Submission details
Finder: select files by typing letters
If you are in a folder and type a letter, say 'a', then the file selection jumps to the first file beginning with that letter. If there is no file that beginns with that letter, the file with the next letter in the alphabet gets selected: in our example the file b* would be selected, if there is no file a*.
That behaviour is not very intuitive.
If there is no file with the beginning letter, that has been typed, don't select anything.
Low
Low
Not fixed
Discussion (5 comments)
I agree with Jasper, having absolutely nothing happen if you click a letter that no file names begin with is way less intuitive than having the next letter in the alphabet selected. The user needs SOME kind of feedback to let them know there's no file beginning with that letter.
If nothing happens, imho, this is a feedback. It says: "ooops, i cannot go to a file with that name, because there isn't any ..."
Selecting a different kind of file is not very intuitive. Imagine a nurse requests a patient's file and gets a different one, because the needed file was not there and the one she gets, was the next one in the alpabet?
You apple hardcore guys are always so stringent with what is intuitive and what not. On the one hand cutting files (cmd-x) is not intuitive, because cutting, in your opinion, removes the file in its original place, on the other hand, selecting wrong files is intuitive ...
A status message text "file not found" would be much more intuitive, imho. Or maybe an "error" sound. But thoughts and opinions are free ...
You want an error reply to typing a letter? This is silly. It has nothing to do with Apple fanatics, just the fact that you should consider that it's only logical it suggest the nextbest thing. If the hospitaldoesn't get the right info, it 's their dumb fault. If you're findingsomething less specific, it makesa lot ofsense.
You're just trying to get your way by calling us uselessapple-defenders withno opionon of our own... Doesn't work on me, though
So, to add a voice here... the reason I think it's not intuitive to have nothing happen (or an error, egads!) I can explain in a couple ways.
1) When a user types something on the keyboard, it is good to have the UI react in an appropriate way to show that they are typing in the right spot and the keyboard is working. Many users would assume that the keyboard was broken, and hit the keys harder, or think that they had done something wrong. (I can personally attest to the broken keyboard theory.)
2) Think of a book store analogy. When you look up authors in a section, and you go to the F section - but there aren't any - then you'll see the first book with a G. This reinforces the idea that you are in the right place, but there aren't any. If nothing happens, there are a myriad of reasons that nothing may have happened. (See above)
3) Nothing happening is not feedback. It's negative reinforcement... which is less effective than positive reinforcement, which is what happens now.
jasper wrote on April 2, 2009, 4:57pm
What's counter-intuitive here? Should Apple show a dialog box saying 'there no letter a file here'? Should nothing really happen? This is the intuitive behaviour: you see something happened, you see that there's no file with an a, so you move on.
It's not counter-intuitive and at least it shows you what's happening. Also, this is a detail so minor, but you can see that somebody thought of it and said 'if there's no file, then just select the next best thing, so you'll know there ain't files with that letter'. I like the way that guy thinks.