Add a search in the Filter Editor Components panel to search by name?

When you open the filter editor and then open the components panel it appears at the top the components categories to choose one of them and then the components inside that category appears below.

Well, the problem I find is that I know the name of the component I want but I do not remember always in wich category is stored and so sometimes I have to open many categories to find it, or click on the "all" and find it somewhere in the list.

My suggestion would be if it would be possible to add a search box at the top to be able to search any component you may need without having to open any category, and so it will open directly the category that this component is and you can select it and drop it to the workspace, OR if it would be possible to make the search and the component would be placed already in the workspace.

OR keyboard key based search instead, also another possible suggestion if the above one is not good and to have an alternative, is to do already as it is now, that if you click on one letter that belong to the beginning of one of the categories, this one is selected and shown, so the suggestion is that if you click for example "T" all the components that would begin with "T" would be shown

Many of you that have lots of experience and know really well FF is not needed, but for beginners or ones like me that do not remember things, I think it could be useful and handy.

Thanks

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Skybase I typically just tap the first letter of the component several times in the list and quick search the list. You know?

Is this possible? How?

OH, YES!!! I found it how, I have just tried it now and YES, you are right that this is possible already, I did not know, because for this work as you say you MUST click first on one of the components inside the ALL category (or any other category) to highlight it and so you are inside the panel

Then after having this selected, when you tap on one letter, the first component that begins with that letter will appear and be selected, and if this is not the want you want, just tap again and it goes to the next one, and so on.

Thanks for letting me know it and that in some my second sugesttion above is already made and working inside FF 3.0.

if anyone does not know what I mean, I have put this screenshot here

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Skybase Feature's been around since 1.0 I think

Well, if it has been since 1.0 I have found it and discovered 5 years later in FF 3.0

I do not think that this is covered and said in the FF manual, although I may have missed it if it is there.

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Skybase Well see I still would want a search bar and/or a quick access tab+command (default in some other node based programs) to search components.

I agree also, it would be good to have a search bar to search for components using more than one key, I mean that when you tap the key "C" for example, there are many components beginning with that letter "Cells, Checker, Color control..." and in the search bar you could put "Ch" and then it would appear probably "Checker"

You just haven't done enough FilterForging, SpaceRay.

Man this has been long! But ok after all these years if you still have trouble, I say don't push yourself on it. I lately been working with people on the matter and similarly some people's minds just skips out when it comes to UI no matter how simple it may be. Humans are only capable of doing so much and remembering so much, sometimes it's just not a priority. There's also a fact that these kinds of things are medical as well. In such cases there are remedies too.

Usually for these kinds of programs muscle memory is often the key. I do something so many times that my hands know where things are without myself asking where was that tool? But for most people this isn't simply a thing where you just figure it out. 10 years in and I still have difficulty remembering where some tools are in programs like Maya, let alone the sheer volume of stuff you'd have to remember if you want to know every part of the program.

There are UI remedies to this. For example, in very large nodey programs you have shortcut keys that can let you call-up specific nodes by search input. Some programs may introduce specific hotkeys for commonly used nodes. But again these rely on the foreknowledge of what nodes you got. This is the difficulty and where the line kinda gets drawn. Unfortunately, not everything can be simplified and for the most part you're on your own when it comes to it.

Thanks Skybase for your comments and experience with his topic, and is good to know how you work and do things and even an experienced and expert like you still have some problems remebering things on some programs even agfter 10 years of use

but I really thinking about it myself, I do not have any trouble about remembering the place of components, because really I have never tried to learn, know and remember where each of the FF components is located, so if did not try to do it, my brain can not remember something that does not know

The intention of my post is that I feel right that I do not need to learn it because I have this option to search components with the first letter and I can find it easily when I need it

I do not make big or complex filters, so do not need to have lots of components search

WHOLE WORD SEARCH

What would be much better, useful and helpful is to be able to search the components by whole word, in the same way as you search for a filter, so this way would be better and fater to find any component