Have one box in the header bar instead of the two: Search and Go to.
As the user starts typing, show a list of cards that begin with what they're typing. However, the top item on the list (which is selected) is "Search for <what they've typed>".
If the user hits return, do a search on what they've entered. If there is no exact match, offer to create a card of that name.
If they activate something else from the list (via clicking, or using the arrow keys to go up and down then hitting return), go to that card.
If they use the arrow keys to select something else from the list and hit the + key, put the item that was selected into the box, with a + after it, and list cards that begin with all that, again with the first item being "Search for <what they've typed>".
For bonus points, if they hit return with a card that exists in the box followed by a +, go to <card name>+*plus cards
Very cool! Bits:
Nudge the box one pixel lower.
Suggest having "Search / Go to" or some kind of explanatory text in the box to begin with.
I type some text, then pause long enough for the list to pop up. Then i type a little more and hit return before the list is updated. Wagn deletes the extra i typed, and searches on just the first part. Not good. The moment i start typing again, the list should disappear, and hitting return should search for everything i've typed.
In the list that pops up, the red highlighting the search term is a little too different from the rest of the text - typing in "cards", i was tempted to read the second item as "Go to: cards" rather than "Go to: cards appear in wrong slot". Suggest using bold italics (matches "Card matching keyword: cards" in search results) or the blue color of some Wagn messages. Generally trying to avoid introducing more and more new colors/styles, both for UI reasons and ease of CSS redesign.
Not worth holding up for this, but this is a strong candidate for add progress bar or wheel - maybe break that into separate tickets for each thing needing a progress bar?
Old behavior was, on the search results page, to leave the search term in the search box. Now it's blank. I have a slight preference to bring that back (people can always reload via their browser, but for users not that sophisticated it can be nice to have an easy way to rerun the search). On the other hand, if we leave it blank, we can close activate search even if already on search page :-).
Would it be easy to improve cue text for stripped searches while messing with this code?
1. The "improve cue" ticket needs design work (though probably not right now). I don't like the text there, and I'm not wholly onboard with the premise. Google, for example, does no such thing.
2. re progress bar, I think that is still in design phase, too. Probably don't need to break it out until we have a coherent approach.
3. I think Lew touched up the css, addressing the pixel concern and the red highlighting.
4. His thought was that the search icon would obviate the need for "Search / Go to". I agree. You?
5. Not sure what to do about the search text. Guess we should bring that back. I'll look into it.
--Ethan McCutchen.....Wed Feb 11 11:00:24 -0800 2009
OK, re #5, I brought it back (coded, pushed, not deployed to sand*). I also made it not submit blank searches, which were causing problems. Lew will probably get that deployed tonight, but there's plenty to test in the meantime.
--Ethan McCutchen.....Wed Feb 11 13:48:31 -0800 2009
1-2. Makes sense.
3 & 5. Awesome!
4. Works for me.
If i hold down a key so that it repeats (with a character, or with deleting) then what's in the box and what's in the menu can become different, which is then confusing when i hit return and Wagn searches.
No magnifying glass in IE6
--John Abbe.....Fri Feb 13 20:44:11 -0800 2009
Nice finds, John. Lew, I don't really feel like I can assess the sense in digging into those minor issues now. Guessing that the magnifying glass might be easy but the key repeats might be hard enough to merit a new low-pri ticket.
Figure?
--Ethan McCutchen.....Sat Feb 14 08:31:05 -0800 2009
Also, still think that the menu should disappear as soon as you type something and Wagn knows to have given the message "connecting to server..."
--John Abbe.....Tue Feb 17 12:53:35 -0800 2009
I pushed a fix to make it so that searching on multiple words didn't put an underscore in the search results. will want to remove after we stopping weirding stuff.
--Ethan McCutchen.....Tue Feb 17 13:44:10 -0800 2009
lew says he got the magnifying glass working in IE
--Ethan McCutchen.....Wed Feb 18 21:53:23 -0800 2009
Ticketed disappear search bar menu when user types more and match search bar and menu even w key repeating.
Closing.
--John Abbe.....Wed Feb 18 22:06:57 -0800 2009
What to call this thing? (not "search/goto box")
Goto box
navbox
Cardname box
Card box
Name box
??
--John Abbe.....Sun Mar 01 03:11:57 -0800 2009
--John Abbe.....Sun Mar 01 03:24:58 -0800 2009
Underneath it's called the nav box. I think my inclination would be to call it the "search bar" in docs, because that's the most common term.
--Ethan McCutchen.....Mon Mar 02 09:17:34 -0800 2009
what docs are needed here?
--Ethan McCutchen.....Tue Jun 02 14:19:45 -0700 2009
--John Abbe.....Tue Jun 02 17:00:35 -0700 2009
can we add whatever changes we want to make to search bar to a documentation ticket?
--Ethan McCutchen.....Sun Aug 02 18:26:51 -0700 2009
--John Abbe.....Mon Sep 14 23:34:51 -0700 2009