[Geany] incremental search backward revisited

[John Gabriele]

On Jan 27, 2008 12:11 PM, Enrico Tröger <enrico.troeger at uvena.de> wrote:
>
> On Fri, 25 Jan 2008 13:33:22 +0000, Nick Treleaven
> <nick.treleaven at btinternet.com> wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 23 Jan 2008 02:39:44 -0500
> > "John Gabriele" <jmg3000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > 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? [snip]
> >
> > I'm not sure that a checkbox is a good idea. Maybe just a keybinding
>
> I agree, I also don't like a checkbox in the toolbar. A possibility
> would be another search button next to the search field, dedicated for
> backward search. But an usual button would bloat it too much, IMO.

Well, you could put a button on either side of the search field: both
with that little binoculars image, but one with a little arrow
underneath it pointing to the left (put this one on the left side of
the search field, for backward search) and the other with the arrow
pointing to the right (on the right of the search field).

> I was also thinking(in the past, John I didn't forget this request :D) of
> two search buttons vertically separated. Hard to explain, something
> like:
>
> ----------------  Button backward
> | search field |  ---------------
> ----------------  Button forward
>
> Without having tried it, I assume it isn't possible to divide a toolbar
> item into a VBox and add two widgets in it. Additionally, I could image
> it doesn't look very nice, especially with small symbols.

It could also take up valuable vertical space. I typically switch to
small icons and images just to get a couple extra lines of text
visible in the main text pane.

> Yet another idea: the current search button next to the search field in
> the toolbar gets overloaded: left-click does the usual forward search
> and when right-clicking the button, Geany does the requested backward
> search.

That would seem to me to be pretty unexpected usage.

I think Nick's suggestion for a keybinding to enter to search field in
a reverse search mode is ideal for keyboard-only users, but it would
be nice to also have a visual cue to tell you you're in reverse mode.
What would work nicely for that is if you changed the background color
of the search field to, say, light blue or cyan, when in that mode.

---John