Quick search for tags - letters anywhere in the tag's name vs at the beginning

z8080

I just wanted to make a small suggestion: right now, if one types a few letters in the tag search (bottom-left corner of the Z window), all tags that contain that string *anywhere* in the tag's name, not just in the beginning of the tag's name, are found. The same does not happen when you in are in the field where you *add* a new tag - there, typing a few letters only brings up the tags that *start* with those letters, and not also those that e.g. contain the letters at the end.

Thanks :)

adamsmith

I think in general this makes sense the way it is - on the right this is an auto-complete function, not a search function, i.e. only tags with the same beginning matter.
On the left you may want to search for all tags containing a certain word or string, whether it's in the beginning or not.
I'm also not sure which of the two behaviors you prefer?

z8080

I prefer the "left" behavior, and I'd personally prefer it to be on the "right" as well, because given the hierarhical way I have my tags set up (in the form A|A, A|B, A|C), it takes quite a long time to get to tag A|C ("A" would be the name of the parent tag, e.g. "Neurotransmission"), whereas it would be faster to just type "C" and have the "A|C" tag come up as a suggestion.

I hope this makes sense.. This would essentially just add functionality, and not really take any away..

adamsmith

well no - it would add the number of options given for auto-complete. I can see how that can be useful in some cases, but it also makes this a lot messier to use in other cases, so there's certainly a trade-off. I don't have a strong opinion on what's preferable, but another disadavantage of a general search for autocomplete is likely speed. Searching a string from the start is much faster than matching it anywhere. It would also be rather unconventional auto-complete behavior, so users are likely to get confused.

z8080

I see what you mean, but the autocomplete in, for instance, the later versionf os Firefox, is also a "anywhere search" model, for instance I can type "book" in my address bar and it will suggest Facebook from my history.

Up to you of course, and not a major issue anyway, jsut thought it would make tagging a bit easier.