Issue 221: Keyboard usage improvements

Hi,

I’ve just installed Ubuntu for the first time and found Recoll as a near perfect replacement for Everything app on Windows (http://www.voidtools.com), with added bonus of actually indexing the content of the files :)

However, (and correct me here if I’m wrong), Recoll is slightly harder to use with keyboard than Everything. To improve that, I have a few suggestions:

1) It would be nice to have an option to just use the arrow down key on my keyboard to switch to the list of results from the search field. Now I have to repeatedly press tab key to get to the list which is not ideal. You can’t get any faster than just pressing the down arrow key to select the first result.

2) Once we do reach the list of results, it would be nice if we could open the selected result (I’m using the table layout) with Enter key on the keyboard.

3) Once the result is opened, the main Recoll window should be closed and not left running. Also, there should be an option to use Esc key to close the Recoll window.

What I’m trying to describe here is the situation where Recoll acts as a helper program that is completely out of the way of my main task. It should work in such way that I don’t have to think about using it.

Thanks for the great app and thanks for listening!

Hi,

1) the arrow keys are already used to walk the search history. I added a Ctrl+r shortcut to switch from the search entry to the result table (could not find a way to highlight the 1st row when this is triggered, but you can then use the arrows to walk the table).

2) It’s quite difficult to catch Enter in Qt. I did not bother, and added Ctrl+o for opening the current entry, Ctrl+Shift+o for open + close recoll (and Ctrl+d for opening a preview). All from the result table.

3) I think that most users would rather let recoll run after an open. You could use desktop shortcuts for showing/hiding it (there is a howto entry for how to do this in the wiki section). Or use Ctrl+Shift+o now. Ctrl+q will quit from anywhere in Recoll, not Escape. Escape would work from the unity scope though. Actually, if the functionality from the Scope is ok for you, it is closer to what you have in mind (an applet).

The new shortcuts will take some time to make it to a package, but the patch which create them should apply to any semi-recent recoll version.

Hi!

Yep, I know arrow keys are used to walk search history. What I had in mind was more of an option in preferences to switch the behaviour. I’ll try to compile my own version if I have the time, but most probably I’ll just wait for the new package :)

Same as 1) I can wait a bit for shortcuts to appear in the package :) If you do reconsider and try to catch "Enter" though, that would be awesome :)

Again, I had in mind an option for Esc to close the app, but Ctrl+Q works well. Considering F12 shortcut: it seems like an okay idea, but that would leave the app icon in app switcher and Unity launcher when Recoll is minimized (at least I guess it would), which I don’t want :)

I’m still finding my way around Ubuntu/Unity so my first attempt to install Unity scope failed, but I’ll try again :)

I don’t know if I am doing something wrong, but the hotkeys don’t seem to be working for me. I checked out the latest commit, but CTRL+R doesn’t seem to do anything. Also, the arrow keys just scroll the result list for me. FWIW, I am using Qt4 with the webkit result list. I also have a customized paragraph style, but it doesn’t deviate too much from the defaults.

This only works when the results are in table presentation, not with the html result list.

Ah, I see! Makes sense. The hotkeys are working great in the table view.

Mostly ok