[bt-devel] Search dialog changes

[Eeli Kaikkonen]

I committed some changes to the search dialog.

The first one is the AND/OR search type. This has been requested by 
users and I have seen this very reasonable. The implementation was 
harder than I first thought. The AND search just adds AND between the 
words - but what to do if user writes AND or OR by hand? I resolved this 
by changing the type automatically to OR if the string includes AND/OR. 
It's reflected in UI. Also history was a problem - should the history 
have ANDs? I resolved this by saving the history items as they were 
written, not adding any ANDs there. The same history item may now work 
as both types if user changes the type.

The second one is the help button. I don't know if help buttons 
generally are bad or good. I don't like them, mostly because I'm used to 
buttons which open the ordinary help system and in the worst case not in 
the wanted place. It also was a distraction in the UI: there were many 
buttons on top of each other which made it difficult to find the correct 
one (even though they were in line with the other respective elements). 
Instead of the button I added a link which should raise interest in 
users even more than a button. It's immediately clear that the link 
points to syntax help, not to any general help. It's also right next to 
the AND/OR items which are those which may need clarification. At the 
same time it hopefully gives the idea of the OR type owning the "full 
syntax".

The third one is the Search button. It's now placed next to the search 
text field where it's immediately reachable with mouse after writing 
some text. I think the text field and the action button are closely 
related and should be next to each other. Moving the mouse to the bottom 
of the dialog has always annoyed me.

The AND/OR button group serves also as a nice visual divider between the 
most important part - text field and Search button -  and the rest of 
the options area.

The fourth one is the Analyze button - it's moved to the left corner of 
the dialog, even though it's not visible now. It took valuable space 
from the result lists.


The help text must still be rewritten and the help dialog should be 
ported to use a dialog which has a scroll area and is non-modal.

These changes need feedback about the UI and heavy testing. I can't 
possibly find all ways the Search dialog is used and the AND/OR system 
may break.


--Eeli Kaikkonen