Typing in files list should perform a search, not a quick jump

[DWW256]

 * Nemo version 4.0.6
 * Desktop and Windowed Nemo are affected
 * Distribution - Linux Mint 19.1 Tessa
 * Graphics hardware: Intel HD Graphics, whatever the default driver is
 * 64 bit

Issue

Type-ahead search is a nice, if hard-to-find, feature in Nemo. Unfortunately, this feature often works incorrectly, instead producing a small box in the lower left or right corner of the window which only searches by the beginnings of file names and not anything else. (It's like the sort of pop-up you might see for a "find on page" function, and its search behavior is similar.) Clearly, since the search scope of this option is very limited, it is not an acceptable option. This is a problem of especial concern in the file picker, because no search button is visible to force a search--so in some cases (see the next section for details), it is impossible to search for a file to open in an "open file" dialog, an essential part of everyday computing use.

Steps to reproduce

1. Open Nemo. The normal file manager and the file picker both display this behavior.
2. Click anywhere if you're in the normal file manager, or click anywhere besides the sidebar if you're in the file picker. The pop-up described in the "issue" section will appear, intercepting the query; search is not activated. :(
3. To make type-to-search work properly in the file picker only, click on a place in the sidebar and then begin typing. The search should work as expected, at least for the first couple of letters. After the first few letter, it may still revert to the find box pop-up.

Expected behaviour

Since the find box pop-up has no apparent use which is not covered by the search box, it would probably not make sense for it to exist at all. No matter where you are in the file browser, if you're not typing something else, then typing something should tell the program to search for it.

Other information

For transparency's sake, I would ask you to please put a search button in the Nemo file picker, or at the very least allow it to be configured to work thus in some way.

[DWW256]

Issue #276 deals with a similar problem (maybe I should even merge them), but the workaround does not seem to work anymore. Maybe this issue does describe a potential use case for the box, but I can't figure out how you would let the type-to-search coexist.

[donjan]

276 requires that the type-ahead-find should (and has been doing so far) only ever search by the beginnings of file names and nothing else. The value is in quickly jumping between different starting letters with a large number of directories, as demonstrated in the video there. The bug is that this is too clumsy sometimes, when the box gets stuck.

It appears that the issue at hand is unrelated to #276 and would even suggest a conflicting solution.

[xenopeek]

To be clear the file picker (e.g. in Xed select File > Open) is not implemented by Nemo. That is the Gtk file chooser from the Gtk toolkit. A separate issue though retesting on Linux Mint 20 Cinnamon I note it's implemented as you want: typing in the file picker performs a search—only showing files that have the typed string somewhere in their name—and not a quick jump in the files list to the first filename starting with the typed string. Same as in Nautilus.

Nemo offers both search and quick jump in the files list, and quick jump in the places sidebar. You have noted you have no use for quick jump function.I happen to use quick jump a lot to quickly scroll in the files list to about where the file is that I'm looking for, without changing my view. It can be argued both ways which is preferable.

I've noted this as feature request.