GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 332349
Search box should have option to remain open
Last modified: 2006-08-17 08:26:48 UTC
When I use Ctrl+F, a bar at the bottom of the window appears, and I can search for what I am looking for. Annoyingly, this doesn't work very well if there are multiple matches. 1. Visit news.google.com 2. Ctrl+F to search for "rice" 3. First match find a story I want, middle-click to open in new window 4. The search box has disappeared. 5. Ctrl+F again. etc etc This is tedious, particularly when there are a lot of matches that interest me. The traditional search behaviour, where the box would remain open, was better. Other information:
Thanks for your bug report. It sounds like Edit > Find Next (Ctrl+G) should do what you want, or am I misunderstanding the question?
When I go to Edit> Find, a search bar appears just above the epiphany status bar. I don't get a popup dialog box. Unlike the popup dialog box, this bar closes whenever I open a link on the page I am searching, it's annoying.
Yes, that is the intention. The search bar disappears when it loses focus. But you don't have to press Ctrl+F again to find the next occurence, you can use Ctrl+G instead.
Oh. Surely the behaviour of the old search box (the dialog remaining open) was designed that way for the same reason as I am requesting. What was the reason for the change?
We don't want a close button on a toolbar like dialog windows have. The only way to know when the user is finished searching is when the toolbar loses focus. This happens when a link is clicked. I don't know if it is possible to special-case right- or middle click so that the find bar stays visible (Christian?). Is there any use case that isn't satisfied by "Find Next" (Ctrl+G)? Should the Find bar reappear when the user activates this?
Ctrl+G is good for me, because I know about it, but Gnome is all about simplicity. You shouldn't have to know a secret shortcut to find the next match. Would an option to enable the old behaviour be possible?
It's hardly secret since it's the standard shortkut key for 'Find Next' throughout all of GNOME. Plus, it's right there in plain sight in the Edit menu. I wouldn't know if it is possible to revert to the old Find dialog again, but if it is, it will probably only be done via an extension.
(In reply to comment #7) > It's hardly secret since it's the standard shortkut key for 'Find Next' > throughout all of GNOME. But it is a secret, because they won't be looking there. A lot of people (I mean the kinds of people not submitting bugzilla reports), know handful of keyboard shortcuts: Ctrl+S, Ctrl+F. > Plus, it's right there in plain sight in the Edit menu It's in plain sight if you open the Edit menu, then look on the right hand side to see what the shortcut key is. > I wouldn't know if it is possible to revert to the old Find dialog again, but > if it is, it will probably only be done via an extension. Then how about not reverting to the old style dialog, but instead adding a cross to the right hand side to close the Find dialog.
Toolbars aren't windows or tabs, fitting them with close buttons would be inconsistent UI-wise, and a case of fighting the symptom. I would support a solution where the Find bar would simply stay open if you middle-/right clicked a link on the webpage, if that is possible.
(In reply to comment #9) > Toolbars aren't windows or tabs, fitting them with close buttons would be > inconsistent UI-wise, and a case of fighting the symptom. I would support a > solution where the Find bar would simply stay open if you middle-/right clicked > a link on the webpage, if that is possible. I had this problem again today. This time, I was searching through a very long web page looking for references to a specific piece of text. I hesitated before adding this comment, because the other comments made here have been made from a developers standpoint. Filing a bug report while thinking from the point of view of a basic computer user, i.e. one that wants the computer to just work, makes this basic Find behaviour seem counterintuitive. Imagine the situation where a person has learned Gnome enough to do the things they need. They don't know about keyboard shortcuts, becuse they don't need to. Saying "it's right there in plain sight in the Edit menu" is unhelpful because the Edit menu isn't open right now. Saying "it's hardly secret since it's the standard shortkut key for 'Find Next' throughout all of GNOME.", well actually it is a secret, unless you know about keyboard shortcuts, and you also know how to find out what the keyboard shortcut for something is. So there I was, trying to find all references to a piece of text on a page. Find the first reference, copy and paste (with the mouse). Try to find the next reference - oh find box has gone. Open it again. Click find twice this time... click find three times next time. The old behaviour with the dialog having a close button was better for this situation. The new behaviour is better for "one-off" finds. But since the behaviour deviates from the norm that many apps have "you close the Find box", I can't see why the change was made.
Not dissapearing on open in tab actions should be enough. Is this possible, what do you think?
(In reply to comment #11) > Not dissapearing on open in tab actions should be enough. > Is this possible, what do you think? No it's no enough. It prevents all of the other actions you may want to perform on a page. Taking an example from above, copy and paste using the context menu (or anything involving the context menu).
I'd really suggest to look at the Edit menu again. The "Find Next" entry has a label on the right side telling you which keyboard shortcut to press to activate it. You're asking for non-standard features, which are very unlikely to become the default (or even available as an option) in Epiphany. The standard use case "find some text, find again" is handled pretty well with the focusing stuff in 2.15.x (perhaps also 2.14, not sure) and the ctrl-f/ctrl-g combo's.
This is like screaming in a vacuum! I'm not reporting this bug for me. I know about keyboard shortcuts, and non-modal dialog boxes. This bug is filed on behalf of *new computer users*, people for who *do not know* about shortcut keys or *how to look them up*. In fact, they shouldn't have to look them up. This is not a request for a *new feature*. This is a request for an *old behaviour back* to return to replace its inferior predecessor. Giving up. This is obviously falling on deaf ears, and I've wasted enough time on it.
"Searching a page" is not a "mode" of browsing. It's a way to find some text, and return to normal browsing after you found a match. "New computer users" don't browse the web with an open search dialog: "new computer users" close all windows they don't interact with.
(In reply to comment #11) > Not dissapearing on open in tab actions should be enough. > Is this possible, what do you think? I've opened bug #351730 about that.