[Geany] incremental search backward revisited

[John Gabriele]

On Jan 27, 2008 9:22 PM, Jeff Pohlmeyer <yetanothergeek at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jan 27, 2008 7:28 PM, John Gabriele <jmg3000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > 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.
>
> Still another idea, since the search field already has a popup menu,
> maybe you could add a check-able menu item to the popup menu.
>
> But once the menu is closed, it still doesn't provide any visual
> cue to which mode it's in.  Maybe we could turn the magnifying
> glass upside-down? ;-)
>
> > 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.
>
> The default colors for the text entry background/foreground
> can be overridden by the user in the ~/.gtkrc-2.0 file.
>
> So if  the user has it configured for e.g. light blue text
> on a dark brown background, changing the background to light
> blue might be an unpleasant surprise. But I'm sure there could be
> a workaround for that, maybe a hidden pref or something...

I think that the point of having ISB (incremental search backward) is
providing lightning-fast document navigation via the keyboard. But I
suspect that Enrico wants the editor to be newbie-friendly too
(though, I notice that the About page on the Geany site does not
mention user-friendliness as a goal). So, even though some users may
only care about getting a key-binding assigned to a working ISB
function, it's probably got to look nice as well for Enrico and the
gang to "ok" it.

Having a right-click popup menu item for the search field might be a
stretch because I suspect most users would never think of looking
there. Also, it would mean an extra keystroke to toggle it before
doing a ISB, and then you'd have to remember to toggle it back when
you were done -- lest you end up accidentally going the wrong way next
time you try an ISF. This observation, incidentally, makes my original
suggestion about using a checkbox not so good.

Nick's idea is great for users who just want the single fast
keybinding. Changing the background color would seem to be ok, since
it's already being done for when the search returns no results, but if
it's undesirable, and having buttons on either side of the search
field is too much, then I think your idea of having two icon graphics
for the incremental search button is good. Currently, the binoculars
point downward, and ISF takes you down the page. :) A vertically
flipped image could be used as you suggest. It might also be a good
idea to add thin up- and down-arrows in there (one for each icon
graphic), since that would not only make the change in search
direction more obvious, but also might hint to new users that the
search can also be done in the opposite direction.

---John