Comment 134 for bug 691380

(In reply to Blake Winton (:bwinton - Thunderbird UX) from comment #130)
> (In reply to Charles from comment #129)
>> (In reply to Blake Winton (:bwinton - Thunderbird UX) from comment #128)
>>> The main thing I dislike is that it feels _way_ too cluttered.

>> As compared to the Quickfilter Toolbar?
>> Remember, this is designed to *replace* the entire QF toolbar.

> No, as compared with something I would want to add to Thunderbird. ;)

But...

a) we are talking about bringing something back that was *removed* that a *lot* of people liked and want to see brought back, and

b) as I said before, it is not nearly as 'cluttered' as what replaced it (the QF toolbar).

>> It also auto-expands/contracts, depending on how much room is available
>> where it is placed.

> I don't know how much of a feature that is.

It is nice, just like the way the Awesomebar (in Firefox) auto expands/contracts...

> I think I would be confused if things moved around too much when I resized
> the window. (Perhaps that's not how it works. Perhaps it's not actually
> that confusing.)

It isn't, and it isn't... ;)

It doesn't 'move around', it simple takes up more or less space, depending on how much room is available.

>>> Four icons in the search box is three and a half too many.

> I don't know of many search fields that have more than one active thing in
> them. (Even Firefox's has only one _active_ thing, and the two icons it
> contains are on opposite sides, and thus less cluttered feeling.) For this
> reason, I don't think letting people put _more_ icons into the text area is
> the right thing to do.

I was mainly talking about making iit configurable so that you could DEselect ones - I don't see a need for others to be there either.

>>> The extra bar seems to pop up at odd times.
>> Haven't noticed this... and I use it heavily and have a lot of other
>> extensions - maybe a conflict with one you have?

> I only have lightning installed.

Dunno then... it doesn't do this for me though.

> I suspect the fact that you use it heavily is the difference here.
> For me, as a first-time user of the add-on, it feels cluttered and confusing.
>
> (I also suspect that you have a higher tolerance for complexity than I do…
> :)

Maybe, but I also think that the fact that I don't use GLODA/Global Search ever has something to do with it too.

> > > http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2301433/Screenshots/SearchBar/GlobalSearch.png shows
> > > some extra icons beside the global search.
> > > What are they for? Is that just a bug?
> > I only see the clear button, the button to switch back to Filter mode, and
> > the Prefs button - what other buttons are you talking about?
>
> The ones to the left of the words "Messages mentioning: Mike".

Oh... the 'Messages mentioning: Mike' pop-out is actually covering up the rest - look and you'll see that those are the filter options, and the ones that are hidden are the attachment icon, and then the 'Sender, Recipients, Subject and Body options.

> So, I've got a picture of all the bars up at
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2301433/Screenshots/SearchBar/GlobalSearch.png
>
> You'll notice that the add-on has four buttons in the text box, as opposed
> to one icon for each of the QFB and GlodaBar.

Correct, but...

That picture shows that you are in Global Search mode, not Filter mode. This extension is *primarily* meant to be used for filtering, not Global Searching, that part was added later. Switch to Filter mode (click the mode toggle button, which is the Magnifying glass icon) and experiment with that for a while...

> For the QFB and GlodaBar, nothing pops up until I type something, whereas
> the add-on shows an extra popup (with a button to switch the popup from
> horizontal to vertical? Why is that even there?) as soon as I enter the
> field.

Someone didn't like the horizontal options panel and asked for it. But like I said, you are using a mode that I never use.

> For the add-on's popup, there's no indication of what the various icons are,
> or which keys I would use to activate them.

If you mouse-over them, you get tooltip descriptions of what they do.

> For the add-on, to clear the options, Esc+Esc is a _horrible_ key
> combination.

So do like I do and just click the little x icon.

> (I also have no idea what "Clear Options" actually does…)

It clears the searchbox text and any of the options (show Unread only, show Starred only, Show only messages with Attachments, etc)...

> Why is there an icon to show or hide the extra popup?
>
> Once I type something, and the bar is popped up, how do I navigate to it
> with the keyboard?

Ok, I just played with this a little in Global Search mode, and yeah, it looks like there are a few bugs in there... I've never encountered them because I only use it in Filter mode.

> I agree there is more stuff displayed at the start in the QFB, but it's
> better organized, and so easier to understand, and I don't think the add-on
> actually does any less so it's not actually more minimal.

It is vastly more minimal, because it isn't a toolbar, it is a little searchbox that you can put wherever you want. I put all of my icons and the Unified Search box on the Menu bar.

> I think we can have something that offers both filtering and global search
> without making people specify which one they want, by extending the
> behaviour of the QFB when you type in something like "fjdsfjslfnsdkfn" to
> also cover cases where there are matches, and that seems like a better way
> to go to me…

The whole point of this addon is to eliminate the need for a huge toolbar, and give us back the little filter searchbox that can be placed wherever we want like TB 3.0- had.