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OK, so I was talking to Asgard yesterday and he commented about how the search redundancy in SMF always annoyed him, hence the haiku-esque thought yesterday.
His complaint is that we have a search form every page, and we have a search button, why do we need both? Either drop the quick search, or drop the menu item, and be done with it.
And I thought about this, and I thought some more. Then I had some tea and all other arguments are invalid :D
OK, here's what I want to do.
1. Drop the search menu entirely, there's no need for it including all its fun markup.
2. Add a link to the full search page from just under the search form. This isn't duplication. This means when you want to do things the quick search can't do, you can still get to it.
3. Drop the distinction between simple and advanced searching and just have it push to the 'advanced' page and be done with it.
The result is simpler, cleaner functionality without multiple places on the page being duplicated.
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This posting earns one official Asgard Stamp of Approval. :)
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If I'm on the right page and your talking removing the drop down fro the menu, I'm all for that and just having a search field would be much cleaner and less cramming of the menu items. How about mouse over drop down from the search button (quick or advanced) or would be an even bigger mess?
I thinking your, thinking a drop down select off to the side?
or how about a search widget type thing or plug-in, then you could apply setting for the Admins>>for use on side panel?
Don't mind me just talking out !
regards,
maxx
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If I'm on the right page and you talking removing the dropdown fro the menu, I'm all for that and just having a search field would be much cleaner and less cramming of the menu items. How a bout mouse over drop down from the search button (quick or advanced) or would be an even bigger mess?
We already HAVE a search field, every page. Let's use it as such.
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Sounds Good!
regards,
Maxx
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You have my approval as well.
I'm thinking that, for UI's sake, we could hide the 'advanced' link by default, and have it show up by hovering the search box, similar to a mini-menu or whatever...
Overall, this would take more space in the HTML (this hover box + a select box for topic/board/forum scope), but it's worth it.
If you've followed my recent work on shortening code in all HTML pages... I'm not doing this 'because all pages should be short', I'm doing this so that we can happily add more features at no cost. :)
And, good riddance with the simple search page..!
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Hm, I don't know about that, but I can certainly add the other stuff in and go from there. :)
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Leave the hover box up to me, if you're not sure, I'll come up with something!
Hmm, I just checked out the website for the forum software we were talking about tonight... And I think that's where I came up with the hover box in my head, unconsciously. I wasn't thinking of something so elaborate (because it adds many bytes), but well, it couldn't hurt too much to have something like that... At worst (best?), we could even load something similar *through Ajax*... :) If we make it a click-triggered menu, like they do, Ajax is a given. $('input[type=search]').next().load(url_for_advanced_search_options)... And voilà ;)
Posted: February 28th, 2013, 11:21 PM
Oh, I'm totally doing that, and with Ajax...
Their HTML (ungzipped) for the search pop-up is 1901 bytes long. Per page. Just for the sake of offering the same amount of features with just a few dozen bytes per page, I'll implement that with pleasure ;)
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I really didn't think we needed as much as that personally, I was just going to put the link to the search page under it and see how that works out ;)
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We can do it that way, too, at least for starters... And I'll look into doing the rest later (when I have more free time available.)
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I'll do this tonight then :)
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:+1:
I always HATED that search menu button as well
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:+1:
I always HATED that search menu button as well
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+! on the Smiley and +1 on who needs a search menu. You need not search for a menu or the search they are there...
I guest when U click the seach link it should take you to the advanced search field, that way it will give purpose to it!
I personaly do not like the way some theme have many text links and button, you need hover over to see what they are, unless they are on a main, menu and then again some take it too far with that. text links are cool, old fashion in one respect but the site map ( LText link menu thing is less code and SEO / Mobile friendly. and also be more used everyday!
regards,
Maxx
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Lol, didn't even remember I'd made this smiley... (Based on another.)
It's certainly not in the Cyna smiley pack I posted earlier to the team boards.
Also, while I'd love to have these smileys as default, I already said a few years ago that some of the smileys were directly taken from PunBB's default package, others from a PunBB community topic where people posted variations, others were done by me based on some IPB smileys (mostly for the animations or the basic idea), and only a handful are done entirely by me... If any ;)
So, really, it's hard to say that it can be put into Wedge's official package 'as is'...
I'm not a huge fan of text links, really it depends on what you want to do, and whether you find a suitable alternative.
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So, really, it's hard to say that it can be put into Wedge's official package 'as is'...
I'm not a huge fan of text links, really it depends on what you want to do, and whether you find a suitable alternative.
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Was thinking along the line of link tree type thing , don't know on the side panel, again possibly a future plugin or widget thingy!
I maybe able to generate an HTML template for this link tree! in the morning or tonigth, depends on my meds!
regards,
maxx
Posted: March 1st, 2013, 12:28 AM
But then again, you have the quick access drop down?
regards,
maxx
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looking something like this one:
Attached
regards,
Maxx
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r1965 contains the revamped search stuff. Pictures includes in New Revs thread if you're curious.
That's interesting, Maxx, I like it. I don't know about moving search to the sidebar (or the footer, depending on circumstance!) but it's a possibility.
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Pete: ever tried using Warm? :lol:
Everything looks good.
Re search icon. We should harmonize them into one, I think....
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See this is what I like!
You guys either like it, or not. but you don't get pissed, that's cool! thumbs! :)
thanks,
Maxx
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Something that comes to mind in the SMF simple and advanced search is that the simple search will deend on what page or section of the form you are in while search, and the advanced seach, will search the complete sites database.
I know your saying Duh!, but some may not realized this, ( the member and or Visitor ) so this where Arantor's idea is very relivant in the consolidation of the search, why not just go direct to the complete site search to start with,this way your user will find the item or rev number they are looking for right off. Makes for user friendliness!
Simple is a good thing!
regards,
Maxx
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Something that comes to mind in the SMF simple and advanced search is that the simple search will deend on what page or section of the form you are in while search, and the advanced seach, will search the complete sites database.
Simple search and advanced search are a very separate beast. On an SMF install, Admin > Forum > Search > Settings > Enable simple search. Then go to the search page, you'll see only a very tiny thing, plus a link to the 'advanced' search.
I've stripped out the separation, so there's quick search and advanced search only.
You're right, in that quick search will limit to what it does based on where you are, and this is also something I'm going to fix, but not right now.
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Right I should have used the word Quick rather than simple, then that makes something else to be considered as you mention. I'm just so use to the quick search thing!
On my sites I have only the 2 the quick ( field) and link to the Advanced! I think?
regards,
maxx
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On my sites I have only the 2 the quick ( field) and link to the Advanced! I think?
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Just to clarify, the latest SVN has a popup, which looks like the attached.
I haven't tested on mobile but I can imagine this could cause trouble (since tapping the textbox should give the textbox focus).
I have to admit, I'm not sold on the on-hover aspect from a usability point of view, it's not clear that you have to do it to bring up more complex behaviour, but I could see the advantage if more options were available inline, like XenForo does (though they do it based on focus of the textbox IIRC)
I think I will need to experiment with the search dropdown though, even with this addition.
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I know, there's no easy solution. The xF version looks great, but it also adds 2 kilobytes of HTML, so I thought about doing it in Ajax, but it requires refactoring the search template, and I don't really have time for this this week (I think.) (Then again maybe I'll do it in ten minutes..)
I originally wanted to do the mini-menu popup, and only on focus, but failed on both accounts, so I took the easy way out, ah ah...
Warm search box is also broken, BTW, because of the difference in alignment (left sidebar) and color (left sidebar and bottom sidebar.)
I'll need to fix that...
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but it requires refactoring the search template, and I don't really have time for this this week (I think.) (Then again maybe I'll do it in ten minutes..)
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Tis true that quick search implies a search within the current topic or board, so we could do away with that...
I'll give it a try.
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I would rather NOT do away with that. I would rather give the user the choice.
Right now it is the ONLY way to search inside a specific topic.
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I don't get what you're trying to say...
If the popup shows up on focus, nothing forces anyone to use it..? Dismissing it (i.e. leaving its options as is) would then perform a regular quick search.
I was thinking, maybe I could push the destination select box to that popup, actually...
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Okay, here's what I came up with...
Currently, it's hardcoded in the HTML, and shows on popup; it's just a mockup...
The HTML is pretty close to the Search template's, so we might be able to get away with pushing it to a separate template that we call in both situations, with some tweaks, but then it probably means we should do the same for PMs... (?)
Posted: March 1st, 2013, 06:37 PM
Oops, a classic, forgot the attachment... ;)
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What about those who don't have JS?
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I really like it Nao :)
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Currently, it's hardcoded in the HTML, and shows on popup; it's just a mockup...
Quick mock-up art attached.
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Nice mockup, but it's a kind of button that would be a hassle to implement, compared to the level of use in Wedge... :^^;:
Dragooon, well, good question but... Honestly, have you tried Wedge without JavaScript on...? It's usable, but barely. (Select boxes will not show up, for starters!)
Those users can start their search in the search box (which will STILL work without JS on), then on the next page, they can click the linktree to go back to the full search page... Or whatever suits them.
Okay, current status, the popup is called on focus, it still disappears after blur though, but it's just 'the beginning'... Also, the contents of the popup are now loaded through Ajax, as I previously announced. I'm having difficulties with jQuery though -- it looks like it's giving me internal errors. Oh, and it just froze my PC, too, for like a minute, while I was writing this post... Nice! :^^;:
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If the popup shows up on focus, nothing forces anyone to use it..? Dismissing it (i.e. leaving its options as is) would then perform a regular quick search.
My other objection is a usability one: having stuff hidden away on hover is not entirely usable unless there's a hint to it in some form, like we found with the thoughts menu.The HTML is pretty close to the Search template's, so we might be able to get away with pushing it to a separate template that we call in both situations
Though my initial thoughts were to just leave the normal search as is and have a link or some-such to go to the advanced search page.
Those users can start their search in the search box (which will STILL work without JS on), then on the next page, they can click the linktree to go back to the full search page... Or whatever suits them.
How many users know that the linktree does that?
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I love all this stuff, but I feel the one search does all would be best all around, one simple search field like at the top, search and be done with it. now the thing here that's concerns me is the load factor on the server if a bunch are searching the data base at the same time, but you can do as I've seen be for a limit the amount of search per set a time, and no search or controlled search for quest.
The link to the extended or advance search could be placed also as a tree link :)like Mentioned or something there of!
but I love the drop down it could still be used for something I'm thinking of, will start new topic on another day!
regards,
maxx
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but I feel the one search does all would be best all around, one simple search field like at the top,
On another note, I think I need to tweak it, I think I accidentally changed its behaviour and not entirely in a good way - when coming from the quick search it'll include all boards, not just the ones you haven't ignored. (This is actually subtly different from old behaviour, but only subtly)
Go to sm.org, to their search page and look at how many boards they have. Now you want to search a couple of boards and only those boards. You can't stick that huuuuuuuuuge list of boards into the popup.now the thing here that's concerns me is the load factor on the server if a bunch are searching the data base at the same time, but you can do as I've seen be for a limit the amount of search per set time, and now search or controlled search for quest.
The link to the extended or advance search could be place also as a tree link
Do a search. The first link (Search) is the search form with the parameters put in, the second link (Search Results) is a permalink to the search results themselves. How many people knew about this?
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Was looking at mine this morning and this came up:
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Yup. There's just too many boards to put into the popup. Hence you'd defer that to a full page.
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We need space warping HTML!
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LOL I think I had my head up my Blog, and did not realize how many boards / cats I really had!
regards,
Maxx
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Just a style or look for search link/s
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It has been removed from the main menu and will not be reinstated there.
It's just that this site has not yet been updated to the latest SVN revision.
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Thanks!
regards,
maxx
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I know you can't use it, but the mockup I made was very hasty and was bothering me... So I fixed the things that were wrong haha. :lol:
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u mad, bro? :lol:
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:P You of all people know how picky I am if it's not "right" haha.
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Okay, so... These last few days have been hectic IRL. Not in bad sense. It's been gotten hard to work on Wedge, I'm expecting 'full recovery' next weekend. I've worked exclusively on this popup, trying to make it less annoying, and been plagued with different bugs.
So, right now, what I have is a popup that only shows on focus, and gets hidden on blur, so that's all good, but I can't seem to animate it (not sure why... Have yet to look into it seriously), and most importantly, it closes as soon as I click somewhere in the popup, ah ah... I didn't think of that one, but clicking there will trigger a blur on the input box, that's very, coldly logical... I tried to turn to .focusout instead, but I can't seem to get a way to determine the current target, I'm only getting the input text I'm blurring from, so it looks like it's going to be hard. And I don't want to introduce some weird hack using some kind of static variable to keep track of where the focus is.
One of the good things of my current code, though, though, is that it no longer adds extra HTML to all pages, just a hundred bytes of JavaScript to script.js, or something like that. (It was the whole point for me, originally...)
Am I to understand that no one is interested in an implementation that's conceptually similar to what can be experienced in xenForo..? It's ultimately what I'm trying to replicate. (Without some of its bells and whistles, though.)
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No, what XF has is fine. My objection to the popup was mostly around usability and obviousness related to hover. But if you're already clicking to set focus, it's pretty clear you do want to use it so the popup under it is fine.
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That's the idea, yes... ;)
Posted: March 4th, 2013, 05:10 PM
Okay, so I gave up on focusout stuff, and instead did it like I did with select boxes or something... A document-wide click event that tests whether we're clicking outside of the form. If yes, then close, otherwise not. It works perfectly (phew), and allows me to focus on other issues, but I'm a bit bothered by the fact that if you navigate with the keyboard, you can't actually close that popup... It's quite important because the search input is one of the first (if not the first) items that get navigated to by the keyboard, so once the popup is opened, it gets in the way... Bah!
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In the SMf, if you submit a search in the box you get this ( i think) simple search or with in the Board or cat your in:
index.php?action=search2
But if you have button or text link in your menu with only this link it will take you to the advanced search:
index.php?action=search
Now this should save you some code bytes, and the drop down!
Just my thoughts on the thing! ( not certain, but think that's what was original Idea???
Note if you set the seacrh that way as pointed out by Arantor earlier!
regards,
maxx
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action=search2 is the actual search handler, the bit that does it. Quick search will just take you directly to the search results.
action=search is the main search form where you can set options. The popup is essentially going to be have some of this.
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It will have all of this, except for the board selection of course. (I'm saying of course, but it's probably doable, I guess...)
I'm just working on the styling bits, but it will require more work on the JS side to deal with modifying the default params and passing a new one (search scope). I also need to add language strings for scopes, ah ah...
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Doable, sure. Practical? No. Even with the number of boards we have here at present, it would be a very large popup.
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Well, that's what scrollbars are for... :^^;:
Also, loading the board list could be done via Ajax... On top of the original Ajax call. Nested Ajax calls, eh... ;)
Posted: March 4th, 2013, 07:19 PM
Styling nearly done (only got a problem with font sizes...), animation is looking good, everything looks like one of those mini-menus we all love, except it shows on focus, not hover. :)
I think I should have some committable material tomorrow!
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+1 Sounds good so far. Looking forward to the final thing :)
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So... Those with SVN access...? What do you think about the 'final popup'...?
I'll do a site update this weekend, with all the new changes. It's already late by nearly 20 revs.... :-/
Posted: March 6th, 2013, 08:31 AM
Some ideas for the future of quick search...
- Get rid of the Search button in HTML. Pro: there's already a search button in the popup. Con: if JS is disabled, it won't work.
- Add 'containing all these words..' etc select box to the popup
- Use a magnifier icon on the Search button in the popup..???
- Move search box by default to the sidebar, since it will be narrow enough to accommodate any sidebar width.
Opinions..?
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Been busy, sorry, I'll look at it shortly.
- Get rid of the Search button in HTML. Pro: there's already a search button in the popup. Con: if JS is disabled, it won't work.
- Add 'containing all these words..' etc select box to the popup
- Use a magnifier icon on the Search button in the popup..???
- Move search box by default to the sidebar, since it will be narrow enough to accommodate any sidebar width.
Also, as a heads-up, there is going to be a selector growing on there for what should be searched (whole forum, current board, current topic, thoughts, calendar, other items yet to be determined), haven't decided exactly how to handle that yet.
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Been busy, sorry, I'll look at it shortly.
Also, I think you missed my bit about thematic groupings of htmlspecialchar & derivates. Although I'm pretty sure you'll disagre... (If only because it requires refactoring everything...)Users actually press the button? I thought they just pressed enter for simple searching?
Anyway, if there's no button, and no JS thus no popup, you still have to rely on JS (AFAIK) to automatically submit the input box when pressing Enter...- Add 'containing all these words..' etc select box to the popup
Dislike this idea for the same reason as I said about the notifications - if the sidebar is collapsed, it's not accessible easily.
Also, as a heads-up, there is going to be a selector growing on there for what should be searched (whole forum, current board, current topic, thoughts, calendar, other items yet to be determined), haven't decided exactly how to handle that yet.
I'd already busy trying to get my thoughts rewrite to a commitable state.
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Been busy, sorry, I'll look at it shortly.
Also, I think you missed my bit about thematic groupings of htmlspecialchar & derivates. Although I'm pretty sure you'll disagre... (If only because it requires refactoring everything...)
Wait... thematic groupings?Users actually press the button? I thought they just pressed enter for simple searching?
Anyway, if there's no button, and no JS thus no popup, you still have to rely on JS (AFAIK) to automatically submit the input box when pressing Enter...
- Add 'containing all these words..' etc select box to the popup
Dislike this idea for the same reason as I said about the notifications - if the sidebar is collapsed, it's not accessible easily.
Also, as a heads-up, there is going to be a selector growing on there for what should be searched (whole forum, current board, current topic, thoughts, calendar, other items yet to be determined), haven't decided exactly how to handle that yet.
I'd already busy trying to get my thoughts rewrite to a commitable state.
Interface, though, I'm thinking I'll break the dropdown select into multiple optgroups, e.g. optgroup label="Forum" with the 'everything'/'this board'/'this topic' options in it.
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Ok shoot me for not realizing the site has been updated :P
Now thats a nice lean menu, I really ALWAYS HATED the search menu button.
Love the way the seach box works, now I dont have to ask for a Search Focus Dropdown-like plugin.
Nice job guys :cool: kinda awkward with the popup when browsing on my phone but I've never felt the need to search while using my phone anyway.
:bravo: :bravo: :bravo: :bravo: :bravo: :bravo: :crazy: :bravo: :bravo: :bravo: :bravo: :bravo: :bravo: