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[skeeterfood]

Here's a wild and crazy idea for a Search View Mode, kind of a mix between Drop-Down Panes and a search form like Rhapsody's:

If I had my View configured with the following Categories:
Artist
Album
Name

It would start looking like this:
Search v [ Enter search here ] [by Artist v]

The "by Artist" drop-down would contain all the categories in the order I had them defined.  If I started typing "Rush" in the Search box it would drop-down a list of possible completion values like this:

Search v [ R                 ] [by Artist v]
         [ Radiohead         ]
         [ Rush              ]

Once I finished typing "Rush" or used the down-arrows to select it and hit enter, or clicked on the Rush item in the drop-down, it would then look like this:
Search v > Artist=Rush v [ Enter search here ] [by Album v]

Notice the "by ..." drop-down has moved to the next Category, since Artist has already been filtered.

If I then clicked in the Search field and hit the down arrow, all (or some limited amount if there were too many) of Rush's albums in my library would show up like this:
Search v > Artist=Rush v [                   ] [by Album v]
                         [ Retrospective I   ]
                         [ Retrospective II  ]
                         [ Snakes and Arrows ]

I could then start typing to limit the list if I wanted, or I could select an Item, or I could ctrl-click to select multiple items.  If I selected both Retrospective Albums it would then look like this:
Search v > Artist=Rush v > Album=Retrospective I, Retrospective II [ Enter search here ] [by Name v]

At any point I could click on one of the drop-down arrows next to an already filtered Category and change my selection or reset it to "All" to remove the Category filter.  For example: If I selected the drop-down next to "Artist=Rush" and selected "All" it would look then like this:
Search v > Album=Retrospective I, Retrospective II [ Enter search here ] [by Artist v]

Notice the "by ..." drop-down switched back to "Artist" since it's the highest unfiltered Category in my list.

What do you think?

-John

[park]

That's a cool idea. If we could have favorite fields for quick access too, that would be cool.

[glynor]

That is pretty cool!

+++

EDIT:

If we could have favorite fields for quick access too, that would be cool.

I think his idea is for this to be some kind of alternate to Panes vs. Category Thumbnails/Details as a browsing method.  So the fields would be whatever you define in the particular View Scheme you happen to be using at the time you enter this mode.

I can totally picture an implementation for this...

The dropdown panes already sort-of have this functionality, but it is hard to access via keyboard in a "smooth" manner.  It'd be cool if this were accessible by a simple hotkey.  Then when you hit it, this special fancy search box (like you described) would slide-down from just under the view header, sliding the existing panes (or thumbnails or whatever) down by just the width of the box.  You type your query, with the hints and suggestions popping up as you go (the hints could be just gray in color or in little "hint tag" icons of some subtle color).  The panes (or "Category" Thumbs or whatever) could update as you type, reconfiguring themselves to match on the fly.  They could even act as your suggested "hints" (but up/down arrow keyboard support should be preserved as well somehow).  Or perhaps the suggestions should come up more like Google or Firefox do it?  Hmmm....

Hit enter to perform the search and the box slips away, and you have your view just as you would had you picked them manually.  (Perhaps Tab would work best to move between categories, allowing you to use Enter to commit the search.)

Really excellent idea!

[glynor]

For the modifying existing searches stuff...

What if it automatically pulled the current state of the current Panes when you first opened it up?  That way it you could easily switch back and forth between using this method and using the other browsing methods.  (The search would be "highlighted" of course so you could just start typing to blow away the existing search, but you could also easily modify it by TAB-TAB-Type or by clicking.)

Also, for the resetting to all part.  What if the search "terms" ([Artist]=radiohead, for example) kind-of "became" icon-like after you finish them and move on to the next (like inside a block or something) and these icons just have a little X on them.  When you "close" one, it just that pops it back to "all"?  Deleting a section of the search would have this effect anyway.

I'm really pumped about this idea.  And how about letting us type expressions in too?  Just to get fancy and be all "leet" like that.

[hit_ny]

How about time taken to initiate the search ?

Currently there is no drop-down and its lightningly fast.

Try editing the [Artist] or [Album] Fields in either the Tag window or PN, notice the lag  before you can enter anything. That's MC building up the list in the background for the pulldown menu. That's how long you can expect to wait if you have a big library.

This sounds like a good idea if you don't know what you are looking for otherwise its a drag and hope if implemented, that its optional.

[glynor]

Try editing the [Artist] or [Album] Fields in either the Tag window or PN, notice the lag  before you can enter anything.

It is lightning quick on my machines in both the Tag AW and inline in the File List (in Panes and Details mode).

I don't think John was suggesting changing the regular search bar at all.  I think this would be separate from the normal search bar.  An alternative to browsing with the panes.

[skeeterfood]

My original reason for thinking about this was that I think Performer MC is going to have some troubles with newbies unable to figure out how to simply search for an Artist or Album.  The Drop-down panes make sense once you understand that they do something, but they just don't work like anything else, so it's not intuitive.  This "looks" like a more traditional search interface, but still retains most of the power of the drop-down panes and once you understand how it works, you can stick with the hand-holding, or just move over to drop-down panes for the extra speed.

-John

[glynor]

This "looks" like a more traditional search interface, but still retains most of the power of the drop-down panes and once you understand how it works, you can stick with the hand-holding, or just move over to drop-down panes for the extra speed.

And I'm thinking if you modify his idea slightly to make it "keyboard access" friendly (so you never have to touch the mouse at all if you don't want to) then it would actually remain faster than browsing with the panes for ALL use if you know exactly what you're looking for.  I'm certainly not suggesting this be done at the expense of the mousing method he mentioned, but it could be quite powerful in combination.

Say I'm looking for a particular Grateful Dead show, but I don't know the exact Album title (so it could be sorted anywhere in the list).  However, I do know the Venue was Olympiaville (the Venue is always part of my [Album] tag in my naming scheme for live shows).  I switch to my Artist/Album view scheme.  Enter the special "Search Panes" mode.  And type:

g - r - a - t (and the suggestion would probably "hit" Grateful Dead so I can stop typing) TAB -  o - l - y (that'd probably do it) - ENTER

Boom.  There it is.  No mousing, or remembering hard to type tags [Album]=blah.  Just quick, easy, and intuitive.  Now sure, I could just go search for Olympiaville in the standard search box, but I might have 15 different shows from different bands all in Olympiaville.  This would be a quick and easy way to use the panes via a keyboard to narrowly search.  Like the search boxes we have in the existing Dropdown Panes, but easier and more intuitive to access!

[hit_ny]

My original reason for thinking about this was that I think Performer MC is going to have some troubles with newbies unable to figure out how to simply search for an Artist or Album.  The Drop-down panes make sense once you understand that they do something, but they just don't work like anything else, so it's not intuitive.  This "looks" like a more traditional search interface, but still retains most of the power of the drop-down panes and once you understand how it works, you can stick with the hand-holding, or just move over to drop-down panes for the extra speed.

Apologies, i did notice you posted earlier about this and agree with it.

And I'm thinking if you modify his idea slightly to make it "keyboard access" friendly (so you never have to touch the mouse at all if you don't want to) then it would actually remain faster than browsing with the panes for ALL use if you know exactly what you're looking for.  I'm certainly not suggesting this be done at the expense of the mousing method he mentioned, but it could be quite powerful in combination.

I like this too, as an alternative to Panes, and if the situation warranted it, could even be superior as you suggest.