GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 314974
Location bar "automatic search" is gone?
Last modified: 2005-09-27 20:21:19 UTC
Distribution/Version: Ubuntu Breezy Just got 1.7.6 from the Ubuntu Breezy repositories and it seems that Epiphany now takes everything entered in the location field as an URL, which then if it isn't, can't be loaded. Earlier, anything not looking like an URL was passed on to search. I hope this was not by design, because it is a huge step back in usability for me - long before finding Epiphany this is how I had Firefox to behave. The old way is also mentioned on the wiki and other places as the desired behaviour: " Search: CTRL-L, type keywords, then press enter" - http://live.gnome.org/Epiphany - and also on the comparison to FF page. Reproduce: * Enter a few words in the location bar, press enter Expected result: * Google page showing search result Actual result: * The really annoying popup: "The URL is not valid and cannot be loaded." On a related note, I've heard that URLs with dots (.) in them gets this warning on search due toa Mozilla bug, but isn't it possible to intercept this warning and pass it on to the search? Anything not valid is a potential search IMO.
This has been changed on purpose as part of the fix for bug 158486. But I'm keeping this bug open in case many people prefer the previous behaviour.
I estimate that maybe 70% of my surfing is via searching, maybe even more. As it is becoming more and more for the whole web using community, I'm sure. I have a few standard sites that are in bookmarks (smart ones, in FF, trusting they will come soon =). Searching is more and more the way to do everything, and that's why I was so happy seeing that some designers understood this as a central concept and had it built right in. It's definitely right on in these times. As it is now, it's a step back to early Mozilla Suite, which had (have?) this exact behaviour. It's actually easier to have a separate textbox for searches (like FF) if it has a similar shortcut (say CTRL-K) if you are going to force the extra navigation on the arrow keys. There's a reason FF didn't keep it. It's actually worse, because if you press enter and get the error message now, you can't just return to the location bar and press down - the content needs to be altered first. Though I assume that is a bug, it's a tedious way back for a small mistake. There are several ways that one gets to sites today: * By searching * By bookmarks or history (including autocomplete) * By clicking links, in browser or in other programs * By pasting URLs, copied from someplace else * By typing an URL manually Only the last of those is likely to fail in this way, and how often do we actually type complete URLs today? Even if I read an URL in a newspaper, I'm more likely to Google it up instead of labourously typing it. I see on the old bug that there was some concern that privacy was invaded because a site currently down would be passed on to a search engine. Seems a bit harsh, but I don't have a problem with having a checkbox that can turn this off in the privacy tab, like was mentioned there. It shouldn't be off by default though, it's an extremely helpful feature, and those really concerned about privacy will check the settings before they do anything else. A small checkbox "Don't pass failed queries to external search" or something should suffice. Maybe it seems like I'm overreacting to this, but this is really completely central to all my browsing, and I don't think I'm alone. Mentioning the way to make FF behave like this always is met with great enthusiasm and it is mentioned in many places on the net. To me, this is a core feature and something I don't want to do without. And I want others to get the same luxury of browsing so easily. This should definitely be reverted IMO, although an option to disable it via the GUI would give more power and choice to the users, so I'm all for that.
cc'ing myself
I have to agree with Kristoffer, this needs to be reverted back to the previous behaviour. Firefox can do without this behaviour as they have a dedicated internet search box, but in Epiphany this requires a complicated step of adding a bookmark with "%s" to the bookmark bar, something that few of Epiphany's target inexperienced users would ever do. In fact, for these users the behaviour mentioned by the original bug 158486 report is probably not a bug at all, if they type a domain that doesn't exist they will benefit from having a web search done on those terms. I don't even see why there needs to be a checkbox can be added to address the limited privacy concerns in bug 158486 -- even a gconf key would probably suffice for this request. But regardless, the automatic searches need to stay, at least until epiphany can implement a dedicated search box like firefox has.
Ryan: Regardless of whether the behaviour should be reverted or not; a 'Search the Web' smart bookmark is present in Epiphany by default and you can already have a dedicated search box if you wish by putting a smart bookmark on the bookmarks toolbar.
Reinout, at least on the Ubuntu installation I am using, the Epiphany default is for the "Search the Web" smart bookmark to be located in the bookmark bar which is not visible by default. I apologize if this is not an Epiphany default itself. Regardless, you are correct and I misspoke when I suggested new users would have to add their own smart bookmarks. May I suggest then, if the official Ephy behaviour is to strip out the address bar web searches by default, that the bookmark bar be visible by default (if it is not already), and a keyboard shortcut be attached to that smart bookmark? Right now, Firefox conveniently lets me get to a search box with Ctrl-K, and until this change I was able to search the web in Ephy using Ctrl-L. If the current method is made permanent, we'd have to Ctrl-L, type in the name of the google bookmark and press enter, and then enter the search into google that way -- or use mouse to get to the smart bookmark. Unless there is another method I am unaware of. For example, if you could type in "? epiphany is great" in the address bar to web search for "epiphany is great", that might be acceptable compromise. But for the usage patterns of most of the users I am aware of, be it advanced users or newbies, search is of paramount importance and should be very easy and very quick to access. To me, one of the best features of Epiphany is that I can search, enter URLs, and find bookmarks all in the same box and get there with a quick keyboard shortcut.
The bookmarks bar is not visible by default, this is because it's a feature that beginners wouldn't use (my mum still doesn't understand the concept of bookmarks). But after the merge of Peter Harvey's patch (planned for 1.10), there will be no separate bookmarks toolbar any longer, you will be able to place any bookmark or widget on any toolbar. The smart bookmark shortcut key request is bug 149379.
Reinout, please don't be condescending. I'm not stating those as new bug reports, just suggesting that some of those items be in place before address bar web search is stripped out of Epiphany. What I'm suggesting is that quick and easy search is paramount for a browser, and that the Gnome 2.12 browser ought to ship with some form of search that is both easy to use and quick to reach. The previous version of Epiphany meets these criteria, but the current one does not. I personally don't think bug 158486 should have been "corrected", but if that is to be addressed it should not come at the expense of core web browser functionality like web searching. With the current Epiphany behaviour, what is your mum supposed to do to figure out how to search the web? If she has used Epiphany in the past, she will get error dialogs or pages instead of the behaviour she is used to. If she had never used Epiphany before, she'd have to know to turn on the bookmarks bar, or type in an URL in the address bar. For new users, this is not a step forward. Regardless of my personal opinion, I can understand why some people feel that bug 158486 needs to be corrected. All I am saying is that this should wait until the rest of the peices are in place to keep web search quick and easy in Epiphany. I know I won't be able to keep using the browser if I can't search the web easily, and I'm a dedicated Epiphany user. So even if you disagree and think that the current behaviour needs to go, at least for this version this needs to be be reverted. If another solution can be put into place that satisfies new users and people who need quick keyboard searches, at that point Epiphany can afford to consider stripping out the current search behaviour.
It's absolutely not my intention to be condescending, I'm sorry if I sounded that way. If I didn't think this bug had a point I'd have closed it the first time. But I try to stay neutral in the debate and I'm not making the final decision on this one anyway. Now, I kindly request that everyone please use the epiphany-list for discussions instead of bugzilla. The arguments have been heard, let Christian decide what to do.
Please note that current location entry tooltip is not correct if keyword search is disabled . It displays: "Enter a web address to open, or a phrase to search for".
It is still correct, because the address entry also searches in bookmarks and history.
Note that you can enable keyword search in about:config, set "keyword.enabled" to "true".
Ok, you've convinced me. Keyword searches will be re-enabled for 1.8.1. Fixed in cvs HEAD and gnome-2-12.