Upgrade StorageEnable real-time search only for long enough words
Would it be possible to include an option (could be a hidden setting in about:config) to only enable real-time search if enough characters are typed into the search box? I know the real-time search can be disabled by starting the search with a double quote, but this solution implies two more keystrokes (the double quote, then Enter to actually do the search) and is not very elegant nor intuitive...
I often find myself starting to type the name of an author, and if I am not fast enough Zotero will start to search for, say, "e" in the whole database. While that can be the source of obvious performance issue, in my case the biggest problem is that searching just for "e" also exposes most of the attached PDF files in the library (which are all named "NASA/ADS Full Text PDF"), as if I clicked the little right-facing arrow located before the title of each item. This is doubling the amount of vertical screen space used by each item, to display an information I just do not care about. Worse, it is not easy to fix: either I have to hide the attachments one by one (tedious...) or find out by accident that doing a search that leads to no result automatically hides all the attachments (I don't know if this is an intended behavior).
The most sensible solution to this problem would be to disable the real-time search when too few characters are typed, since I see little use in searching, e.g., for single letter words. Even if there are indeed people whose names consist of a single or a couple of letters, searching for them this way is just impractical, since most items in the library will match this search criterion anyway. An alternative, more specific fix would be to add an option to prevent the search from looking into the title of the attachments.
I often find myself starting to type the name of an author, and if I am not fast enough Zotero will start to search for, say, "e" in the whole database. While that can be the source of obvious performance issue, in my case the biggest problem is that searching just for "e" also exposes most of the attached PDF files in the library (which are all named "NASA/ADS Full Text PDF"), as if I clicked the little right-facing arrow located before the title of each item. This is doubling the amount of vertical screen space used by each item, to display an information I just do not care about. Worse, it is not easy to fix: either I have to hide the attachments one by one (tedious...) or find out by accident that doing a search that leads to no result automatically hides all the attachments (I don't know if this is an intended behavior).
The most sensible solution to this problem would be to disable the real-time search when too few characters are typed, since I see little use in searching, e.g., for single letter words. Even if there are indeed people whose names consist of a single or a couple of letters, searching for them this way is just impractical, since most items in the library will match this search criterion anyway. An alternative, more specific fix would be to add an option to prevent the search from looking into the title of the attachments.
This is an old discussion that has not been active in a long time. Before commenting here, you should strongly consider starting a new discussion instead. If you think the content of this discussion is still relevant, you can link to it from your new discussion.