[Libreoffice-ux-advise] [REVIEW 3.4] FindBar silently reuses options from the Search & Replace dialog

[Jan Holesovsky]

Hi,

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=37179

When you set some options in the Seach & Replace dialog, these days it
affects how the FindBar operates; ie. when you set 'Whole words only',
then this is reused when you search something using the FindBar too.

This seems to be unexpected - using the FindBar, one should be able to
find everything.  The following patch fixes that, it always unsets
'Whole words only', and also 'Match case':

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/libs-core/commit/?id=245f4820d8a982bee1c528cc544bafa96e4582bf

It might be a bit controversial, and that's why I am adding UX advise
list.  The thing is that the Search & Replace dialog and FindBar are
tightly coupled.  Whenever you set an option in the FindBar, it
immediately affects the Search & Replace dialog, and vice versa.  Try
yourself:

- open FindBar
- open also Search & Replace dialog, and show More options
- search _forward_ for something in FindBar
- search _backward_
- see that the searching backwards checked the 'Search Backwards' in the
  Search & Replace dialog

With the patch I am proposing for cherry-picking to 3.4 (I have pushed
that to master), the options are unset when you use the FindBar, ie. it
resets whatever flags the user has set in the Search & Replace dialog
too.  This is not easy to fix, so I wonder if you consider this stop-gap
solution bearable for the users?

Thank you,
Kendy