Re: SearchBar in Abi

On Fri, 17 Dec 2004, Jordi Mas wrote:

> Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 18:47:10 +0100
> From: Jordi Mas <jmas@softcatala.org>
> To: abiword-dev@abisource.com
> Subject: SearchBar in Abi
>
>
> Hello!
>
> These days I have been playing with the idea of adding a SearchBar into
> Abiword. I always have found these bars very useful (VC++ 6.0) or now the web
> browser FireFox.

The reason people have advocated search bars in the past was because a
Find and Replace dialog can sometimes obscure the found words but if you
make the Find and Replace dialog smarter this is less of a problem.

I think maybe it was GoBe office that had a document search bar like you
are proposing but the downside of having searchbar is the space it takes
up on screen and unless you are doing a lot of searching it is a waste to
have it open all the time. Wasted screen space is less of an issue if you
have a search widget on an existing toolbar rather than a whole new
toolbar.

I always thought it would be cool if you could 'dock' the Find and Replace
dialog and have it reflow into a horizontal toolbar, but that is a pipe
dream.

I have a few questions:
Do you plan on having a whole seperate toolbar for this or do you plan to
add it as another widget on the Extra Toolbar?
Will this functionality be a replacement for the Find and Replace Dialog?

Do you intend to provide a button to activate the search?
(Not all users are comfortable without the equivalent of a 'Go' button)

> If you think that this can be a useful feature

I dont doubt that this will be useful for some people and a few may sing
your praises but I'd much ratehr see it as an optional extra.

- Alan
Received on Fri Dec 17 20:48:41 2004