518336 - [faceted search]: Move "Show results as list" button to the top-left of search results to toggle between gloda mini-previews vs. traditional treeview+preview on the right of same tab

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Search, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Russell East]

Atm, "Show all as list" appears at top of right-hand results section of Gloda output.  It might be better if it were shown on the left hand side where "controls" for selecting amongst results are placed.

Comment 1

[Russell East]

Attachment: Screenshot 1: with "Show all as list" toggle button on left hand side (fancy previews mode)

Comment 2

[Russell East]

Attachment: Screenshot 2: Mockup with "Open as list" toggle button on left hand side ("classic list view & preview" mode, on the right)

instead of opening a complete new tab, how about if the right-hand results is a pane that is replaced by the list-view

Comment 3

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to comment #2)
> Created an attachment (id=402341) [details]
> might be nice if the "results as list" appears this way
> 
> instead of opening a complete new tab, how about if the right-hand results is a
> pane that is replaced by the list-view

This sounds like a great step towards making that faceted search results page actually do something useful. Please also add a pref that I don't have to press "Show all as list" each time, but it will do it automatically.

Comment 4

[Russell East]

To be complete, I should have added, as soon as "list view" is chosen, then the button text should change to "Show all as {whatever the current Gloda output is named, and I'm having a mental block about what that name is}"

Comment 5

[C. Dyck]

Something like this is totally needed to make the global search function useful when you have a lot of mail.
At the moment it's often faster to guess the date when the mail was received instead of using the search function.

Comment 6

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Bugs with similar requests:

Bug 580252 - Search: Option to make "Open as List" view the default view
Bug 579109 - [faceted search] Last search result display format should be remembered and used (option to skip faceted results, persist "open as list")

Comment 8

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Implementation detail: Remember toggle state of view mode toggle button!

Duplicate Bug 579109 adds the important detail that for obvious reasons, we will want to remember whichever view mode the user last had (fancy previews vs. list mode), i.e. remember the toggle state of the button implemented by this bug for the next global search (which is better than my similar comment 3).

Comment 9

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Attachment: Screenshot 2b: Mockup with "Show as mini previews" toggle button on left hand side ("classic list view & preview" mode, on the right)

(In reply to comment 4)

Comment 4 proposes to make this a quasi toggle button in that we swap labels each time the button is clicked:
- in mini previews mode (the fancy faceted thing), button has "Show as list"
- in list view mode (the plain grid thing), button has "Show as mini previews"
Or some other UI element and/or better labels/icons we can come up with.

So clicking the toggle button on the left top will always get you into the "other" view mode (on the right). Which makes sense, as long as we have just 2 view modes.

Comment 10

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Comment on attachment 462359 [details]
Screenshot 2b: Mockup with "Show as mini previews" toggle button on left hand side ("classic list view & preview" mode, on the right)

Bryan, many people in various spots have said they want an easy way of bypassing "fancy" faceted search results (with mini-previews) in favour of good old plain "list view" (with full preview) that you get with "Open as list". This bug proposes to move "Open as list" button to the top of facets panel on the left, and make it toggle what you see on the right between "mini preview" mode and "list view" mode, i.e. without openening a new tab for that. You need to look at screenshot 1 (from attachment 402340 [details]) and then screenshot 2b (from this attachment 462359 [details]) to see the proposed behaviour. Furthermore, the idea is to remember whichever view mode the user picked last for the next global search. We would love to have your feedback on the general idea.

Comment 11

[Russell East]

agree with your overall UI design - that's kind-of what I expected.   

Just curious, do you envisage the List view has something like the "More >>" button, that is available in Mini Preview view?   If so, then the "More >>" button might also need to shift into the left hand pane.

Comment 12

[Bryan Clark (DevTools PM) [:clarkbw]]

Comment on attachment 462359 [details]
Screenshot 2b: Mockup with "Show as mini previews" toggle button on left hand side ("classic list view & preview" mode, on the right)

Changing the toggle button location (as suggested in comment 0) is fairly easily done.  I don't like how the current button isn't completely clear.  The left hand side was structured for items that alter the right so I'm not sure that's the best place.  Any other ideas?

However from an implementation point of view I don't think the mini preview is going to be easily achievable.  Also I would wonder how you select which conversation is being toggled.

Comment 13

[Russell East]

Attachment: more ideas

Comment 14

[Russell East]

How about something like the "more ideas" attachment?   It's a quick-n-dirty mock-up.  Probably the button placement is all wrong, but the idea is a panel at the top with controls for overall.  Existing controls at left remain separate from the new controls area at top.   I've put solid lines as separators to add emphasis, but maybe just blank space, or something more cool looking....

Comment 15

[Russell East]

Also, how about the "list view" shows all the results that are currently displayed in "mini preview"?

Furthermore, how about the "More" button remains active no matter which view is selected, and works the same way in both views?

Comment 16

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Just a starting point for GS reports, no systematical search yet.

Comment 17

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

In version 78, "open as list" has just moved to the top right.
Is there any remaining aspect of this bug we want to pursue?

Comment 18

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #17)

In version 78, "open as list" has just moved to the top right.
Is there any remaining aspect of this bug we want to pursue?

Well, it's more than just a cosmetic issue between left and right. Comments here have proposed significant changes/improvements to the way global search results can be manipulated.

Right now we have a faceted search which is still quite alien to the whole rest of Thunderbird.
Then we have "Show results as list" which opens the traditional treeview+preview layout in a new tab.
There's no connection between the two different presentation modes of results, you end up with two tabs (hardly desirable), and you can't apply more facets in treeview+preview mode.
The proposal is to move the "Show results as list" to the top left of the facets colum and make it a toggle button that will keep the facets on the left but show tree+preview on the right (in the first results tab), and the toggle button now becomes "Show mini previews" (aka faceted results).
So you would choose your favorite results presentation in a single tab while always maintaining the facet search power.
That's the idea. We'd have to figure out if that is technically feasible and evaluate the resulting UX.

Comment 19

[Alessandro Castellani [:aleca]]

Indeed, as Thomas highlighted, this request goes a bit deeper.
I'll explore this section once we're out of the 78.2 deadline.