[Pan-users] Re: One confusing thing about the 'group search' widget

[Duncan]

"walt" <address@hidden> posted
address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Fri, 22 Sep 2006 00:32:04
+0000:

> I know that, technically speaking, this problem is PEBKAC ;o)
> 
> However, I've been caught by this same irritation so many times
> that I thought I'd invite other opinions.
> 
> The only time I search for group names in the Group Pane is
> when I want to investigate a group I'm not already subscribed
> to.  (I have a very short 'Subscribed' list -- so no need to
> search it.)
> 
> So.  I type alt.foo in the search widget, and then start reading
> alt.foo in the headers pane, and all is good.
> 
> But, when I return to my usual 'subscribed' groups, the list
> of subscribed groups is blank -- because alt.foo is not in my
> list of subscribed groups, yet 'alt.foo' is still in the group-
> search widget.
> 
> IMO, the group-search widget should be blanked out any time
> I return to the Groups Pane.  My reason for searching for
> alt.foo is gone -- I've already found it and decided not to
> subscribe.
> 
> Any contrary opinions?

While I agree that the current solution here isn't entirely intuitive, I
don't see yours being any more so.  In particular, what happens if there
are multiple matching groups and the plan had been to check out several of
them in turn?  At least now, the behavior is logical, even if not exactly
intuitive.  If you cleared it every time, that would to me be neither
logical nor intuitive.

What about this?  Add another branch to the tree at the same level as
subscribed groups and other groups.  Call it group search.  When the
search is blank, this branch will list all groups, subscribed and not,
since all match. When the search is non-blank, it'll list matching groups,
again, regardless of subscribed status.  The subscribed branch list
wouldn't be affected, and the branch now titled "Other Groups" would be
relabeled "Unsubscribed Groups", and again, wouldn't be affected by the
search.  This should be intuitive as the third branch would be "Search
Match Groups" or similar.

Actually, I'd prefer tabs rather than branches at that this level, but
that's a bit of a different discussion.

In any case, both of these would be post 1.0 feature requests, not worth
holding up 1.0 to introduce and bug-test, IMO.  Agreed?

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman