Bug 376995

Summary: Reversed search is checked (enabled) by default in incremental search bar which is confusing
Product: [Applications] konsole Reporter: Maciej Mrozowski <reavertm>
Component: kpartAssignee: Konsole Developer <konsole-devel>
Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE    
Severity: minor CC: simonandric5
Priority: NOR    
Version: 16.12.2   
Target Milestone: ---   
Platform: Gentoo Packages   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed In:
Attachments: Screenshot illustrating the problem

Description Maciej Mrozowski 2017-02-27 22:44:43 UTC
Created attachment 104252 [details]
Screenshot illustrating the problem

Steps to reproduce:
1. Open konsole or anything embedding its kpart (yakuake, dolphin).
2. Click 'Find...' and observe button behaviour.

First (from left) button is connected to 'previous' action, has correct icon but it's labelled 'Next'.
Similar with button labelled 'Previous' (connected to find next action with find next icon).

I noticed similar bug reported - https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=342912, but to me rationale given there does not apply here, since in terminal window, the newest items are actually at the bottom.
Comment 1 Maciej Mrozowski 2017-02-27 22:54:53 UTC
Actually, when looking at the code:
https://cgit.kde.org/konsole.git/tree/src/IncrementalSearchBar.cpp?h=v16.12.2
I found that there is _reverseSearch button and that it is checked.

Why is it checked by default?
    _reverseSearch = optionsMenu->addAction(i18n("Search backwards"));
    _reverseSearch->setCheckable(true);
    _reverseSearch->setToolTip(i18n("Sets whether search should start from the bottom"));
    _reverseSearch->setChecked(true);

This is most confusing...
Comment 2 Kurt Hindenburg 2017-02-28 04:02:25 UTC
You screenshot cut off the next button which should say 'From bottom' - so the "Next" is the next match "From bottom" (hence move up the history).

Make sense?  Any suggestion for avoiding confusion?
Comment 3 Christoph Feck 2017-03-01 03:27:23 UTC

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 339012 ***
Comment 4 Maciej Mrozowski 2017-03-06 02:42:23 UTC
Perhaps I should have used word 'intuitive' though 'confusing' describes my feelings :p

When I read button labels, I treat them individually. You are saying 'From ...' button provides context for those two on the left and you are right, but this is apparently not what I was expecting (as I never 'noticed' that button before you told me about it, like I didn't immediately notice reverse search check-box, only once I found it in source code..).
One could argue there's something wrong with either me or search bar usability.

My proposal is stated in the bug - to uncheck reverse search for terminal by default - at least imho, the most intuitive or at least the most commonly used (for me) search order for terminal output is top-to-bottom (oldest-to-newest).
Comment 5 Christoph Feck 2017-03-17 16:04:05 UTC
The setting can be changed, and your use case is one of the reasons why it can be changed.

The default, however, will not be changed, because it would confuse the majority of other users who never complained that the default direction is wrong.
Comment 6 Maciej Mrozowski 2017-03-18 01:11:59 UTC
Well, you have five people complaining: myself here, two folks from bug 339012 and two folks from bug 332601.
This counts people who bothered enough to have/create bugzilla account. Unless one hosts a poll, it's not known whether we are just vocal minority or representatives of majority who bothered enough.
As soon as settings can be saved/restored, defaults do not matter that much though.