on each bug :)
Marking as WONTFIX because 0.6.x is no longer supported. All bugs which make sense to be fixed in master or 0.8 have already been migrated to those versions by now. If you feel strongly about this being fixed in >= 0.8 please reopen and update the version that the bug is relevant for.