Search field loses query, should persist.

[No Cookies]

Binary package hint: software-center

I type my query into the Software Center's search field, and each time I navigate away from that section, the query resets. This is unexpected, and annoying. The little brush icon in the search bar also indicates the user should clear their searches manually, not the software automatically. Counter intuitive and clumsy. Please fix.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Thu Oct 8 12:38:57 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Package: software-center 0.5.0
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-12.41-generic
SourcePackage: software-center
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-12-generic i686

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Thanks for your bugreport.

This is explicitly speced behavior (that I don't like much myself). I subscribe the design team.

[No Cookies (karmicbugs)]

Andrew: Please indicate what extra information you require to render the bug valid.. just marking the bug incomplete without any explanation is unhelpful, to say the least.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

I can't reproduce the problem: Here's the steps I followed:
1. Launch the Center.
2. Enter some search text.
3. Switch to the "Installed Software" section.
4. Switch back to the "Get Free Software" section.

What happened: The search persisted.

Please provide exact steps for the problem you are experiencing. Thanks.

[No Cookies (karmicbugs)]

1. Launch Software Center.
2. Enter a query in the searchbox.
3. Hit the "Installed Software" button in the left hand pane.
4. Search disappears.
5. Hit the "Get New Software" button, search reappears.

Ok.. On closer inspection the searchbox only loses its query when you toggle from the "Get Free Software" section to the "Installed Software" section. So, in the event you've entered different queries for Installed and "get free..", the searchbox will toggle between those 2 searches.. this still seems to me to be non-standard behavior.. if I enter a search query in Firefox's quicksearch bar, then change the search engine, the search persists. One would expect the same behavior here, or am I missing something?

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

It's not one search field losing its query, but rather two separate search fields. In this respect, it behaves just the same as the pathbutton next to it: for example, if you navigate to "Get Software" > "Games", then to "Installed Software", you won't end up in "Installed Software" > "Games".

I think having independent search fields (and pathbuttons) across sections is appropriate, because otherwise if you did a search (or navigated to a department/subsection) in the top-level "Get Software" and then navigated to a PPA or a CD (coming soon in 2.0) or to a saved list (coming in 3.0 or later), *most of the time* that PPA/CD/list would appear to contain zero items when actually it contained more.

If we did persist searches across sections, I think we'd need to move the search field upwards somehow to clarify that it was independent from the selection in the navigation pane.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

We now have separate sources implemented as described in my previous comment, so I'm going to close this report for the reasons I gave. Thanks for your suggestion.