STR: 1. Type some text in quick search. Do not press Enter. EXPECTED: Upon typing a single character, the "Clear" button should be usable, so that one can clear the input field. ACTUAL: One must press Enter after typing the text. Only then the "Clear" button becomes active.
As Dave Howorth pointed out on the mailing list: "As the tooltip says, it is clearing the actual search. Since you haven't executed the search, it isn't available to be cleared."
> As Dave Howorth pointed out on the mailing list I have a filter which deletes bug reports comming to the mailing lists but I checked the archive. Thanks for the pointer. As for what was said: I know that but I would say this is confusing although it may sound logical or justified through a tooltip. In all software packages where such "back button" exists pressing it clears the field, regardless of Enter being pressed before that or not. Some examples which I just checked: - Dolphin's (Ctrl+F) search field - smplayer's and vlc's playlist search field - kwrite's find field - KDE Plasma's "Application menu" search field - KDE Plasma's name and filter fields in file open/safe dialogs - KDE's Alt+F2 search field - krusader's path type field - digikam's text filter search field So from UX perspective Claws Mail would better work in a way which is consistent with other similar UI controls, rather than having to educate the user (through a tooltip which he may not even check for something so generic) about the inconsistency. It's a basic usability principle that the user should not be made to think or wonder about simple things. I hope that clarifies the reason for the bug report.
I tested some of those examples you gave, (dolphin, digikam, plasma app menu), and each of those runs as soon as you enter anything in the search field. If you turn on 'type-ahead' in the Quick Search options then that would also cause the search to be performed as you type (like your examples), and then the clear button would work as you want.
But that doesn't resolve the usability issue. It rather introduces another special condition about which the user must be educated which makes it even more confusing. Also one may not want to use a type-ahead search, yet one may still want to be able to have clear back-button work intuitively. Is it terribly difficult to make it work as a general user would expect? Or are there any particular major reasons for which you want it to work in a non-standard way?
To me the user interface feels at least internally consistent. Claws Mail takes it step by step. Some examples: - By default Type-ahead is not turned on, because that does a search for every edit you make in the search field. It is too quick for the user. - When Type-ahead is turned off, you first compose your search query, then you submit that query (by pressing Enter), and only then you can remove the query again. - It reminds me of adding filtering rules. You first need to define a Condition and Action, and then you still need to Add it. You could define a Condition and Action through a similar way: first say what you want, and then add it to the list of conditions and actions. All this feels a bit circuitous, but it works. Maybe more importantly, it is wat Claws Mail users expect. I a long-time Claws Mail user, but I would not mind if Type-ahead is turned on by default, or even if you could clear an unexecuted search query. However, I hope that there won't come changes in the user interface that seem unnecessary while we need to relearn how the program works. (Compare, for instance, with what happened to the keybindings from mplayer to mpv.)