Discuss. For Leo 6.8.10: simplify Leo's find gui using VS code as a guide

[Edward K. Ream]

#4700 suggests a redesign of that part of Leo's gui that deals with find-related commands. Here is a summary of the plan:

It's time for a redesign. Leonistas, and especially newbies, deserve better.

Aha! Use VS code's default search gui as a template. To see it in action, disable both the LeoJS and LeoInteg plugins.

Happily, VS code's search gui is similar to Leo's minibuffer find mode. We can replace Leo's legacy Find Tab and Find Dialog with the help-for-find-commands and show-find-options commands.

Your comments, please.

Edward

[Thomas Passin]

Leave the NAV tab alone! I use it 99% of the time and its clustered presentation with the clickable links is excellent.

As for the Find tab, I'll spend a little time with VSC to get up to speed, then I may have a suggestion or two to make. There are some UI issues with the current one that I would like to get tweaked but they don't add up to a wholesale replacement.

Please do not remove the current find tab or make major changes in how it works.  Instead, add the new find design in parallel, or make it an optional plugin. Over time, perhaps the current one could be deprecated if most users end up liking the new way better.

I have some definite criteria for adding or changing features of software that I write. Microsoft has the convention that every new proposed feature starts out with a score of -100. The score has to get into positive territory before it can be seriously considered. I don't know what criteria you use but here are mine:

1. Do I care enough?
2. Will this meaningfully improve my actual workflow?
3. Is the effort worth the payoff?
4. Does this introduce machinery I don’t want in my head?
5. Does this disrupt the conceptual simplicity of the system?
6. Does this align with what I’m actually interested in right now?

I'm skeptical that making a massive change in the Find functionality would make it through my filters.

[Thomas Passin]

After a quick look at VSC, I think that one could make a similar display with the search results from the NAV pane  - add a new tab for the VSC-type display but it could use the same return data. Not clear yet is how to depict the different parent nodes across branches of the outline.

[Edward K. Ream]

On Sun, May 24, 2026 at 7:38 AM Thomas Passin <tbp1...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Leave the NAV tab alone! I use it 99% of the time and its clustered presentation with the clickable links is excellent.

I plan no changes to the Nav tab. The proposal concerns only the Find tab and the Find dialog.

> Please do not remove the current find tab or make major changes in how it works.

Sorry, but that's not possible with any reasonable amount of work.

> I have some definite criteria for adding or changing features of software that I write. 

> 1. Do I care enough?

Yes.

> 2. Will this meaningfully improve my actual workflow?

Yes. It makes the up/down arrows available to everyone, except the users of the Nav pane, which have similar capabilities.

> 3. Is the effort worth the payoff?

Yes. And alternatives are much more work: band-aids on band-aids.

> 4. Does this introduce machinery I don’t want in my head?

On the contrary, this proposal simplifies the background machinery and simplifies the interface presented to Leonistas.

> 5. Does this disrupt the conceptual simplicity of the system?

No. It simplifies Leo, removing obsolete user settings.

> 6. Does this align with what I’m actually interested in right now?

Yes.

> I'm skeptical that making a massive change in the Find functionality would make it through my filters.

Functionally, the proposal changes nothing, except for adding a must-have feature: up/down arrows.

Ctrl-F, F2, and F3 will work as before, just with less gui-related cruft. The proposal reduces the find-related footprint.

Thanks for these comments. They have allowed me to make a strong case for the changes.

Edward