GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 591164
Provide Firefox-like search widget in the default toolbar (and toolbar editor)
Last modified: 2011-12-23 17:34:05 UTC
Currently search in Epiphany is a big pain in the ass. There is no widget dedicated to web search and the alternatives provide a sub-optimal experience. First there is the over-engineered "smart bookmark" behavior where you can drag a bookmark containing "%s" in the URL to the toolbar to get a tiny (and I mean *tiny*) text entry with a huge unnecessary label (the bookmark's title). It's not only non-discoverable (I noticed it only after reading the source code) and tiny (provides just enough space to fit "search box") but also does not allow binding to a hotkey. Then there is the "search from the location bar" behavior. Aside from being broken with the webkit backend it fails as a search box as it does not allow one to fine-tune the terms after the initial search: whatever you put there gets replaces by the results URL as soon as you press Enter.
For the record: Midori has a nice and simple implementation of the search widget. http://git.xfce.org/kalikiana/midori/
A lot of the issues with smart bookmarks you mention are already covered by existing bugs. I'd say we fix those first instead of trying to clone Firefox.
I think cloning Firefox here is actually beneficial to usability. First-time Epiphany users are unlikely to go to a search engine, bookmark it, then drag the bookmark to the toolbar and figure out how to bind it to a key (currently impossible). I think what people expect nowadays is being able to visit a site supporting OpenSearch and just say "add this to my search engines". Then just right-click the search box and pick one of the engines instead of having 10 input fields on the bar.
(In reply to comment #3) > I think cloning Firefox here is actually beneficial to usability. First-time > Epiphany users are unlikely to go to a search engine, bookmark it, then drag > the bookmark to the toolbar and figure out how to bind it to a key (currently > impossible). You don't need to do that. Smart bookmarks appear in the url completion popup automatically. > > I think what people expect nowadays is being able to visit a site supporting > OpenSearch and just say "add this to my search engines". Then just right-click > the search box and pick one of the engines instead of having 10 input fields on > the bar. > Geeks might expect that, but certainly not "people".
URL bar is completely broken as a search input. You'll notice it as soon as you try to refine your search criteria. Once you press enter whatever you entered in the field is simply no longer there.
The refining of the search criteria can be seen as a bug or as a simple usage difference. Say you look for "icecream" in google (default keyword search), if you want to add "vanilla" to your query you already have an huge text entry right next to the also huge Google logo. I have never felt the need to do it in the location bar since the search page itself offers me that. In the worst case, if we say that's a bug, we could mask the url on keyword searches, which miiiiiiight make sense but i would prefer to hear more opinions and rationale for that.
I think that searching using the location entry works just fine. Refining search terms can be done on the search results page itself. It's a different use case than location-entry-search was designed for.
Diego: Inputs on a results page are often only accessible using mouse (or a whole lot of TAB presses) and are not consistent between pages (different placement, different keyboard shortcuts if any). Using Firefox it's easy to search for "foo", realize you might get more results from another engine, switch the engine, search again without retyping the same phrase, see the results, add "bar" to the terms etc. All using only keyboard (as when you type both of your hands are already there). You are of course free to come up with your own solution but please make it at least as good, not just "different enough".
(In reply to comment #8) > Using Firefox it's easy to search for "foo", realize you might get more results > from another engine, switch the engine, search again without retyping the same > phrase, see the results, add "bar" to the terms etc. All using only keyboard > (as when you type both of your hands are already there). Note that this directly contradicts bug 121682.
I don't think switching engines in firefox's search entry requires less work than using epiphany location bar again. In your example *I* would press control+K again and use the mouse to change the engine. In epiphany I would press control+L again and type my query again and use the mouse or keyboard to select the new engine OR use the engine itself to look again for something else. I don't see any improvement in mimicing firefox's box, it's just something people looks for because they got used.
In Firefox you press Ctrl+Up/Down to switch engines while the field is focused.
As has been said, refining the search can be done perfectly well in the results page, so saying that the current implementation is "completely broken" is an exaggeration. That being said, I'm willing to add a firefox-like search widget either to epiphany or to epiphany-extensions if someone implements it, I don't have anything in particular against it (whether or not it would go in the default layout is another question, assuming we put it in epiphany itself). This is not particularly high in my TODO list though, so feel free to send patches.
This is no longer possible (won't) with Epiphany 3.4