Search behaviour when no match

[JustAlittleWolf]

Currently, when using the search bar to find some message, when no matches are found, the chat is displayed as normal instead.

I find this quite confusing, as this is not intuitive behaviour. When starting to type in the search bar, some messages get filtered out (the ones that don't match). In some cases when you finish typing what you are searching for, the entire chat pops back up (because there were no matches).

06_19-42-15_javaw0e9.mp4

This is probably user preference, but I'd find it much clearer if the the chat was empty when there are no matches. This allows you to immediately tell that what you are searching for doesn't exist.

[mrbuilder1961]

i get why it being empty might be the assumption for a no-results search, but this is a non-issue. there are already two different indicators that your search failed - messages appear as normal (no filtering at all.. why would that be?) and the search text is yellow (even if you didn't read the search button tooltip, you'd still notice the change).

to your point about being able to tell immediately - you already can! look at the color of the text (and read the tooltip).

also, if the results were empty, then the chat would be useless while searching - i'd rather preserve some functionality and allow you to view messages normally while you figure out why it failed.

tl;dr: look at the color of your search query.

[JustAlittleWolf]

Thank you for your quick reply.

I know about the color of the search query, but when typing, my eyes are on the chat window itself, where the result I want to see is. The color itself doesn't pop out either, with the transparency of the search bar not helping either in that aspect.

also, if the results were empty, then the chat would be useless while searching - i'd rather preserve some functionality and allow you to view messages normally while you figure out why it failed.

I personally don't think this is the way to go. The chat being empty is not useless when no results were found, it's a clear indicator that there were no matches. I am also not sure what functionality is being preserved, when the user wants to use the search feature it is not helpful if they get shown the current chat instead. When they don't want to use the search feature they can see the chat just fine.

[JustAlittleWolf]

I've used this mod for a while because it provides many useful features. It doesn't happen thst much anymore but over the roughly two years I've been using it, I've gotten confused at least 5 times as to why the search feature wasn't working, when I knew my query was in the text, but case sensitivity was enabled. The change from yellow to green color doesn't help when you are typing fast either, as an indicator.

[JustAlittleWolf]

Would it perhaps be possible for me to create a PR to add a toggle of the behavior, with the option of your choice as the default? This is probably a minor nuisance that few people will care about but it's been bugging me for a while.

[mrbuilder1961]

i'll make a poll on the discord about it and we can go from there