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0e1f616
(Get the code!)
Comment on attachment 459049
Screenshot 2: Proposed UI of optional simple quick filter widget on main toolbar
Nice mockup Thomas! Having a visual representation makes it much easier to understand what's being discussed. I think these questions are for everyone.
I like that you've included the filter modes on focus of the entry. This is something we were very interested in changing from the old system. Many people would forget what mode they were in and become very frustrated that they weren't finding the messages they were expecting to find.
I'm not sure I have a suggestion but I wonder if there is another way of showing the filter options other than using the pop up menu. We lined these up horizontally so it didn't use more than one vertical line; however that would make checkboxes look awkward. I'm just slightly concerned that reusing a popup menu for this would cause some confusion as we don't do that anywhere else.
Are you planning on handling the quick filter buttons: unread, attachments, tags, etc? Not that you have to but I'm just wondering.
The show/hide system is an attempt to make sure that people understood when a filter was being applied. This was especially a worry when implementing the sticky button which would persist the filter everywhere. Perhaps we were not successfully, but that was the idea. Thunderbird has, over the years, lots of reports of people unaware of a filter being applied to the current view. Having the quick filter inside the message list was one way we could make this association. I'm not sure how you'd do this in the toolbar but it must be possible.
Just as a future talking point, so it's easier to understand the discussion, here are the names of the systems as I understand it.
Quick Search - Thunderbird 2.0 (toolbar search/filtering system now gone)
Combined Search - Thunderbird 3.1 (quick search and gloda search where in the same search input, accessible via the drop down chooser)
Gloda Search - Thunderbird 3.1 (toolbar 'search all messages' only system)
Quick Filter - Thunderbird 3.1 (pop in toolbar for filtering current view w/ quick filters)
I just made up the "combined search" name but that's what it was.
Combined Search had issues that people couldn't find the old quick search system they wanted. It suffered from similar 'hidden drop down mode' problems as the quick search did; people who switch to quick search of senders and not know how to get back to the gloda search. We would need to examine those and other issues before going down that road again.