Controlpanel and searchability

[Mat]

Other software such as Windows and Chrome have long ago taken an approach where settings are not only hierarchically categorized but also searchable. Presumably it was a necessity when there are too many settings to easily navigate to them. IMO we have reached this point in TW.

A bonus is that taking a more general approach to this would let us go outside of the Controlpanel; All tools/settings/systemteweaks/etc could be findable via this, for example things otherwise found in the sidebar Tools tab. (It is not obvious that, say, the Tag Manager or activation of Time Stamps are not in the Controlpanel)

For example, a user typing in either of the terms color, colour, style, appearance, etc - of course - get the Palette stuff (and probably more).

@pmario - I'm particularly interested in what you think about this matter and how we might address it. (I'm guessing that you can figure out why I'm asking you specifically but, if not, this will be clear in my next post ;-)

Overall I'm interested in if people agree with this need and ideas to how it might be solved.

Thank you

<:-)

[TonyM]

Mat,

I totally agree. That is why I though about a standard way to create config tiddlers. Each config tiddler could include a caption and description and a field containing its possible values (actually a filter). If you open a config tiddler View template would popup on config tiddlers allowing you to select from the possible values. 

However an info panel and/or control panel could search for config tiddlers so setup and display the caption, current value, the description, a value selector and link to open the config tiddler all on a single view.

Any user plugin or designer can follow the same config tiddler standard eg $:/config and above and the configuration setting will be listed in the control panel page.

A Utility macro will allow <<config-setting configtiddler>> to present the value selection anywhere the user or plugin designer wants.

Regards

Tony

[Mohammad]

Great idea!

Why not to oped a ticket at GitHub?

--Mohammad

[PMario]

On Tuesday, September 17, 2019 at 10:10:31 AM UTC+2, Mat wrote:

...

@pmario - I'm particularly interested in what you think about this matter and how we might address it. (I'm guessing that you can figure out why I'm asking you specifically but, if not, this will be clear in my next post ;-)

I don't really know, why you ask me. ... But I think it is a good idea!

Working with windows most of the time, I do like the possibility of the "default UI" to directly link to the right spot in the "Windows Setup" app. Not everything can be adjusted there, but they are on the right way.

I would like, if ONE of the search terms like: "ui settings, palette, story view, theme, toolbars, theme tweaks" would open the tab Appearence tiddler in the story, with a link to the $:/ControlPanel: Appearence tab selected.

As Tony points out the caption field would be OK, but for the "Palette" tab it looks like this: {{$:/language/ControlPanel/Palette/Caption}} So we would need a "help index" that does proper language resolution.

just some thoughts.

have fun!

mario

[Mat]

Thanks for input everyone!

@ Mohammad wrote:

Why not to oped a ticket at GitHub?

It is good to refine a proposal or request through discussion first, so that when something is eventually posted on gh it can be very specific and all misunderstandings (including my own), objections etc have been dealt with.

@Tony - config tiddlers sound like a good idea. Have you elaborated on the concept somewhere? (demo?) My OP is mainly about findability though. You say "Each config tiddler could include a caption and description" but this still does not solve findability unless you have a very wide definition of a "description". To use my example in the OP; 

a user typing in either of the terms color, colour, style, appearance, etc - of course - get the Palette stuff (and probably more).

Should a "description" cover this?

@PMario

I don't really know, why you ask me. ... But I think it is a good idea!

Happy you agree! 

The reason I turned to you is because my proposal to solve this generically would be by means of tagging. Tagging is, after all, the main way to make things findable. But it would obviously not be appropriate to show a big number of arbitrary tags on tiddlers. However, these tags would not be of the same "kind" as ordinary tags that are typically used for structuring. In contrast, these tags for finding should work behind-the-scenes! In other words; they should be hidden. You've objected to hidden tags in the past but, again, these would be systemic information just like how the tiddler type or custom field data often is hidden. What is you opinion on this? Or, I should phrase it like so; Is there a better alternative?

 

If I understand you right, you're proposing to make the various Controlpanel tabs findable/targetable by somehow including search terms in the tab-tiddlers - yes? (...but you also say it should only be ONE search term??) I might misunderstand something but I still don't see how this would actually help a searcher unless he happens to use the magic keyword in his search.

The idea to make the Controlpanels tab-tiddlers findable is interesting but I think it misses the mark. Here's a case in point from using Windows:

I have a portable loud speaker that sometimes connects, sometimes not. It is extremely frustrating to right-click > "Open the sound settings" only to realize the settings there are insufficient... so I search for audio drivers which is in the Device Manager ... > Properties ....but that shows this one (image) :

...after a lot of internet search, I've found I really need to access this one:

Clearly, ALL of these things should have come up when I search for sound or loudspeaker. The results (all of them) could be presented in some prioritized order and the search engine could allow for a finer search but the approach is just not sufficient.

In contrast, Chrome > Settings behave more like what I'm talking about: Searching for, say, "Sound" presents a list that seems to be a mix of direct settings and categories with settings contain the searched word.

...

So, in addition to the problem description in the OP, my question is if there is a better solution than to utilize hidden tags in order to actually find everything relevant when searching? The tags, or search words, would presumably be in some separate field, directly editable in edit mode - but they can also be transcluded to some central search-datatiddler. 

And to fellow PMario; what do you think of the idea to treat such pure search tags as systemic tags and therefore hide them? Any better ideas?

Thank you all.

<:-)

[TonyM]

Mat,

In my config tiddler model, any tiddler with the the prefix $:/config and any tiddler with a config-values field would be how you find and display configuration info. No tags, system or otherwise needed. 

We could add config-values field to all current tiddlywiki config entries or provide a hard coded list, for example containing "show hide". Its the existence of config-values that flags it as a config tiddler.

On searching, it is a simply matter of adding a custom search to the config tiddlers tab that uses search:*[{searchstring}] to search any field on the config tiddlers. So if you add for examples a keywords field containing suitable search terms they will be listed.

Regards

Tony

[Mat]

Tony - sounds intriguing but I need some more clarification to understand. For someone searching for, say, "appearance", what are you saying should be done so all of these tiddlers show up in the search results (in reality many more of course): 

• $:/core/ui/ControlPanel/Appearance
• $:/palettes/Vanilla
• $:/config/Toolbar/Icons

I'd be intrigued to see a demo. BTW, I made these plugins long ago that may or may not be relevant for you.

• http://configsfields.tiddlyspot.com/
• http://varsfields.tiddlyspot.com/

<:-)

[PMario]

On Tuesday, September 17, 2019 at 4:49:17 PM UTC+2, Mat wrote:

...

The reason I turned to you is because my proposal to solve this generically would be by means of tagging. Tagging is, after all, the main way to make things findable. But it would obviously not be appropriate to show a big number of arbitrary tags on tiddlers. However, these tags would not be of the same "kind" as ordinary tags that are typically used for structuring. In contrast, these tags for finding should work behind-the-scenes! In other words; they should be hidden. You've objected to hidden tags in the past but, again, these would be systemic information just like how the tiddler type or custom field data often is hidden. What is you opinion on this? Or, I should phrase it like so; Is there a better alternative?

I was thinking about fields, eg: keywords, helpwords or something similar. It should be easy to search for them. ... The _problem_ is translatability. 

 

 If I understand you right, you're proposing to make the various Controlpanel tabs findable/targetable by somehow including search terms in the tab-tiddlers - yes? (...but you also say it should only be ONE search term??) I might misunderstand something but I still don't see how this would actually help a searcher unless he happens to use the magic keyword in his search.

I wanted to say that "one of the listed" keywords should open the same __context__. .. So it may be possible to find a single setting. .. but it doesn't make sense to open 1 setting out of context. eg: $:/ControlPanel: Appearence: Theme Tweaks: Sizes ... Open 1 setting has the potential to create an unusable UI.

So doing it wrong will make things worse. If this happens it's better to change nothing. ... So for me CONTEXT IS KING for settings.

-mario

[PMario]

On Tuesday, September 17, 2019 at 4:49:17 PM UTC+2, Mat wrote:

...

I have a portable loud speaker that sometimes connects, sometimes not. It is extremely frustrating to right-click > "Open the sound settings" only to realize the settings there are insufficient... so I search for audio drivers which is in the Device Manager ... > Properties ....but that shows this one (image) :

...after a lot of internet search, I've found I really need to access this one:

I think Windows 10 does much much better, with the 2 latest updates.

In contrast, Chrome > Settings behave more like what I'm talking about: Searching for, say, "Sound" presents a list that seems to be a mix of direct settings and categories with settings contain the searched word.

I think FireFox is similar to Chrome here. ... The new search function improves the possibilities. ... BUT what's listed in the config UI is only about 10% of possible settings, that can be adjusted.

Most of them have the potential to break stuff, that's why they are hidden.

-mario

[Mat]

PMario wrote:

I was thinking about fields, eg: keywords, helpwords or something similar. It should be easy to search for them. ... The _problem_ is translatability. 

Yeah, but that's a separate difficulty though :-)

  

[...] ... So for me CONTEXT IS KING for settings. 

1) What do you mean with "context"? Is it perhaps the current Controlpanel tabs? Anything else?

2) What should show up when the user searches for "colors" (...and he is hoping to change the colors of his tags)?

<:-)

[PMario]

On Tuesday, September 17, 2019 at 4:49:17 PM UTC+2, Mat wrote:

...

... However, these tags would not be of the same "kind" as ordinary tags that are typically used for structuring. In contrast, these tags for finding should work behind-the-scenes! In other words; they should be hidden. You've objected to hidden tags in the past but, again, these would be systemic information just like how the tiddler type or custom field data often is hidden. What is you opinion on this?

As you pointed out, there should be only 1 field, that is named: tags. If we create several types of tags, we will end up with a whole bunch of new problems / questions, that are not even known yet.

AND

I think we don't need something new. We do have listops-operators. Which allow us to use every field and data-tiddler like tags. We don't have a good UI and workflow, to work with it.

I think the generic functions are there. We need to develop the workflow, so we can improve the UI.

-mario

[Mat]

I think Windows 10 does much much better, with the 2 latest updates. 

(I believe I have the latest update... Win 10 ...10.0.18362 Build 18362)

 

FireFox is similar to Chrome here. ... The new search function improves the possibilities. ... BUT what's listed in the config UI is only about 10% of possible settings, that can be adjusted.

Most of them have the potential to break stuff, that's why they are hidden.

That makes sense. No need to make 100% findable. 

But what do you think of the idea to present the search results like they do, i.e it shows everything (that should be findable) regardless(?) of context it came from.

<:-)

[PMario]

On Wednesday, September 18, 2019 at 12:09:51 PM UTC+2, Mat wrote:

PMario wrote:

I was thinking about fields, eg: keywords, helpwords or something similar. It should be easy to search for them. ... The _problem_ is translatability. 

Yeah, but that's a separate difficulty though :-)

I think it is easier to find confg-tabs as single settings, since a tab can have more keywords the fit.

 

  

[...] ... So for me CONTEXT IS KING for settings. 

1) What do you mean with "context"? Is it perhaps the current Controlpanel tabs? Anything else?

Yes, plus some new tabs, that need to be created, since ControlPanel: Settings is a mess at the moment.

 

2) What should show up when the user searches for "colors" (...and he is hoping to change the colors of his tags)?

IMO at tiddlywiki dot com you should find an FAQ: How can I adjust colors? In empty you should find the Palette tab with a link to more help topics at the dot com site.

-mario

[PMario]

On Wednesday, September 18, 2019 at 12:15:29 PM UTC+2, Mat wrote:

...

But what do you think of the idea to present the search results like they do, i.e it shows everything (that should be findable) regardless(?) of context it came from.

https://tiddlywiki.com/prerelease/ has a very prominent HelpButton, that would be useful, if it would open a SideBar-tab!! that lets you find

 - A list of FAQs

 - A list of Videos

 - The Settings

 - ... you name it

This should not be part of the core! It should be a "language plugin", because it has to be language specific.

All of this would be easy to do, if we would use GitLab to manage the documentation.

-mario

[PMario]

changed the last post:

[TonyM]

Mat

The config tiddlers idea was for settings that are contained in specific tiddlers. Slightly different to your examples. However it should be simple to have a custom search using the search:* option against all control panel tiddlers to search and it could include my suggested config tiddlers.

Regards
Tony

[Mat]

Thanks PMario and Tony for your input. I hope to eventually make a proposal, involving keywords, for a new handling of system searches.

<:-)