Pressing Enter in Quick filter takes user to Global Search
Categories
(Thunderbird :: Search, defect)
Tracking
(Not tracked)
People
(Reporter: mozillazine-trk1, Unassigned)
References
Details
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/119.0
Steps to reproduce:
Type a search term in Quick Filter followed by Enter.
Actual results:
A new tab with Global Search results opened.
Expected results:
No new tab. Just stay in the mailbox and do quick search normally. If I wanted to do a Global Search, I would've pressed Ctrl-K or gone to Edit/Find/Global Search (which, incidentally, doesn't indicate the keyboard shortcut).
It should be easy enough to make this behavior configurable (i.e. take advantage of this new functionality or stay with the decades-old behavior).
(In reply to alexwi from comment #0)
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/119.0
Steps to reproduce:
Type a search term in Quick Filter followed by Enter.
Why are you pressing Enter ?
This is a genuine question because when you enter search criteria Thunderbird should auto displays results and you ony need to select the required filter options 'Sender'. 'Recipients', 'Subject', 'Body'
When entering search criteria and the filter options are enabled - are you getting the auto display of results as you type or not ?
Actual results:
A new tab with Global Search results opened.Expected results:
No new tab. Just stay in the mailbox and do quick search normally. If I wanted to do a Global Search, I would've pressed Ctrl-K or gone to Edit/Find/Global Search (which, incidentally, doesn't indicate the keyboard shortcut).It should be easy enough to make this behavior configurable (i.e. take advantage of this new functionality or stay with the decades-old behavior).
Testing in version 115* :
when you typed something into 'Quick Filter' search, it auto got results for filtering on the any options 'Sender'. 'Recipients', 'Subject', 'Body'
There was no need to press Enter - results were auto displayed.
Pressing 'Enter' did nothing unless the search returned no results in which case you get a pop up message which says 'Continue this search across all folders - Press Enter again to continue your search''
In this instance pressing on Enter will swap over to Global Search using same search criteria.
Testing In beta 130.0b1:
if you typed something into Quick Filter search and got no results for filtering on the any enabled options 'Sender'. 'Recipients', 'Subject', 'Body'
you get a pop up message which says 'Continue this search across all folders - Press Enter again to continue your search''
So that part is the same as it has always been - press Enter and auto open results in Globale Search.
But now regardless of whether you get results or no results
pressing on Enter will swap over to Global Search in new tab using same search criteria.
Personally, I find this an improvement because now I do not need to stop the search and go to Global Search and retype search criteria again.
I just click on 'Enter' to invoke the request.
The only part I find odd is the pop up message mentioning 'press enter AGAIN....' the word 'again' should be removed to be accurate.
Please tell us this info:
When entering search criteria and the filter options are enabled - are you getting the auto display of results as you type or not ?
Hi Anje,
The incremental search works as it's supposed to and it has in the past as well.
However, if I want to search, for example for "appointment," I type the whole word, which is much faster than typing a few letters, wait to see if any results come up, and keep typing if nothing comes up. Sometimes I also type part of the search term (i.e. "sabr" instead of "sabrina").
Your question regarding WHY I press Enter is quite reasonable. I do it out of habit, as I'm always using the keyboard and have gotten accustomed to pressing Enter to indicate to the active program that I'm done with my input.
The pop-up was great for me, because when I do a quick search it is precisely because I don't want to do a global search, and the very few times that I want to search globally, it's very intentional (i.e. I press Ctrl-K). Especially because I use the quick search really as a filter, so I can quickly see emails from a particular sender or containing a specific word in the subject. For my use case, in which I know what folder to do the quick search on, it's far more practical to have my results just filtered while I STAY in the mailbox I'm working with than to have a new tab open with far less results on the first page and which are also less usable, than seeing my results as emails in the familiar (and, for me, more usable) form within a mailbox, where I can seamlessly continue using the keyboard to navigate to the right email using the up and down arrows.
If I don't press Enter, the ability to navigate the filtered results in the current mailbox is still there, but I have to wait for the search to "settle" before I can do so.
I see no advantage in ending up in global search regardless of the existence or nonexistence of matches to my query, which is usually limited to a single word or part of one. On the other hand, I agree with you in that it makes sense for the search criteria in global search to be already populated with the same term the user entered in the quick search field.
One use case in which the global search fails though, is when I enter any part of a word in quick search and am taken to global search. For example, I have a number of messages from "sabrina." If I enter "sabrina" and press Enter, the global search results are fine. But if I enter "sabr" and press Enter, a LOT of emails (including some from yesterday even) are missing from the list. And "brina" (also followed by Enter in quick search) yields no results at all in global search. All of the above yield the right results in quick search (without Enter).
Assuming that checking a configuration setting takes a single line of code, the change I'm asking for should require only 3 lines of code (the definition of a constant in an include file, and an if and endif surrounding the line that calls the global search functionality). Another option which I THINK might be even less work, would be to change the trigger key from Enter to Ctrl-Enter.
If I had the time to learn how to properly compile programs under linux, I'd be posting the actual code here. (I'll make an actual effort to do this in the coming months, so that, at least for once, I can actually contribute something rather than just complain.)
Considering that it took about 10 years to implement the new behavior (someone asked for it back in 2013), I'm definitely not holding my breath, and it would be nice to have the ability to go back to decades-old behavior, but more than likely, by 2034 my fingers will be more than trained not to press Enter in this particular case. In fact, I just did a small experiment, since my fingers "want" to press something after the search term, and Tab seems to be innocuous, so if I fail to train myself not to press anything, that should work (until someone decides that Tab should also do something).
Thanks for your interest and for looking into this. I apologize if my original report suggested that something in the intended functionality was broken.
Alex
|
||
Comment 3•1 year ago
|
||
Your interest in improving Thunderbird is appreciated. Note, the feature name is "quick filter" as labeled in the Thunderbird UI.
In this case, the behavior of the enter key is working as intended (at least prior to version 78 when it was fixed in bug 1663153) and is not planned to be changed, with or without a preference.
Bug 526221 is still open, but this is incorrect because the feature was implemented. It will be closed.
|
||
Comment 4•6 months ago
|
||
(In reply to Anje from comment #1)
Why are you pressing Enter ?
This is a genuine question because when you enter search criteria Thunderbird should auto displays results and you ony need to select the required filter options 'Sender'. 'Recipients', 'Subject', 'Body'
When entering search criteria and the filter options are enabled - are you getting the auto display of results as you type or not ?
I don't know about alexwi, but I'll tell you why I do:
There is a brief delay between when you type and when the view is filtered.
Pressing ENTER after typing eliminates the delay.
Many years of muscle memory of typing the filter in and pressing ENTER is now ruined because of this change.
If this is a WONTFIX, then please add a Preference to turn this new behavior OFF, because it is absolutely maddening.
Can someone point to the commit that introduced this change so I can revert it in my local build? Thanks!
|
|
||
Comment 5•6 months ago
|
||
Since I had to search around to find it, there is a feature request asking to make this new behavior configurable:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1915770
For those who found this and want to express their desire for this, please go there and vote.
(In reply to :Dossy Shiobara from comment #4)
Someone created an add-on to address the new, uhm, "feature," since its creators know that this is what absolutely all users need.
Hope this helps:
https://github.com/baldurk/QuickFilterNoSearch/blob/main/README.md
(In reply to Anje from comment #1)
Why are you pressing Enter ?
This is a genuine question because when you enter search criteria Thunderbird should auto displays results and you ony need to select the required filter options 'Sender'. 'Recipients', 'Subject', 'Body'
When entering search criteria and the filter options are enabled - are you getting the auto display of results as you type or not ?I don't know about alexwi, but I'll tell you why I do:
There is a brief delay between when you type and when the view is filtered.
Pressing ENTER after typing eliminates the delay.
Many years of muscle memory of typing the filter in and pressing ENTER is now ruined because of this change.
If this is a WONTFIX, then please add a Preference to turn this new behavior OFF, because it is absolutely maddening.
Can someone point to the commit that introduced this change so I can revert it in my local build? Thanks!
Description
•