GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 640779
Keyboard navigation in search results with left/right arrow keys
Last modified: 2012-02-09 01:00:41 UTC
Right now to navigate in the search results in overview is only possible with up/down arrow keys. I find myself always trying to navigate with left/right to go to the next application. I think it's not intuitive to navigate only with up/down.
Dupe of bug 618887.
We need design input here. If we want to keep the current "split focus", then the left and right arrow keys are ambiguous between "move the app selection" and "move the cursor in the search entry", and either way some people will be confused/annoyed. Alternatively, we could have "normal" focus, where you'd have to use Tab or Down arrow to get out of the entry into the list of results (but Return could still activate the first item anyway, and we could also make it so that typing an alphabetic key would automatically move the focus back to the entry).
Personally I find the second behavior more intuitive and less pron to confusion. If you just want to navigate in the apps with the arrow keys just hit Tab and do the rest of the navigation there. I think people won't usually go back to the search entry after navigating. At least not before launching the app they where looking for. If you want to go back to the search entry, just hit Tab again. Just an opinion of a user :).
*** Bug 648089 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
When filling bug #648089 I did not discover up/down was selecting icones. However I've intuitively tried with tab, I would vote for tab to switch focus between entry->icons->google->wikipedia->entry->etc...
I agree with António. Search can return many results, and navigating them one by one may become extremely clumsy. I think that case is more usual, and outweighs, the convenience of moving left and right after performing a search.
Why I can't use arrow keys to navigate the search result? It feels more common sense and convenient. Its irritating when I search for something, say keyboard, which is in the second row of the results after typing the first 3 chars and I have to press down arrow 4 times (possibly more or less depending on the applications having similar combination) then enter. with the normal navigation method I only need to type 'k' then down arrow and enter 8 vs 3 key strokes
*** Bug 649720 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I think nobody is using the arrow key in a search field. Most people will using backspace and rewrite the complete search input. So arrow key can be used the whole time for navigation in the search result.
^ definitely, also as tab is unused, it can be used to move in between sections, like applications > settings, settings > files etc. It would be simple and expected behavior so user can use it without thinking too much.
How about just requiring a single down press in order to key focus the first search result and then nav in 2d as usual?
(In reply to comment #11) > How about just requiring a single down press in order to key focus the first > search result and then nav in 2d as usual? Yeah, that's what I meant about "normal focus" above. The only remaining issue is, is there any visual indication that typing Return will activate the first item? That would require having some highlight there that was distinct from the focus highlight.
*** Bug 653094 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 654787 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I think switching focus using tab would be cumbersome. I'd rather forget about moving the cursor in the search field (backspace is enough), use the arrows to navigate, and use tab (or PgUp/PgDown) to cycle between applications / settings / files
*** Bug 658081 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
The icon view takes up almost all the space on the screen and the search field is relatively small and "hidden" in the upper right corner. The first few times I used the search, I didn't even notice that there was a separate text entry field. For this reason I think it would be most intuitive to navigate in the icons with the arrow keys right away, without having to think of focus changing or stuff like that. Design wise perhaps it could be something similar to what Gnome-Do did? It just highlights the input in the search result. I couldn't find a decent video that demonstrates what I mean, but you can probably tell from the screenshot(s) on http://do.davebsd.com/
I'm sorry, I didn't find this bug when submitting patches to fix this issue. I'll mark this bug as a dupe of the one I created which has patches. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 663901 ***
*** Bug 669614 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 669714 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***