[Geany] incremental search backward revisited

[Jeff Pohlmeyer]

On Jan 29, 2008 10:37 AM, Enrico Tröger <enrico.troeger at uvena.de> wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Jan 2008, "Jeff Pohlmeyer"> <yetanothergeek at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Jan 27, 2008, John Gabriele <jmg3000 at gmail.com> wrote:


> > > 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.

> I also don't like the popup menu item, to complicated to reach, IMO.

I don't really don't like it either, but some people don't like the
right-click icon, some people don't like an extra button, and some
people don't like the checkbox, so that doesn't leave a lot of other
options. Either you add the UI element to the toolbar, or you hide it.
If you put it on the toolbar, it takes up space. If you hide it, then
it's hard to find.


> > > Nick's idea is great for users who just want the single
> > > fast keybinding.
> Yes.

> > Yes, that's a good idea, although still not-so-obvious
> > for newbies.

> But we will add this because at least we have the feature and I think
> it's not too hard to reach the preferences dialog and set a keybinding
> for users who want this feature. Anyway, any graphical hint would be
> nice.

Like I say, I think the keybinding is a good idea, I was only observing
that the arguments against the popup menu and right-click icon might
be valid here as well. But maybe not, since keybindings are by nature
"hidden" where GUI elements are expected to be more apparent.


> > > Changing the background color would seem to be ok, since
> > > it's already being done for when the search returns no
> > > results.

> > Should be OK, but if it's done, then I think Geany should
> > always override the user's gtkrc settings, to make sure
> > the default widget is always black-on-white.

> I think we shouldn't touch the user's gtkrc settings if it isn't
> really necessary at all.

I didn't mean to say you should change the user's gtkrc file, only
that if you decide to change the background color for this widget,
just make sure you don't end up with something like user-specified
light blue text on a geany-specified light blue background.


> At the moment, the only way I see is an additional icon next to the
> search field in the toolbar but on the other hand, I don't like to add
> yet another icon only for ISB.

> My idea of the right-click on the toolbar search icon to do a ISB could
> be indeed a bit confusing and isn't very intuitive too. This would
> probably also need some extra documentation like in the tooltip. But at
> least it would be easy to implement ;-).

Personally, I think John's idea of an icon on either side of the search
field is the most intuitive. Even if they are simply stock right/left
arrow icons, their intended purpose should be fairly obvious to the user:

  [<]__________[>]


But since I keep my Geany toolbar hidden 99.99% of the time,
most of what I say here is probably just noise anyway :-)



 - Jeff