Modules page: add Search box for filtering by module name [#598738]

Searching - which is rather filtering on this page will help you to find quickly am module if you know its name or know it's name roughly. If doable, this should use Javascript to start filtering when you type the first letters. There is a jquery plugin for this: http://www.mattryall.net/blog/2008/07/jquery-filter-demo and here you see a demo: http://www.mattryall.net/demo/filter/

This was meant to be part of the big revamp of the page, which is very improbable to impossible to happen for D7, like Dries mentions. http://drupal.org/node/538904#comment-2098676 Let's break out the best parts that are not hard to do at the same time.

Comment	File	Size	Author
#8	module-filter.patch	2.23 KB	eigentor
#8
#8	Screenshot-009.jpg	19.55 KB	eigentor
#5	tablefilter-598738-1.patch	1.31 KB	skilip
#5
#5	tablefilter.js_.txt	1018 bytes	skilip
	Screenshot-004.jpg	12.23 KB	eigentor

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Comments

Comment #1

eigentor CreditAttribution: eigentor commented 8 October 2009 at 02:37

As a non-Javascript fallback option and a general alternative a submit button for filtering upon page reload should be there.

Comment #2

cwgordon7 CreditAttribution: cwgordon7 commented 8 October 2009 at 02:54

I'm not entirely sure which parts of this would be easy to do at this time. This really goes under the "new feature" category that should probably be postponed until Drupal 8 at this point.

In addition, I've come to consider that maybe filtering boxes aren't really the solution to this sort of problem, but could in fact (a), cause more confusion (is it by module name? by page name? description?), and (b) just work around a deeper structural problem in the way these pages work. There are a lot of things to debate here, and I can't see this getting into Drupal 7 without an extension, which I think it's unlikely to get.

Comment #3

giorgio79 CreditAttribution: giorgio79 commented 8 October 2009 at 03:52

I consider Ctrl+f the best text search solution on a page :)

Comment #4

luco CreditAttribution: luco commented 8 October 2009 at 17:44

it's actually how I do it as well ;] but there should be a visual way to filter this page. right now just about anything is an improvement.

in fact I liked the concept of vertical tabs but that didn't fly :(

I even proposed something here but that pretty much fell on deaf ears. so I'm still open to suggestions. except for that ON/OFF ajax slider. I didn't see the point in that.

Comment #5

skilip CreditAttribution: skilip commented 9 October 2009 at 15:06

File	Size
tablefilter.js_.txt	1018 bytes
tablefilter-598738-1.patch	1.31 KB

This patch adds a tablefilter behavior to drupal core. Before applying the patch, rename 'tablefilter.js_.txt' to 'tablefilter.js' and put it into misc/.

Comment #6

skilip CreditAttribution: skilip commented 9 October 2009 at 15:07

Status:

Active

» Needs review

Comment #7

9 October 2009 at 15:20

Status:

Needs review

» Needs work

The last submitted patch failed testing.

Comment #8

eigentor CreditAttribution: eigentor commented 11 October 2009 at 03:39

File	Size
Screenshot-009.jpg	19.55 KB
module-filter.patch	2.23 KB

Wew, a filter on modules page, chaka! Works for me - and works like hell.

Rerolled the patch, since it did not apply anymore. You still need the tablefilter.js file from #5.

The filter box not only filters the titles, but also accepts any text on the page. Still this is no disadvantage - if you want to filter down to a module name and type more than two letters, it quickly narrows down. One could also see a sense in keeping that behaviour - maybe people are looking for a word and find it in the description.

Never mind the crappy or rather worst-ever css that gives the filter box some formatting. It is only temporary to make it look acceptable. To improve this, the box and label need some containing element around them. ATM it gets rendered in a very strange way between the header tables. In FF 3.5, with my css, it comes out like this: