Add a search/autocomplete to the toolbar [#1340626]

Mac OS X has this handy "search" feature in the menu that not only will help users find the item they were trying to locate, but also show them where in the menu it was located - for the next time they need it.

Can we add something like this into toolbar? Even if we couldn't get to the "show people where the link was" part - a search/autocomplete that searches on both the menu title and description would be very valuable!

screenshot of mac OS X help system

see similar issue opened against admin menu #1340634: Add a search/autocomplete widget to find links in admin menu

Comment	File	Size	Author
#4	skitched-20130608-015522.jpg	10.84 KB	chrisshattuck
#3	skitched-20130608-015229.jpg	41.83 KB	chrisshattuck
	mac-osx-help.png	137 KB	jenlampton

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Comments

Comment #0.0

jenlampton

she / her

CreditAttribution: jenlampton commented 14 November 2011 at 05:46

Issue summary:

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added even if...

Comment #1

Everett Zufelt CreditAttribution: Everett Zufelt commented 14 November 2011 at 08:41

+1, this sounds like an excellent feature.

Comment #2

chrisshattuck CreditAttribution: chrisshattuck commented 8 June 2013 at 07:52

I was talking with @tkoleary, @amazon and @cweagans about search after DrupalCon Portland, and realized just how important I think menu search is for user experience. Kevin said that he thought the code was already in place for an auto-complete search bar in the new menu toolbar, but the interface just hadn't been coded yet.

Search is super valuable to help people map concepts and terminology they already understand to new concepts and terminology. Looking for the modules page? Type 'modules' and see that it's now called 'Extend'. Want to add tags? Search 'tags' and get 'vocabularies'. It helps people map their knowledge from other CMS's, other versions of Drupal and software in general.

Plus, it really helps those of us who know where we're going to get around. I still use an old module I wrote called Navigate to search both content and the menu.

Shipping Drupal 8 without a menu search would be a lost opportunity to help everybody get around, especially new users. Two questions:

1. Are there any other discussions related to this that I should know about, and
2. What can I do to help make this happen?

Comment #3

chrisshattuck CreditAttribution: chrisshattuck commented 8 June 2013 at 07:55

File	Size
skitched-20130608-015229.jpg	41.83 KB

One quick add of screenshot of how Navigate search works, just as an alternative interface idea to the Apple one Jen posted above (added in an additional comment because I posted a retina version).

Comment #4

chrisshattuck CreditAttribution: chrisshattuck commented 8 June 2013 at 07:55

File	Size
skitched-20130608-015522.jpg	10.84 KB

The Navigate module example:

Comment #5

cweagans

He/Him

English

Boise, ID, USA

CreditAttribution: cweagans commented 8 June 2013 at 18:02

This would be awesome, and I think it could stop most developers from using the URL bar as a sort of "command line" for Drupal. I don't think it'd be too difficult to do this, and it could almost be built into its own module, rather than being bundled with the toolbar by default. This would also serve as a good example for people wanting to extend the toolbar.

I think this could still be done if somebody wants to really crank on it for the next couple of weeks, and if it's built as a self contained module, hopefully it won't be too hard to review.