[mb-users] A Call For Feedback - "StructuredXHTML" branch

[Frederik 'Freso' S. Olesen]

2007/7/12, Oliver Charles <oliver.g.charles at googlemail.com>:
>>[...], the 5th search a) has no icon and b) the text doesn't behave
>>when you click inside the box.  I'm sure we could rig up a simple "MSN
>>guy"-type icon to represent editors (if we don't have one already).
>
>[...]
>
>The editor search doesn't have an icon because one didn't exist
>(well, that I could find in a quick scan of the images directory
>anyway…) and I'm no artist! I guess I forgot to add the javascript
>onto that box, heh.

http://musicbrainz.org/images/entity/editor_small.gif

>An option to make mo and other people who don't want to see
>javascript happy might be to have a preference to use the "old style"
>search - that is, with a label and empty fields - or use the "new
>style" search with javascript. But I'm hesitant to do that because
>it's yet another option...

Aye, and an unneeded one too. -1

<zap>

>Now then, the important note about the search fields. Currently,
>these fields are confusing, as each field is exclusive. That is,
>entering data in both the artist and release fields is meaningless,
>it will only take data from the last field (the one you submitted).
>Rather than coding something to allow a union of these fields, Brian
>suggested we change it to just one field, and instead use a combo box
>to choose what to search. This loses the javascript, makes search
>more compact, and it makes more sense. I'm all for it, and have added
>a sidebar module (that's not functional) to see how it looks. Any
>objections?

I like this one far more than the pentuple of text boxes - though I
would probably prefer to see the drop down above the text field (so
that I pick what I want to search in, before entering the search
terms), I but I don't know which would be more usable/accessible.
Apart from being more logical, taking up less space, not using
JavaScript, ..., it also adds an easy way of adding additional
searches without taking up more space. Whether that'll come into use
is another question entirely. ;) (Perhaps a set of options for
registered/logged in users to pick which searches they want readily
available?)

ps. If you want to, you might be able to keep the images with the
labels for the search: Just do <option><img /> Label text</option>.
I'm not 100% sure that it'll work or is desirable, but, well, I
believe it should work and it might just bring that extra little
touch. :)
pps. If you do the ps-thing, then you should probably also have a wee
blank icon for searches that do not have an associated icon - for
lining the text up properly.
-- 
Frederik 'Freso' S. Olesen <http://freso.dk/>