contextual searches [#15077]

[Barry4679]

I very much like the new design:

• tool bar now shows scroll mode criteria ... you can edit it

• I can now read the contents of the tool bar control, before it was red on orange, or some such hard to read thing

• there is clearing "x" control in the criteria box ...

• can toggle from filter to scroll w/o having to hunt through Tools|Options

• up|down arrow controls when in scroll mode

Lots to like, and things seem clearer now.

Some issues:

Problem when changing Media Tree sub-nodes.

Steps:

• set default sort to filter matches

• Click a major node in Media Tree, eg EntireLibrary

• click a sub-node eg. AlbumArtists

• type something, eg. Beat ... filters to Beatles as expected

• click another Media Tree sub-node, eg. Artists

• type something, eg. beat.... filtering and non-filtered display breaks ... empty result list .... click on Artists in toolbar breadcrumb EntireLibrary>Artists ... now looks like I have no artists at all

• reset by re-click EntireLibrary

Can trigger the same issue by repeating steps 1 through 3, and doing it quickly, ie. before it has populated the sub-nodes home screen thumbnails.

Sort options dbox is unclear.

You should indent the "search whole words only" control, so that it is clear that the control is the only thing which belongs to the "Full text search (search bar" heading ... or put the general controls at the top, and put the mode specific controls at the bottom

I assumed that it should be read as shown below ... red boxes showed my assumption based upon current dbox design.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/s5f0zldl8mszq ... r.png?dl=0

Also why are Custom 6 .. Custom 10 check boxes separated, and a screen scroll way, from the others at Sort panel in Tools|Options?

Scroll mode

Now that you have the up|down arrows in the tool bar's scroll control, you should lose the temp ugly pop up dbox re the control+arrow hint ... the message often overlays what you have scrolled to ... and it is now redundant.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cgx5qi6jni8nt ... n.png?dl=0

Also ... scroll to some value that is unique in your library ... eg. EntireLibray>AlbumArtist node ... and set scroll criteria for some specific unique string for band name .... the scroll happens ... manually scroll the screen so that the selected artist is now off-screen ... use Crtl+arrow key to scroll to next occurrence ... display stays staic, and message says "No Occurrence for xxx" .... confusing, I would have expected "no MORE occurrences for xxx", and I would have expected it scroll the screen so that the artist is now visible again.

Also the up down arrows in the new contextual scroll control do not work the same as the Ctrl+arrow keys ...

• go to EntireLibrary>AlbumArtists on the Media Tree

• type the same unique string, which finds just the one artist

• click their thumb image to open the inline grid of their album thumbs

• click thumb again to close inline grid

• press Ctrl+Down ... get "No Occurrence for xxx" as before

• but the down arrow toggles from the albumartist to each of the albums which we saw in the now-closed grid .... this is especially confusing if the right hand tab is closed, so that the "selected" pane is not visible ... confusing because I ask to scroll to the artist, but the UI only selects the artist periodically, because other times it selects album which is invisible to me

[Ludek]

Thanks for the feedback, to be improved for the next build(s), tracked in https://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=15077

[Barry4679]

You could also look at how contextual searches interact within the Column Browser control.

Steps:

• Set Media Tree to EntireLibrary>AllTracks

• display column browser with two columns: AlbumArtist, Album

• focus is within column 1 of Column Browser

• https://www.dropbox.com/s/7fc0jft9zt4sy ... n.png?dl=0

• type something with keyboard, to initiate a contextual search ... I typed dead ... search mode is set to filter

.

• the search control is opened in the toolbar ... focus moves to 1st row of 1st column in Column Browser ... https://www.dropbox.com/s/jd0lvb7vxps81 ... n.png?dl=0

• ? this was a scroll to action, and I received a message at the bottom of the screen saying to use ctrl+arrow to scroll to next occurrence ... but I am in filter mode

• ??? there was movement to a row, but that row does not contain the search criteria

• ??? I am in filter mode, you positioned me to row 1 of column 1 of the Column Browser, but the grid is not filtered

.

• press down arrow in tool bar search control ... Column Browser scrolls to 1st occurrence of "dead" in column 1 ... main grid is filtered as expected

• press down arrow again ... scrolls to next occurrence of "dead" in col 1 of Column Browser ... main grid is re-filtered

• etc etc, until column 1 occurrences are exhausted

• ??? it then starts scrolling col 2 of the Column Browser for occurrences of "dead" in the album titles, but just for the last matched albumartist in col 1 ... scroll normally works only for the primary sort column

• etc, etc, until column 2 matches are exhausted also

• ??? it then starts scrolling through all the tracks in the main grid, which has been re-filtered to show all tracks for albums by the last matched albumartist in col 1 of the Column Browser

• ??? the down arrows in the search control in the tool bar operate differently to Ctrl|arrow keys ... you posted a popup saying that I coould use the ctrl+arrow keys to navigate to occurrences of my search string, but these keys ignore my search string when navigating the grid

What would I have liked to happen here?

Presumably the override scroll behaviour from a filter search when I am in Column Browser is intentional (?) ... I think that this is useful.

• the first scroll action to the unrelated 1st row is confusing, and unhelpful

• the scroll out of the column browser, and into the filtered grid is not helpful

• the scrolling from column 1 of the Column Browser, to column 2, but just for the last match in column 1, is not helpful because it would exclude any other matches which may be in column 2

• it would have been better to just have scrolled back to the 1st match in column 1 of the column browser IMO

• the ctrl+arrow keys should mimic the up|down arrows in the tool bar search control

....

[Ludek]

Thanks, will be fixed in 2168