Closed Bug 245685 Opened 20 years ago Closed 20 years ago

find-in-page accel should use search box, find-as-you-type

Categories

(Firefox :: Search, defect, P5)

x86
All
defect

Tracking

()

VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 250231
Future

People

(Reporter: shaver, Assigned: bugs)

Details

"I find myself using Firefox most of the time now, only going back to IE for a
few pages.. but I must say, that Find in Page dialog? that's the worst thing
I've ever seen. Absolute worst thing ever."

-- Random influential user.

Suggestion:

18:43 <shaver> the find-in-page accelerator should highlight the search box,
               select the find-in-page mode, and start type-ahead as you go

Issues:

 - there are other options in the current find dialog, some of which we might 
   want to preserve.  I think the only one that I care about is direction.  We
   could imitate emacs-isearch's case behaviour, too (ignore case unless a 
   capital letter is entered, and then become case-sensitive).

 - should the search box revert to the previous search setting when the search
   is over?  I think so, or at least the ctrl-J accel should put it back.  (I
   don't know anyone who uses the search box for find-in-page, and don't think
   I care to meet them!)

 - what's the equivalent of dismissing the dialog in this new world?  I like
   "hitting enter", but there might be other things.  We'll have to give up
   the key-"grab", etc.
Flags: blocking1.0+
How can it be the "worst ever" if it's identical to IE's and Opera's?  There are
plenty of ways it could be improved (e.g. replacing "up/down" radio group with a
"find previous" button), but I don't see how the dialog could drive someone away
from Firefox.  I don't think the benefits of getting rid of the dialog outweigh
the costs.

Benefits of getting rid of dialog:
* You can see the entire content area while searching.

Benefits of Ctrl+F being a dialog:
* "Match case" option.
* It's easy to discover how to search backwards.
* It's clear what pressing keys does.  Enter is "find again" and Esc is "stop
searching, and if I found a link, focus it".  Even if those keys are kept the
same (and I think they should be), it won't be obvious to users to try those keys.
* It's clear that selecting Find from the Edit menu did something.  It's easy to
miss a blinking cursor that appears after selecting a menu item.

Things that can be improved regardless of whether Ctrl+F is a dialog:
* Make incremental searching work in the dialog and/or the search bar.
* Improving wrap behavior.
Flags: blocking1.0+ → blocking1.0-
Priority: -- → P5
Target Milestone: --- → After Firefox 1.0
See also bug 246731, "FastFind: A toolbar merging the find dialog and
type-ahead-find".

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 250231 ***
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 20 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
v
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
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