FS#116 - Additional 'Experts View'
Attached to Project:
Locate32
Opened by Niko Saratsis (Fast Eddie) - Monday, 23 November 2009, 06:49 GMT-7
Opened by Niko Saratsis (Fast Eddie) - Monday, 23 November 2009, 06:49 GMT-7
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DetailsI'm quite happy, that searching behaviour is adjustable in a wide range. But the controls of some essential search parameter I use frequently are located in different places ('Name&Location'-tab, 'Advanced'-tab,'Advanced Settings'-menue).
It would be great to have an additional 'Experts' tab where essential search parameters are put together. You could keep all parameters in view and you could quickly adopt them to the needs of a special search request, without leaving your actual search window. I'm aware, that each approach trying to define the 'essential parameters' will be more or less subjective. Nevertheless I tried it and prepared an 'Experts View' putting the following things (closely) together: Selctors, Combos: 'Named', 'Extensions', 'Look in'(with 'no subdirctories' and 'Browse'), 'Look for' Options: 'Space as separator', 'And Mode', Wildcard search in whole file name', 'Use entire path', 'Search as you type', 'Allow logical operators', 'Replace space with asteriks', 'folders first', 'Dialog allway on top' I would like to post a JPEG showing the layout for further discussions. As far as I know flyspray doesn't support graphics uploads. Where could I place the graphics? |
This task depends upon
no subdirctories: I never use this
Look for: I rarely use
Space as separator: always on
And Mode: I never use
Use entire path: rarely use
Allow logical operators: always on
Replace space with asteriks: never use
Folders first: never use
Dialog allway on top: never use
So I think this kind of expert mode is quite useless unless it is customizable. But that it is quite hard to make customizable dialogs, and I doubt that I have ever time for that.
For options: I have thought that it could be good if you could change essential options using keyboard shortcuts (or some on a toolbar).
I agree that it's generally a good idea to allow all (advanced) options to be defined via keyboard shortcuts, but there is a disadvantage in this context:
You don't see immediately what options are actually activated.
I guess an extended toolbar would be a better way if the shown items could be user definable and storeable (included in 'presets').
But, from my point of view a user definable additional view would be prefeable for advanced users because everything needed frequently is closely togehter. That makes handling faster and provides best overview.
Have you thougt about this: An user definable view containing the essential combos (non-changable) and several (on/off)-parameters on fixed positions implemented as on/off-buttons added to a selector box each, pointing to the (advanced-)parameters list. It should be storeable and lockable.
Do you think this would be managable?
I couldn't completely understand you suggestion, but as I said, implementation of customizable UI is tricky and will take time (which I do not have much nowadays).
Since I've succeded yesterday compiling completely from provided sources (thank you very much for open sources) I'll try to provide a prototype to show what I'm meaning. Dont't know exactly how to do that because I'm not familiar with Visual Studio an C++, but I'll try.