[Geany] incremental search backward revisited

[Nick Treleaven]

On Wed, 23 Jan 2008 02:39:44 -0500
"John Gabriele" <jmg3000 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Last year I brought up the topic of Geany having an incremental search
> backward feature. Nick mentioned
> (http://lists.uvena.de/pipermail/geany/2007-September/001665.html)
> that it might eventually get implemented.
> 
> Since then, when using Geany, I've tried using Ctrl-F to move focus to
> the search bar (incremental search forward), Shift-Ctrl-g to go
> backward, and Ctrl-E to bring focus back to the editor. The problem
> though, is that it still feels quite clumsy to me. So, I've got 2
> ideas for improvement:
> 
> 1. Since Geany is a GUI editor/IDE, and it's got a toolbar, how about
> having a (possibly optionally visible) checkbox widget associated with
> the Search field, such that when checked, does the search in the
> opposite direction? That would seem to be an easy way to provide
> incremental search backward. If you think it looks like an ugly hack,
> you could always leave the checkbox's visibility off, by default, and
> then provide a sub-checkbox for "Prefs --> Toolbar tab --> Items
> section --> Show Search field" to make it visible. As long as users
> could toggle the checkbox (while visible) by hitting an Alt key combo
> (like other GUI parts), it would speed up editing a lot, IMO.

I'm not sure that a checkbox is a good idea. Maybe just a keybinding to
focus the search box that sets a reverse search flag, which is cleared
when the search box loses focus would be enough. That keeps the UI
cleaner.

> 2. When I do an incremental search for something that's already
> visible on the page, and the cursor gets there, I don't think Geany
> should automatically scroll to center the view. The reason is, when
> you're using incremental search to move around on the page, you've
> usually already got the location you're headed to in the corner of
> your eye. If the view scrolls while you're on the way there, it's
> jarring. Also, I may just be going there to set a bookmark, and then
> heading back to where I was. Having the screen flop all over the place
> while just moving around the visible view is disorienting. :)
> 
> 2.A. Incidentally, I think that using Ctrl-. and Ctrl-, (moving
> between bookmarks) should behave the same way (as described above)
> when the target bookmark is already visible on the screen.

I agree. It was done so that when using the Find dialog you don't have
to keep moving it about to see any matches it was blocking, but for
incremental search and other things it probably isn't the best
behaviour.

Regards,
Nick