GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 541972
ctrl+k search box should not disappear automatically
Last modified: 2013-03-07 18:38:27 UTC
From http://bugs.debian.org/489182 Currently, if I hit ctrl+k, and type some characters to search for, the search dialog will disappear after 30 seconds. This should either be configurable (so that it can be disabled manually) or should just be disabled -- it's easy enough to hit <enter> or <esc> to make the box go away. My code-editing workflow typically goes as follows: 1) run into some struct or function I want to find out more about 2) hit ctrl+k, search for the name, and hit <up> and <down> until I find the definition 3) sit there and read the relevant code for a bit 4) possibly hit <up> or <down> to look at the other places where the search keyword occurs 5) hit <esc> to jump back to where I was before the search When the search box disappears prematurely, not only do I have to retype the search keyword to hop around to the different occurrences again, I also lose the easy way of getting back to where I was before the search.
For most people incremental search is used in a few seconds, so we like the idea of hide the search popup after 30 seconds.
I was shocked to see this resolved as WONTFIX. Let's consider this "feature" from two perspectives: (1) User expectations. New users: No new user would ever expect the box to disappear after 30 seconds. The only way in which this feature would better meet expectations for a new user is if they somehow *forgot* that they were searching when they went to continue editing, and if, by an amazing coincidence, they forgot they were searching *before* 30 seconds had passed, but did not try to edit anything until *after* 30 seconds had passed. What are the odds? Experienced users: A feature that is surprising to new users could be justified if it could somehow be predictably used by experienced users to enhance productivity. But this feature is only predictably useful to a user who mentally starts counting to 30 seconds every time they do a search, so that they don't have to check whether the box is still there before continuing their work (a step that takes at least as long as dismissing the box using <Enter>). Who does that? (2) Harmful consequences. If this feature were turned off, the consequence of the user forgetting they were doing a search would be that the user would try to continue editing, and quickly realize (when nothing happened in the main window) that the search box was still open, whereupon they would dismiss the search box using <Enter>. Thus there would be no lasting consequences for the user's work or workflow. With this feature turned on, a user using the search box in precisely the way it is intended can, as described above by Emilio, easily fail to notice that the 30-second timeout has expired, whereupon they will lose their previous place in their work and have to expend significant mental effort to recover it. In an alternative scenario, if the user decides to extend their search phrase by typing, only to discover that the search box has disappeared, they will instead overwrite the selected text in the main window, and have to use Undo to recover their work. In summary, this is a feature that introduces effectively *random*, potentially destructive uncertainty into a user's workflow: it cannot be predictably used for anything useful by expert users, but can cause severe annoyance to expert and non-expert users alike. All this to possibly eliminate an occasional <Enter> keypress (that is otherwise totally predictable and natural)---but not without the user first checking to see if the box has disappeared, a step that takes even longer than pressing the key in the first place! So if you really like this feature, then for the sake of gedit goodness, could you please please please just add an option to turn it off?