Comment 89 for bug 691380

(In reply to comment #83)
> Created attachment 460747 [details]

This is *awesome* Thomas! I was actually going to suggest possibly a way to have both (drop-down and floating criteria panel) as options - but apparently you read my mind!

Only a few other things I can think of to polish this off, in the nature of some options/tweaks to allow the user to make it work exactly the way they want...

For one thing, add a little 'x' close box beside (to the right of) the 'floating filter criteria' as an alternate method for the user to 'make it go away' if they don't like it open all the time - this would accomplish the same thing as clicking/unchecking the drop-down, > Options > 'Show Criteria Panel' (not sure I like the 'label' = 'Filter Criteria Panel', but don't have a good alternative either)...

> Oh, and for those minimalists among us who don't like the float bar, I
> implemented an option on the dropdown (wicked, isn't it :)) to switch it off
> :)... We might come up with some more options to put into that menu.

I really, *really* like this 'combo' of these two ideas Thomas - and because you asked (and due to my natural tendency to complicate things whenever possible), I have two more options we could add to it - see below... ;)

> Charles, did you want the float bar to hang around for as long as there
> is an active filter (unless user presses ESC) or just as long as the
> focus is in the search box?

*Personally*, yes, I would, but I can see the argument against it too - so what I would suggest is instead of just having it enabled or disabled, have three different modes/options for it:

1. 'Never show Criteria Panel' - if the user just doesn't hates it and
    never wants to see it,

2. 'Toggle Criteria Panel' - it pops-up when the user first clicks into
    the searchbox, then goes away as soon as they start typing something
    (or click anywhere outside - *and* will pop back up if the user
    *clicks* inside the field again (whether there is text in there or
    not, clicking inside the searchbox would simply toggle the display
    of it)two options to show it is disabled/unchecked, and

3. 'Always show Criteria Panel' - here the panel would always be displayed
    as long as the searchbox was active, meaning, cursor focus *or* it
    contained text (filter was being applied).

> Maybe we could turn the magnifier or an extra button into a master-toggle
> button that switches on/off the whole filter (incl. advanced)

I prefer the current 'x' on the right side of the filter as the way to clear it... except I think clicking that 'x' should *also* clear the 'advanced' filters (read/unread, etc)

Lastly, while you are including the 'Global Search' aspect of this as part of this bug request, I'd prefer to keep this aspect separate for reasons already explained to Mike - so, as long as it is understood by the developers that recombining the 'Global' search with the quickfilter search is *not* an integral part of this bug request, I'm ok with it being included in the mock-ups...

Many thanks for your efforts here Thomas, this is great... :)