Hi, On Fri, 2007-02-09 at 12:45 -0400, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote: > Totally agree. I'm nervous every time I search. Should I use the Search > menu, or the Search box? Do they do the same thing or not? What about > Advanced Search? Is it going to make me give a name to save the search > or can I use it just once? etc. etc.
Even more interesting is that I'm experiencing a bug since I upgraded. If I do use a saved search from Search -> 1. My Saved Search, it doesn't actually get applied unless I go into the search box, press "enter" so that the Advanced Search dialog comes up with my saved search, and then press OK. How annoying. Will file a bug about this when I get a moment, don't know if it has to do with some stale state in my .evolution folder. > The whole thing needs to be rethought IMHO. I think the whole thing needs to be REALLY rethought. Evo's mailer has some real design innovations, but at the core of an e-mail application is search. E-mail applications need to have two main use cases in mind: 1. Receiving and reading NEW mail (which Evo does decently well, but still not optimally) 2. Searching OLD mail (which Evo used to do exceptionally well, but now does abysmally) I want a mailer with great search capabilities, so I can track down that JetBlue receipt for a flight I booked three months ago, or find an e-mail my friend sent me 6 months ago but that I never got around to replying to. I would also really push for some standard query language capabilities in Evo. I'd like to be able to type "unread messages containing 'Andrew'" in a search box (with shortcuts, like "unread contain 'Andrew'"), rather than having to create a search called "Unread", creating the "message is unread" condition, and then filtering those based on "message contains 'Andrew'". Sometimes, a GUI isn't the most usable UI. Evo also needs to get more keyboard friendly. What happened to our UNIX roots? > BTW, I didn't even realize the little magnifying glass was clickable! > Its location makes it functionally invisible and it lacks what the CHI > people call "affordance". Evo gets affordance better than most other applications for most things. But this search box redesign definitely ruins affordance, as you say. I know Evo's designers/hackers don't like to see themselves in competition with Gmail, but... we really need to start looking at what works. Andrew > On Fri, 2007-02-09 at 10:54 -0500, Andrew Montalenti wrote: > > Hi, > > > > I've been an Evolution user for a long time. The main reason I use > > Evolution is for its search/indexing features, since I have huge mail > > boxes and like to be able to search through them quickly. > > > > In recent versions of Evolution (I guess beyond 2.7, I'm using 2.8.1) > > the Search Box at the top of the message view was "redesigned". I think > > this redesign was actually a step backward, and would like to know if > > other people have raised this concern. > > > > Aside from the silliness that the box is just too small, I don't > > understand why it seems to make sense to have a click on the tiny icon > > of a magnifying glass change in what part of a message you are > > searching, and to click a paint brush to clear the message (you may tell > > me that's a broom, but at that size, it's a paint brush). When I am > > searching within a message, I don't even know I am because the gray text > > for "Message contains" only appears when my search query is empty. > > Considering these searches are "sticky" to the folder I'm in, I may very > > well return back to a folder I previously searched for "dinner" and not > > know whether I search the subject/sender or the message itself, unless I > > click that silly magnifying glass again. > > > > I also don't get why the "Show" pull down exists. I think it would make > > more sense if that Show pull down showed _your_ saved searches, rather > > than some hard coded ones some other developer thought I'd find useful. > > I don't even use labels (and why should I, Evolution doesn't even let me > > customize them), but even so in the "Show" menu I have not one but six > > options related to labels. Likewise, I don't use Evolution's built-in > > Junk mail filtering (I use spam assassin externally since for some > > reason it's much faster that way), and have another wasted option there > > for "Messages Not Junk". Less than half the options are therefore even > > usable by me, but I can't get rid of them and what's even more > > frustrating is that any of them could be emulated by a Saved Search, > > which _don't_ show up there. > > > > Does anyone else agree with me as to the silliness of these UI > > redesigns? I hate to be a whiner and if I had more than a few moments > > I'd scratch the itches myself, but I really would like to know what > > inspired these steps backward, and see if there is any agreement about > > undoing them. > > > > Andrew > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Evolution-list mailing list > > Evolution-list@gnome.org > > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/evolution-list > > _______________________________________________ > Evolution-list mailing list > Evolution-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/evolution-list _______________________________________________ Evolution-list mailing list Evolution-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/evolution-list
