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 | | From: | Eik | | Subject: | Searches from the address bar enhancement | | Date: | Wed, 29 Dec 2004 07:28:49 -0000 |
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 | I just tried the 8.0 beta and, since a popup with icons and drop down
lists now appears under the address bar when you focus on it, would it be
possible to give some kind of visual indication that you're entering
searches directly into the address bar rather than a URL? If you type
G+[space] then it would know you're doing a google search and either
display the Google favicon on the right of the address bar or the title of
the search somewhere in the popup box below, or something similar. Even
changing the background colour of the address bar slightly would be enough.
The reason for this is that I use the address bar exclusively for all my
searches (I've added more for MP3s, whois tools and others) and I'm so
used to it that I sometimes forget to enter the G+[space] bit first so
Opera goes off to look for "http://my search terms/".
I know there is a search panel but I don't want to use that as searching
from the address bar is quicker and more instinctive for me.
If there was some visual cue when I started entering a search rather than
a URL I would notice this not appearing when I made the mistake of leaving
out the prefix.
I assume the check to determine whether the string you entered should be
treated as a URL, search term or incomplete domain name is done after you
press Enter so maybe you wouldn't want to waste CPU monitoring every
character that's typed in looking for a search prefix, but this is similar
to how the Email searches already work and they don't slow things down.
If there was some visual cue, new 'home PC' users would notice the search
feature more. They give more significance to things when they see a colour
change or icon and will think in terms of the address bar 'changing mode'
so now it's become a search box. I've noticed than many non-techie users
I've shown Opera to get awfully confused by simple features like this or
the progress bar appearing in the address bar etc.
--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/
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