107029 - needs a more obvious means of ending Quicksearch

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Message Display, defect, P2)

Description

[Ben Ruppel]

From Bugzilla Helper:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:0.9.5+)
Gecko/20011026
BuildID:    20011026

Clicking on the original folder or clearing the quicksearch field may not be
obvious enough as ways to return to normal folder view after performing a
quicksearch.  It is suggested that a "Reset" button be added to the quicksearch
bar, which would clear the entry field and return to normal folder view.

Comment 1

[scottputterman]

agree and confirming.

Comment 2

[jglick]

Suggest "Clear" button to the left of Advanced button. Would remove all text 
from search field.

Comment 3

[Alex Bishop]

I'm not sure if all users would understand that 'Clear' doesn't just remove the
search string but also displays all messages in the folder again. The ideal
button label would be something like 'Clear the search text and display all
messages in this folder again' but that's a bit too long so I vote for 'Reset'.

Comment 4

[jglick]

Reset sounds a bit too techy and hardware-ish i think. 

Also, the full search dialog, "Search Messages" uses "Clear" so we should 
probably be consistent here as well.

Robin, any thoughts?

Comment 5

[Alex Bishop]

> Reset sounds a bit too techy and hardware-ish i think.

OK, you convinced me. 'Clear' gets my vote. Users will figure out how it works
the first time they use it.

Comment 6

[Navin Gupta]

Attachment: proposed fix

Comment 7

[Navin Gupta]

The fix is to add "Clear" button, that will reload the folder. It has a tooltip
"Reload Folder" , is disabled by default, gets enabled only in searchView and
 is disabled again in the folder view. 

Comment 8

[Navin Gupta]

jennifer, do you like the behavior of the "Clear" button as described above ?

Comment 9

[Alex Bishop]

I'm not Jennifer, but I'm not particularly fond of the tooltip. Something along
the lines of 'Show all messages in this folder [again]' would be better.

Comment 10

[Ben Ruppel]

I know I'm a little late with this, but I'll just throw it out there: would
"Show All" be a good button label, or would that confuse people who have stuff
hidden besides through quicksearch?

Comment 11

[scottputterman]

I'm not against having more suggestions thrown out.  I think there may be
problems with both "Clear" and "Reset".  "Clear" to me implies that the results
are being cleared.  But, that's not what we want it to do in the 3 pane.  We
want it to load the folder.  I also agree that "Reset" has the connotations that
Jennifer says.  So, I'll throw out another one.  "Go to Folder". We have this in
Search and this basically does this.  If a message is selected, it would reload
the folder and select that message.  If a message isn't selected it would reload
the folder.  I could also see, "Reload Folder" or "Show Folder". 

Comment 12

[jglick]

OK, here was my rational for "Clear" :-).  Robin, your thoughts are 
appreciated.

From a technical stand point, what this button is doing is reloading the full 
contents of the current folder, but I'm not sure that is how average users will 
understand what is happening. My guess is that users see this feature as a 
"Search", not as a filter of the existing folder. They type something and the 
current folder is searched for matching results and those matches are displayed. 
Now they want to end/reset/clear/cancel the search to get back to where they 
started from. So from a users points of view, they really are clearing the 
search to get back. The search criteria and the results are cleared/removed 
and they start out fresh again, with all messages being displayed.

So for the tooltip, I'd probably go along those lines and use something like 
"Clear the search criteria".

Comment 13

[Ben Ruppel]

My only problem is, to me, when I search with a blank box, I don't expect that
to show all possible results.  I expect an error or something because I didn't
enter a term.  That connection is just something I never made, maybe I'm just an
old timer with my *.* I guess.  

HOWEVER, winXP search does the same thing (shows all files when the field is
clear), as does Mozilla with the subscribe pane for newsgroups.  Is this
expected behavior on Mac and Linux searches?  I don't have too much of a problem
with clear, it's just that I'm wondering if a new user would expect this behavior.

Comment 14

[robinf]

Of all the suggestions, "Clear" for the button text makes the most sense to me
as a user. For the tooltip, how about: "Clear the search criteria and show all
messages".

Comment 15

[Alex Bishop]

> For the tooltip, how about: "Clear the search criteria and show all messages".

Sounds good to me. But I don't make these decisions.

Comment 16

[Håkan Waara]

I have an idea. To keep the UI as clean and usable as possible, we can make it
even more visible that what this feature is doing is filtering the folder using
the string in the textbox. That will make the user understand it, and therefore
we don't need the confusing "Clear"/"Reset" button.

What do you think about the idea? 

I think the wording could be "Show only messages whose subject or sender contains:"

The "only" makes it especially apparent that this will filter the folder. The
text I proposed is a little longer, but more specific than the current (which,
btw, isn't even a correct English sentence; "Subject or sender contains: blah").
The textbox's gonna have to be a tiny bit smaller just to make this text fit.

Comments?

Comment 17

[Alex Bishop]

I think even if the wording is revised there should still be a 'Clear' button to
make it easy to get back to the default view.

Comment 18

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Discussion of tooltip text is moot: on both Windows and Mac OS, a control which 
already has a permanent label (such as a push button) should not have a tooltip 
at all.

But anyway, I agree with Håkan. Please, please, please could the mail/news team 
start considering whether they can solve UI problems by changing or reducing 
the UI they already have, rather than by adding Yet Another Alert or (as in 
this case) Yet Another Button? Then perhaps there wouldn't be so many 
complaints in n.p.m.mail-news about how bad its UI is.

In this case, it's not even clear that it's a problem. `Clicking on the 
original folder or clearing the quicksearch field *may* not be obvious enough 
as ways to return to normal folder view'. May not be obvious enough to who? 
People who won't use the feature anyway? The current method is obvious enough 
for Outlook Express users, why isn't it obvious enough for Mozilla users? And 
if `Users will figure out how it works the first time they use it' applies to 
the clear button, why can't it apply to the text field in the first place?

If indeed it is a problem, I think it could be solved with two simple changes:
*   making the text field much shorter (at the moment its domination over the
    thread pane makes it look compulsory, when it isn't);
*   removing the `Advanced...' button (which makes it look like a submittable
    form which should have a cancel/reset button, when it doesn't).

Comment 19

[Håkan Waara]

I agree with mpt.  If the goal is to make the user interface easy to use and
understand, the solution is to look at the elements, and think "OK, how can make
this simpler" not to add more UI. In fact, adding more UI has the opposite effect.

Comment 20

[Alex Bishop]

> Discussion of tooltip text is moot: on both Windows and Mac OS, a control
> which already has a permanent label (such as a push button) should not have a
> tooltip at all.

I largely agree with that but I don't think a tooltip would hurt. Not in a
physically painful way anyway.

> May not be obvious enough to who? People who won't use the feature anyway? The
> current method is obvious enough for Outlook Express users, why isn't it
> obvious enough for Mozilla users?

Possibly because Outlook Express for Windows doesn't have an equivalent feature?
As I understand it, this feature is intended to make searching more accessible
and introduce it to new users. Therefore it needs to be obvious how to initiate
a search and clear the results. If users can't see how to view all their mail
again they're going to start worrying that they've deleted their messages by
mistake.

> And if `Users will figure out how it works the first time they use it' applies
> to the clear button, why can't it apply to the text field in the first place?

Because deleting the contents of a text field is not as intuitive as pressing a
button marked 'Clear'.

> If indeed it is a problem, I think it could be solved with two simple changes:
> * making the text field much shorter (at the moment its domination over the
>   thread pane makes it look compulsory, when it isn't);

Håkan's extended wording could help with that. While I'm on the wording, I think
 'Show only messages where the subject or sender contains:' sounds better than
'Show only messages whose subject or sender contains:' but I'm not an English
expert or anything.

> * removing the `Advanced...' button (which makes it look like a submittable
>   form which should have a cancel/reset button, when it doesn't).

I believe the point of this is to aid the discoverability of the advanced search
features. Once the user has figured out the Quick Search their curiosity would
lead them to look at the advanced searching capabilities.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the current UI is perfect or anything. Maybe
several alternatives could be tested in Netscape's usability lab of wonder?

Comment 21

[jglick]

Attachment: Outlook Example

Comment 22

[Alex Bishop]

Okay, so Outlook does have a similiar feature (which to be pedantic is not the
same as Outlook Express). It looks like Outlook's search pane is something that
users would display temporarily while searching, rather than all the time as
they would with Quick Search. However, the pane does have 'Clear' and 'Advanced
Find...' hyperlinks, similiar to Quick Search. So I still think those buttons
are a good idea.

Comment 23

[Pierre Chanial]

Sorry for jumping in late.

a more obvious mean of ending Quicksearch?
Well... a Cancel button ?!?

I would suggest to only add a button Cancel to the right of the advanced button.
Clicking on this button would perform two actions:
- close the Quicksearch toolbar
- restore the display of all the messages in the folder.

Find in page Dialog pop-up have a Cancel button and no Clear button.
and at this moment, there is no obvious way to get rid of the quicksearch toolbar.

Comment 24

[Lasse Marøen]

Check out bug 24651 where a button to clear the URL field in navigator is being
discussed. Since the effect is similar (clear a text field using a button), the
UI for it should be similar too. 

Comment 25

[Navin Gupta]

Attachment: proposed fix

The fix is to add a Clear button and to enable only in searchView, keep
it disabled at all other times. I am using access key 'C' for now.

Comment 26

[Navin Gupta]

cc racham for review.

Comment 27

[Navin Gupta]

Regarding focus we have couple of issues, where should focus go when
coming out of quick search
 
-   message is selected in search view.
-   message is not selected in search view

jglick, any suggestions ?

Comment 28

[Navin Gupta]

bhuvan, I will log a separate bug about focus issue (thanks for pointing
it out) can you go ahead with the review?

Comment 29

[racham]

Comment on attachment 66368 [details] [diff] [review]
proposed fix

Please file a new bug and mention the bug number here so that those who are
interested can follow up.

r=bhuvan.

Comment 30

[Navin Gupta]

logged bug 121750 for the focus issue. 

Comment 31

[Scott MacGregor]

navin, can you post an image showing what the button looks like in the toolbar?
I'd like to see what it looks like. Thanks!

Comment 32

[Navin Gupta]

Attachment: screenshot

Comment 33

[kmurray1115]

looks like naving needs to set up Alecf's cool filter... ;-)

button looks good BTW.

Comment 34

[Navin Gupta]

sure, thanks kevin!

Comment 35

[Scott MacGregor]

Comment on attachment 66368 [details] [diff] [review]
proposed fix

navin, after your patch we no longer call SetFocusThreadPane(). is that ok? if
it is, then sr=mscott

Comment 36

[Navin Gupta]

fixed. focus issue is logged separately.

Comment 37

[laurel]

OK using jan30 commercial trunk build: win98, mac OS 9.2 and 10.1, linux rh6.2
Clear button present and basically working in both modern and classic themes.