Bug 129781 - [UI] make "find in current selection" as default behavior
Summary: [UI] make "find in current selection" as default behavior
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Calc (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
unspecified
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords: needsUXEval
Depends on:
Blocks: Find-Toolbar
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Reported: 2020-01-04 10:25 UTC by yallabalagan
Modified: 2020-01-17 08:30 UTC (History)
7 users (show)

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Description yallabalagan 2020-01-04 10:25:22 UTC
Description:
1. if there's a selection, search it first.
why:
  1.a. Calc is designed to have huge amounts of data, and searching irrelevant areas is time consuming / significant impact.
  1.b. if there's a selection (i.e. more than 1 cell), it is safe to assume the user is interested in data at this area.
  1.c. when replacing, it is more dangerous to replace outside the user's focus.

2. When search the current region ended --> suggest the user to enhance the range of search.  Currently it's done without user consent.
the search process is anyway interactive. it wouldn't hurt to pop a yes/no question.



Steps to Reproduce:
1. select region
2. find (or replace) text




Actual Results:
it will searched (and replaced) in non-selected areas.

Expected Results:
search (or replace) only in currently selected area first,
then ask the user whether to search in the rest of the sheet
(possibly search the rest of the workbook, why not).



Reproducible: Always


User Profile Reset: Yes



Additional Info:
splitting "find" vs. "replace" dialogs have bad impact on usability, learning. I'll open another feature suggestion related.

Find vs. Replace dialogs should be the same.
find in current selection makes sense
find in current selection is the default in other Office programs.
Comment 1 Kevin Suo 2020-01-04 10:53:49 UTC
I can reproduce in 6.2.8.2 release, and I believe this is a valid enhancement request. Set to New.
Comment 2 V Stuart Foote 2020-01-04 16:12:49 UTC
For Calc Search within a selection, if any, by default.

While convenient if this were the case for the Find toolbar, not so clear to have it set when in the Find & Replace dialog.

Also, would this be a Calc only module change, or appropriate (cleaner implementation) to do it globally for all modules?

@Eike, Kohei, any thought on change making 'Current selection only' default behavior--e.g. better/worse search performance, etc.

Or would it be better to provide expert configuration option, like work already needed for bug 102506 to search calculated values.
Comment 3 Heiko Tietze 2020-01-06 11:06:22 UTC
Another point to consider: we want to remember the last user setting and this automatic change spoils the effort a bit. However, +1 for the change from my side across all modules.
Comment 4 Cor Nouws 2020-01-16 13:48:55 UTC
Hi yallabalagan,

(In reply to yallabalagan from comment #0)

> 1. if there's a selection, search it first.

Make selection in Calc, Ctrl+H 
   check In selection only is checked.

So I hint Enter (Find Next)

> 2. When search the current region ended --> suggest the user to enhance the
> range of search.  Currently it's done without user consent.
> the search process is anyway interactive. it wouldn't hurt to pop a yes/no
> question.

If you talk about the quick Find toolbar, that's different.
That should only do a quick find, without additional thinking required. So adding more options etc there, obfuscates the meaning.

> Additional Info:
> splitting "find" vs. "replace" dialogs have bad impact on usability,
> learning.

That are different dialogs, so a different use :)
Comment 5 Cor Nouws 2020-01-16 13:53:18 UTC
(In reply to V Stuart Foote from comment #2)

> @Eike, Kohei, any thought on change making 'Current selection only' default
> behavior--e.g. better/worse search performance, etc.
The more I think/read about it, the more I get convinced that we should simply stop discussing more options for the quick Find toolbar.
That should only do a quick find, without additional thinking required. So adding more choices, obfuscates the meaning, breaks the use.

For me a won't change ('fix' is inappropriate).
Comment 6 Eike Rathke 2020-01-16 14:29:33 UTC
Maybe the solution to all these "make Find do this and that" requests would be to close them with a hint to the Search dialog button being available in the Find bar.. if that doesn't help then labeling it "More options" might.

Other than that I can just repeat: do not introduce hidden behaviour with Find that can't be changed in the Find bar. So either add an option or leave it.
Comment 7 Heiko Tietze 2020-01-17 08:30:06 UTC
We discussed the topic in the design meeting. The idea of the find toolbar is to quickly find one or more places without considering special cases. That's up for the search dialog and the find toolbar should remain simple. So the verdict is WF; 
see also bug 72080 and bug 129783.

Same decision has been made for bug 125282 or bug 129469, for example. We should make the ctrl+H search and the ctrl+F find functionality completely independent (see bug 115665).