quick find
Saturday, 27. January 2007, 15:12:18
Quick find in Opera is a very neat way of finding what you are looking for without need of removing your hands from the keyboard.
Besides using it in history and in mail view, where by now it has established itself as a quick and easy way to find your items - unfortunately not really too powerful, though - there are two more places where I am using quick find on a regular basis - where it is more useful than in its default contexts, in my view.
Please note that in order to have this working you'll need an Opera 9.12 snapshot build which fixed a bug that badly hindered this usage.
Windows Panel
Yes, that neglected panel can be very useful when you are using lots of tabs - and with my 350+ tabs I need some way of finding what I am looking for, really. The quick find field added to the windows panel really works nice here. This is actually all of my tab management, since I have turned the tab bar off.
Mail Panel
The default search box in the mail panel doesn't help at all, since I yet have to find one user that really understands what that search field really is looking for. Did it ever find what you were expecting to find when you searched for something in there?
Well, I myself have replaced it with a quick find field - which does exactly what you expect it to do: it finds among the access-points in your mail panel what you are looking for…
I love query interfaces.
Besides using it in history and in mail view, where by now it has established itself as a quick and easy way to find your items - unfortunately not really too powerful, though - there are two more places where I am using quick find on a regular basis - where it is more useful than in its default contexts, in my view.
Please note that in order to have this working you'll need an Opera 9.12 snapshot build which fixed a bug that badly hindered this usage.
Windows Panel
Yes, that neglected panel can be very useful when you are using lots of tabs - and with my 350+ tabs I need some way of finding what I am looking for, really. The quick find field added to the windows panel really works nice here. This is actually all of my tab management, since I have turned the tab bar off.
Mail Panel
The default search box in the mail panel doesn't help at all, since I yet have to find one user that really understands what that search field really is looking for. Did it ever find what you were expecting to find when you searched for something in there?
Well, I myself have replaced it with a quick find field - which does exactly what you expect it to do: it finds among the access-points in your mail panel what you are looking for…
I love query interfaces.
WIDGETIZE
TreeGo # 27. January 2007, 20:13
Claudio Santambrogio # 27. January 2007, 20:40
Yes, indeed - and that is a pity. However, personally I do not need that feature since the only place where you'd really need it would be IRC - but I use another client. For anything else you still should be able to see the "updated" status in the ctrl+tab tab list.
grafio # 27. January 2007, 20:41
Also it's harder to close pages, middle click doesn't work like in the tab bar. Also "by site" sorting would be nice. I like the idea to browse without the tab bar (using Windows panel), but Opera should improve this feature IMO.
TreeGo # 27. January 2007, 21:17
Claudio Santambrogio # 27. January 2007, 21:35
The history panel, on the other hand, offers exactly the functionality you are asking for - it allows you to search both the title and the URL. Too bad that once you find that URL/page and you click to activate it, you'll open a new tab to load it, instead of simply activating the already open tab if that URL is already loaded somewhere - as when you click on the item in the windows panel... And in the history panel you can do the by-site sorting as well.
Claudio Santambrogio # 27. January 2007, 21:43
Eddie Lopez # 27. January 2007, 21:48
Now I have to "F7" then tab or shift tab depending on the focus.. if anyone can help me come up with a way to get "F7" to always focus the Find box (if applicable), then I'd buy you a pitcher of beer.
...also, since we're on the topic, I'll bring up again my desire to also have the quick find clear itself when done searching. While I can certainly understand the need to keep the panel search results around, I think it's more more reasonable to expect the user has "found" what they are looking for and is done with the search, so clear it out.
Claudio Santambrogio # 27. January 2007, 21:57
When exactly? I agree, but I am not sure when the best moment might be...
Yeah, wouldn't we (keyboard users) all...?
Eddie Lopez # 27. January 2007, 22:38
Couple thoughts all have just as many cons as pros:
1) When focus leaves the panel. Presumably the user is finished if the focus moves off the panel being search.
2) When the user selects (hits enter or clicks) an item from the panel.
3) User invoked... how about a keyboard binding to a "Clear Quick Find?"
I guess if I had the first it wouldnt be a big deal- I'd be happy if I could get instant access to the quickfind field... then I could just hit esc or "del" to clear it out and type.... but if there was a global "clear quick find" command that I could map to a keyboard shortcut that would be even better.
...again, I certainly see value in keeping the search results there until the user clears the search box. But 90% of the time *I* use it, I'm just searching for that one note or bookmark, then I hit:
1) tab
2) enter
... back to the document context and I'm done in the panel... I don't want my panel to be filtered for the next time I want to search for a bookmark.
Claudio Santambrogio # 27. January 2007, 23:50
Not if there were more than one match and the user just tries the first one and plans to try the second one after that.
This might indeed be nice and save the shift+tab backspace sequence.
Eddie Lopez # 28. January 2007, 01:04
Andrey Petrov # 29. January 2007, 16:49
To be even more useful for people who have 100+ tabs opened it should search in pages' content (as option).
On the side note: I really wait for page thumbnails in Windows panel. It will be very helpful.
imwalkinonair # 13. June 2008, 11:42
csant, can you describe in detail how you use quick find (in windows panel)? what is the shortest way to focus quick find? how to activate page that is "result" of quick find? I have to use a lot of tab,shift+tab, that is not ideal. I hope it will be possible to "quick find" in pages in the address field similar to search in history (that's what vimperator does) soon.