Select as You Type, Paste and Select

[Marco]

We currently have to gem features that enable us to quickly spot items in a long list.
What if these two features could be made more powerful, by not only highlighting items but also selecting them?
I can think of use scenarios where this could be useful:
- in your music library, you want to quickly select all the songs by or featuring Beyoncè: you simply type "Beyoncè"
- you have a bunch of videos and the related subtitle files, and you need to pick specifically one film: you type the title

Any thoughts?

[Stef123]

What's the difference to #253 - Ctrl M?

[TheQwerty]

I suggested something slightly similar last year as an extension of Spot/Jump: http://www.xyplorer.com/xyfc/viewtopic. ... 97#p109397

I didn't particularly care for having TAF automatically select, but thought a new command Select Spotted Items would be sufficient. (Not to say I'm against you having the option to enable Type-Ahead-Select.)

To relate back to your wish it would mean typing >>>Beyoncè into the address bar to select those items.

Also as mentioned in that thread the real power would come from Spot & Jump (& Select) being possible on browse so that you could just type C:\Music>>>Beyoncè to automatically browse to your music directory and select the matching items.


I'm pretty sure Don was away when I made those wishes and I've been waiting for a good opportunity to give them a stronger push. If anyone else feels strongly about them feel free to pile on.

[bdeshi]

Here's my +2 again.

[Marco]

@Stef123: there's no difference in the final results, however you have to type less:
it's
Beyoncè
vs
Ctrl+M + Beyoncè + Enter

@TheQwerty: those additions/evolutions make so much sense! +1

* Ideally it would either be:
>Spot; >>Jump; >>>Select
or
>Select; >>Jump; >>>Spot

These orders seem more intuitive than: >Jump; >>Spot; >>>Select

Select should be the last action because it's the most meaningful one, I see the progression as a sort of crescendo. As per current design, Jump spots too, so yeah your first progression is logical. Regarding backwards compatibility you have a point... I'll attach the changelog meanwhile, for inspiration and meditation purposes

Code: Select all

v8.20.0026 - 2009-08-27 15:30
    ! Spot/Jump: The new escape " (dbl-quote) lead to problems. So it's 
      back to >!
      Rules:
      - New escape for Spot/Jump is >.
      - Add another > anywhere to skip jumping.
      Examples:
      >a      = spot "a"; jump to next/prev item with "a" anywhere in 
                the name
      >>a     = spot "a"; no jump (the 2nd > kills the jump)
      >a|b    = spot "a" and "b" (no jumping on multiple patterns)
      >a*     = jump to next item beginning with "a" (matching items are 
                colored completely)
      >       = remove any coloring now
v8.20.0025 - 2009-08-27 12:00
    * Spot, Jump To Item: Now there's Spot'n'Jump which means you (can) 
      get the coloring and the jumping at the same time. The rules and 
      syntax for the whole spotting and jumping business have been 
      completely redesigned.
      
      Rules:
      - New escape for Spot/Jump is " (dbl-quote) (before it was >).
      - Jump does always also Spot (color all matches).
      - Jump looks for matches only in the Name column.
      - Spot looks for matches in all columns.
      - Matches are case insensitive (A==a).
      - Hold SHIFT to jump to prev item.
      - Add closing dbl-quote to skip jumping.
      - Multiple patterns are separated by "|".
      - No jumping happens on multiple patterns.
      - A pattern with no wildcards defaults to inner match (*pattern*).
      - Coloring is also done on wildcard patterns (colors whole item).
      - Coloring is auto-removed on list refresh or location change.
      - Repeating a Spot-only pattern will work as a toggle.
      - Repeating a Jump pattern will jump to the next/prev match.
      
      Examples:
      "a      = spot "a"; jump to next/prev item with "a" anywhere in 
                the name
      "a"     = spot "a"; no jump (the trailing " kills the jump)
      "a|b    = spot "a" and "b" (no jumping on multiple patterns)
      "a*     = jump to next item beginning with "a" (matching items are 
                colored completely)
      "       = remove any coloring now                

[admin]

Good idea, but of course I cannot change the old order.

So it will be:
> Jump
>> Spot
>>> Select

[Marco]

Great! Now, can this new feature behave like Find as You Type & Paste and Find, only difference being that instead of merely finding it selects too? In my mind, I imagine an additional checkbox in Configuration > Menus, Mouse, Safety > Type Ahead Find, called Highlighting selects too, below and depending on Highlight matches.

[admin]

Hmm, feels a bit strange to me...

[Marco]

Why? The checkbox would make it optional. And depending on the working style of the user, sometimes finding items is not enough and you want them selected too. Think of a List with highlighted matches that are not contiguous: Ctrl-selection or checkbox selection can be long and lazo-selection wouldn't be possible. Select as you Type would speed up the process. Again, sometimes highlighting items may be enough, but there might be other times you want to actually perform action on such items, and you have to have them selected first.

[admin]

Anybody else convinced?

[Stef123]

Yep. Marco had me convinced by sheer keystrokes/ mouseclicks.
Why would I type 3 >>> and "searchterm" and ENTER if I can get the same result faster with Ctrl M?
Marco's idea, however, might make me drop Ctrl M in favor of the new handling.

ed: Come to think of it, this would mean spending time in config quite a lot, if I also want to just highlight the results of find-as-you-type

[bdeshi]

sorry for poking in, but hwat about my "spot (+TAF) wish: show total number of matching items in the statusbar." ?

[avsfan]

sorry for poking in, but hwat about my "spot (+TAF) wish: show total number of matching items in the statusbar." ?

+1 on this one from me.

[bdeshi]

meanwhile: I agree with Stef here:

Talking select all .... any chance to get back the old :select icon?

The flat icon doesn't match with the existing style. you should either have all flat or all glossy. As it stands, the icon looks completely out of place.
(Psst, I suppose VisualPhram * can build a flat iconset?)

[admin]

sorry for poking in, but hwat about my "spot (+TAF) wish: show total number of matching items in the statusbar." ?

+1 on this one from me.

Would need a rewrite. The current algo does not yield this info.