Just remark: the caret (cursor) position can stay at the beginning (on the left before the first character) no matter how many wildcard characters (
\ / < ) user entered; you should distinguish this states:
- quicksearch term: "" (empty = matches everything)
- quicksearch term: "
\" (one wildcard character = matches everything)
- quicksearch term: "
\\" (two or more wildcard characters = matches everything, but doesn't make any sense to use)
-> if the quicksearch is really empty, the quicksearch mode can be ended, like Tomcat said;
-> when there is one (or more
) wildcard character, the cursor can stay at the beginning showing the user, that quicksearch is active
this would also solve the problem, how to show the user that the wildcard character at the beginning is matched as an empty string (problem from my previous remark)
The second part of my previous remark is, that this UI idea doesn't solve the
Mi\cr\os\oft problem (all the wildcards are matched as empty strings and the user doesn't get any clue about it from the UI)
Also I'm proposing to
disable the ability to enter more than one wildcard character, because the result is always the same (
\\vis\\\\stu =
\vis\stu )
BTW: Beware, that LEFT key is
different than BACKSPACE key.
Using my previous set of directories, if you enter:
\vis then you can:
- pres BACKSPACE 4 times to get
empty quicksearch
-
BUT result of pressing LEFT key 4 times depends on what directory you have focused:
-- on one of the
Microsoft Visual Studio directories your quicksearch term is changed to:
Microsoft
-- but on
VisualRoute or
Visual Math Studio your quicksearch is now also
empty!!