TaskPaper 3.4 Plans, More search and less toolbar

It does differentiate less, but I haven’t found it to be a problem in practice… but I need to get the preview done and out to really tell.

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Hey Jesse,
I love that you’re in there challenging assumptions.

When I look at my two most invaluable “productivity apps”, LaunchBar and nvAlt, there are two other design patterns that could make sense;

  • The one text field to rule them all approach that nvAlt uses, which could introduce some interesting functionality (e.g., depending on the syntax of what you type in the field, you might be searching for something or adding a new entry)

  • The popup text field that LB (and Alfred and even Spotlight) uses, which again could open up possibilities for command line-like functionality based on keywords or symbols.

Anyway, I thought since you were really digging in, there might be something in either one of these two interfaces that might work for you.

Regardless, I’m hacking my lists with TP even more lately and enjoying seeing the product develop. Keep up the good work.

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This is a solution searching (see what I did there?) for a problem, IMO. There’s nothing wrong and a lot right with the current layout.

I like the gray titlebar. It makes the titlebar stand out from the “working” part of the window.

I want search in the upper right of the title bar. It’s where it is on almost everything I use that has search (Mail, my RSS reader(s), Calendar (whether built-in or Fantastical), iTunes, I could go on for a while). Putting it somewhere else makes me search (see what … never mind) for it. I don’t want to search for it. Because no matter how much I use TP, I’m going to have to search for it every time, because I use ten times as many apps that have it in the upper right as I do TP.

Given that, the icons on the left don’t cost anything. I’m not really committed to them, it’s more like a casual relationship, but this is something we can control. If we want to get rid of them, we hide them. If we don’t, we don’t.

So my answer is, none of the above. Leave it alone. Spend the time on advancing search.

I don’t hate the gray titlebar, it’s the combination of it with the toolbar that looks to big to me. Anyway sometime here I’ll have some previews to show and discuss. But generally for me this is an important problem… something that’s been bothering me since at least the early TaskPaper 2 days in 2009.

It’s true that it’s just visuals, but sometimes visuals, or lack of them, can make a big difference in the feeling that an app gives.

Is there any particular search feature that you are looking for? I’ve implemented a count function for the next release, but beyond that I don’t have any specific search language todos.

Sorry, I wasn’t clear — I meant the other items you mentioned, i.e. having saved searches outside the file, etc.

But, since you asked, having ! be a synonym for “not” would be nice. IOW, “!done” or “! done” would be the same as “not done”.

I honestly don’t do much searching. I only have two files right now, and both are of manageable size.

What I’m struggling with a bit is my “today” list. I haven’t figured out a methodology with TP that is faster (and less distracting) than just writing things down on a piece of paper. But that’s nothing for you to do, that’s something I need to figure out. :slight_smile:

NewToolbar2 with the ‘fade when start typing’ trick added would be fabulously clean!

I immediately dug up two other writing apps I don’t use as much anymore to compare how they pull off the same practice (both a bit clunkier visually than they need to be):

Byword:


and Desk PM:


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Actually I like the current (3.3.1(217)) style a lot!! I see no good reasons to change that.

I am working in split screen mode, so I don’ see any window chrome. The toolbar looks nice at the topmost position of my screen. (BTW: I have my e-mail client on the left, TP on the right - this works absolutely brilliant for me, as e-mail communication (unfortunately) is a large portion of my job)

Please consider full screen / split screen mode in your decision!

Thank you
Thomas

Another vote here for disappearing interface. I really like the way iAWriter does this. There’s no search area there, but the top bar, which includes access to the library and preview, just fades out when you start typing, so when you’re writing there are literally no interface elements. If you move the mouse near where the top bar should be, it fades back in again. Combining this with a hotkey for activating search for those of us who are keyboard centric would I think work very well for TP.

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Big vote here for NewToolbar2.png (or something similar). Personally I would love to remove the title bar completely. If you can combine a simple search icon into a colour matched title bar that would be awesome!

I don’t use the sidebar myself, and have a dark theme applied. So based on those two things, here’s what I would love to see for search (and removing the standard app titlebar frame)

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For the most part I’d imagine TaskPaper-ers prefer keyboard shortcuts anyway, so perhaps it’d be viable simply to hide the search box along with the toolbar entirely? In the current version you lose access to search when you hide the toolbar, because hitting ⌘⇧F has no effect. Instead, that combo could pop down a floating search box, Chrome-style.

The problem with this suggestion is that it’s much more common to leave a search “active” in TaskPaper than it is in a Web browser or a normal text editor. It’s necessary to keep the search query visible while you’re working, and a floating panel becomes unwieldy if it sticks around too long. Displaying the current search in place of a title bar, as shown in @mposborne’s mockups, might be the nicest approach.

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That mockup looks nice. Thanks for submitting. But one constrain that I think TaskPaper has is that it needs to always display the filename/icon in the window titlebar. It’s not necessary to show the standard titlebar background, but do need to at least show the titlebar text and icon.

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Maybe something like this? Search box pops up as @00dani suggests, whether by hot-key or menu etc., (or click on red text); Search text/criteria then remains on the page (just under the section header)…

TSKP mock-up

Possible, but I don’t think I want to mix the search text in with the content text. I see search text as UI which should be kept separate.

Right now I’m still in the process of cleaning up and converting large parts of the cocoa side of TaskPaper to Swift. I’ve got at least a week or two more of that. Once I get that done then I’ll start getting active with search bar UI thoughts again.

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Sorry Jesse i’ve had a busy week and haven’t been able to come back to you. That’s a very valid point. I actually never noticed that before myself, I never use the title bar filename/dropdown thingy, but to retain such a feature i’ve modified my mockup slightly as to how that might work. Obviously there would be a minimum size constraint to fit everything in, depending on the proposed width of the search box and the filename length. But you could probably drop the file name, while maintaining the dropdown arrow at these minimum widths, much like how you would show and hide certain things on a responsive website.

Also I see currently you appear to have a minimum window width set at about 300 pixels so you could always increase this minimum a little bit.

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maybe i am late to the party, but i´d love to see something like the sublime text command/Goto palette (fuzzy search!) implemented. Ideally, it would combine filter, goto, commands, …

Example:

  • Invoke Palette -> List of Projects
  • Type your search Term -> List of Findings
  • Type “@” -> List of Tags
  • Type “#” -> Taskpaper Search Syntax Mode
  • Type “+” -> Your own custom commands/scripts?

This is on my own wish list too. I’m not working on it now, but it’s on my list.

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That´s great!
But my suggestion would mean to get rid of the search toolbar in favour of this sublime-text-inspired “action/search/filter”.

Although I am truly late to this party, I’ll cast my vote anyway. I quite like NewToolbar2. Add a vanishing UI when not in use and it’ll truly make for a cleaner interface. I’m all for that.

I also like the mock-ups done by @mposborne. The only issue I have with these mock-ups and the vanishing UI concept is: how will they work/look when we factor in the sidebar.

Hi Jesse, some choices for hiding the toolbar might prevent you from using Sierra’s new native tabs in the future. Not sure though.