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Bug 17635 - Find dialog behavior surprises new users
Summary: Find dialog behavior surprises new users
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: editor
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Search (show other bugs)
Version: 3.x
Hardware: All All
: P2 blocker (vote)
Assignee: issues@www
URL:
Keywords:
: 17636 20282 23573 29221 39754 44079 179636 179637 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2001-11-13 23:49 UTC by David-john Burrowes
Modified: 2010-01-18 09:37 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
Issue Type: ENHANCEMENT
Exception Reporter:


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Description David-john Burrowes 2001-11-13 23:49:10 UTC
None of the participants in a recent usability study found that used the "Find..." command had behavior that they expected. The problems 
they encountered included:
- after typing some letters in the "Find" dialog, the Source Editor gave feedback indicating that it had found something. Satisfied that the 
task was completed, the participants clicked on "Close", at which point the editor scrolled back to the starting point, and discarded any 
indication  of what it had previously found. 

- after clicking the "Find" button in the "Find" dialog, participants were annoyed to have the window disappear (particularly because they 
could not figure out how to find the next occurrence)

That is, this dialog did not behave as any of the users expected.

Recommendation: This dialog could be redesigned to give more expected feedback. For example, it might give intermediate feedback (as it 
is finding what the user is typing) that looks less like the selected results of the find (e.g. it might merely draw an outline around the text it 
has found). The  "Close" button might also be renamed "Cancel" to give more indication that clicking it will discard the partially found result.
Comment 1 Jan Chalupa 2001-11-27 12:27:25 UTC
Target milestone -> 3.3.1.
Comment 2 Miloslav Metelka 2002-01-11 10:33:15 UTC
I've changed this to enhancement.
Maybe we could separate the incremental search from the find dialog. I
would like to make some kind of general interactive tooltip component
that would display both the tooltip and code completion results and it
could also display the field for the incremental search.
Anyway there should be some discussion about this on nbui prior to
making any decissions.
Comment 3 Ann Sunhachawee 2002-06-06 22:01:34 UTC
See also another incidence of this - bug 20282
Comment 4 Marek Grummich 2002-07-22 09:57:51 UTC
Set target milestone to TBD
Comment 5 Marek Grummich 2002-07-22 10:00:43 UTC
Set target milestone to TBD
Comment 6 Martin Roskanin 2003-01-22 12:50:01 UTC
*** Issue 29221 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 7 David-john Burrowes 2003-01-22 19:55:09 UTC
See also
http://www.netbeans.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=23573
and
http://www.netbeans.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=14307
as other threads (marked as duplicates of some of the issues that are
marked as duplicates of this issue)

Also, there are multiple requests in these threads for a "Find Next"
command in the menus. e.g.:
http://www.netbeans.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=17636


I'm changing this to be a P2 enhancment (I'd be happy with a P3
Defect, or a P1 Enhancement, for that matter :-).  If you look at all
these threads, we have at least two usability tests reporting that
this is a problem, and multiple users who have gone through the
process to report an issue on this.  It really sounds to me like the
design we have isn't as good as it could be.

I'm not sure what the right/best alternate design is, but it looks
like someone should look into this (I'm cc'ing dirk ruiz on this since
he is the head UI person for NetBeans)


Comment 8 David-john Burrowes 2003-10-30 00:14:49 UTC
We recently ran another usability study of the SunStudio IDE, and this
same problem came up again.
Comment 9 psuk 2004-03-23 18:20:24 UTC
Changing subcomponent to "search"
Comment 10 _ tboudreau 2004-08-16 02:30:28 UTC
I "find" I'm surprised by the behavior daily, and I've been using 
NetBeans for 5 years :-)
Comment 11 Roman Strobl 2004-12-06 15:06:20 UTC
*** Issue 20282 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 12 Roman Strobl 2004-12-07 13:49:03 UTC
*** Issue 44079 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 13 Martin Roskanin 2004-12-09 16:41:22 UTC
*** Issue 23573 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 14 Martin Roskanin 2004-12-09 16:45:06 UTC
*** Issue 39754 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 15 Martin Roskanin 2004-12-09 16:47:56 UTC
*** Issue 17636 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 16 Roman Strobl 2005-02-03 12:53:21 UTC
This issue is fixed after find & replace dialog redesign. Feel free to
reopen if anything is missing.
Comment 17 Jindrich Sedek 2010-01-18 09:37:39 UTC
*** Bug 179637 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 18 Jindrich Sedek 2010-01-18 09:37:48 UTC
*** Bug 179636 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***