by justsomehnguy | 2025-07-13 01:13:22+00:00
> Do you ever only use one of find and grep?

It's not a CLI. More so, redundant functions eats the screen real estate, which isn't getting taller on a non-mobile platforms.

> I do, so it is not exactly zero and I would be annoyed to have them gone, because it is a huge time saver when handling thousands of messages.

You sounds like I'm advocating to removal of both the search and the filter boxes.

> If the filter starts to draw in messages from other directories

sigh

You input something in the combined search|filter box:

If you got the result you need from this folder then you just do your thing.

If you did not got the result you need then press Enter which would start the search in the whole mailbox, just like the search textbox works now.

> I don't care where the search bar is placed

Great for you, but I care. TB interface was already far from understandable by both computer illiterate and computer literate and this is just another illogical placement what doesn't add functionality, yet wastes the space.

BTW, did you provided the support to anyone by the phone? Can you be sure what the person on the other side inputs in the right textbox? I can, somewhat, if there is only one. If there are two then 70% of time they would use the wrong one even if telling you it's the right one. I provided enough L1/L2 to know it well.

> Can you please criticize the functionality itself

Yes, there is no functionality need in the two separate textboxes for, essentially, one function: searching.

> Do you mostly keep messages in the INBOX?

Thanks, no.

> because you can consider filtering a subset of searching, but I do consider them to be different

Yes, they both are the methods to find some message/s what you can't just scroll to. And those 'quick filter' buttons near the current filter textbox are quite nice, btw.

My problem is what that search textbox is a clear import from the MS Outlook[0] and it was did only to mimic the other product, without a second of actually thinking if this is even needed.

Just imagine: what if instead of that search box that space would be used for... a filter/search combo textbox, along with a quickfilter buttons, just like today, but not wasting the space for nothing in the window titlebar.

Also I finally noticed what there is even a special combo to invoke the filter so it also can be used to differentiate the usage right away: ctrl+shift+k - filtering, ctrl+shift+f - searching the mailbox.

Just for the sake of it I did a poor man's mock-up:

https://ibb.co/JjXwxhhB

And, uh, just one more thing: when you do search in TB you are brought to a separate tab with the search result. There is zero need to the search input to stay in the current search box. It's literally useless.

[0] if never even saw it then just search for the screenshots.

EDIT: and about 'heuristic' - there also two ways to do it:

1. just have a toogle buried somewhere, to enable/disable autosearch

2. just do the search automatically, with a low priority and find a way to notify the user what this are results from the other folder. Can be as simple as '--- results from the other folders ---' line.