Incremental search
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/Firefox_FAYT.png)
- See also Incremental heuristic search, a class of search techniques in artificial intelligence and robotics
In computing, incremental search, incremental find or real-time suggestions is a user interface interaction method to progressively search for and filter through text. As the user types text, one or more possible matches for the text are found and immediately presented to the user. This immediate feedback often allows the user to stop short of typing the entire word or phrase they were looking for. The user may also choose a closely related option from the presented list.
The method of incremental search is sometimes distinguished from user interfaces that employ a modal window, such as a dialog box, to enter searches. For some applications, a separate user interface mode may be used instead of a dialog box.
History
The first documented use of incremental search was in EMACS on ITS in the late 1970s.[1] This was one of the many essential Emacs features Richard Stallman included in his reimplementation, GNU Emacs. Other noteworthy programs containing this functionality in the 1980s include bash and Canon Cat.[2]. These early implementations offered single line feedback, not lists of suggestions.
The first mainstream appearance may have been in the Speller for WordPerfect 5.2 for Windows, released 30 November 1992. As programmer Robert John Stevens, now CEO of WriteExpress, watched users at the WordPerfect Usability Lab in Orem, Utah use the 5.1 Speller that he and Steven M. Cannon ported to Windows, he noticed that when a word was not found in the dictionary and no alternative words were presented, users seemed lost, moved the mouse cursor around the page and even exited the Speller. Dumbstruck by the anomaly, he went home, sat on the couch and discussed his observations with his wife. Stevens coded the solution: as a user typed in the edit box, Speller would suggest words beginning with the letters entered.
Stevens' Spell Check program was also used in Novell GroupWise.
Variants
This feature, or variations thereof, has also been referred to as search as you type, filter/find as you type (FAYT), incremental search, typeahead search, inline search, instant search, word wheeling, and other names as well.
Some common keyboard shortcuts for incremental find are Ctrl/Cmd-F (like for traditional find), the GNU-style / (also applicable to Vim[3]), or Emacs-style C-s.
Searches for files and media
This user interface method is also employed in varying contexts. For example, a user may encounter this feature while searching for files whose names match a string in an operating system's file explorer shell. The feature may also be used during searches for songs whose name or artist match a string in a media player.
Searches for user interface elements
Another variation is to filter through long lists of options or menu items that may appear within the user interface itself. Examples of this variation can be found in the about:config interface section of Mozilla Firefox version 2.0.0.14 and later versions; and in the bundle editor section of TextMate 1.5.7. This feature is also employed in application launchers such as Quicksilver 1.0.
Typically a list of matches is generated as the search query is typed, and the list is progressively narrowed to match the filter text.
Web search
In September 2010, Google introduced Google Instant, an incremental search feature for Google Search.
An implementation of incremental find in the area of web search, using Google AJAX APIs, is EasySearch and keyboardr.com.
local scope v. internet scope
While offline (or private network) incremental searches utilize mainly "local" resources (such as a single personal computer's processor and its attached peripherals such as hard disks), an incremental web searches represents a paradigm shift in the scope of such a search.
An incremental search on the "Google web space" involves enlisting a global network of resources (including worldwide communications, online databases etc) and consumes bandwidth even during the time a user is entering individual keystrokes. The implications for efficiency are significant since, at the level of keystrokes (as opposed to whole words or phrases), the number of false positives is intrinsically quite high until more of the entire search key is eventually entered or selected. This will inevitably consume more resources (and use more energy) than would have occured on a full search key [4][5]
Reception
Interface expert Jef Raskin has been a strong advocate of incremental search. In his 2000 book The Humane Interface, he wrote, "From the point of view of interface engineering, the advantages of incremental searching are so numerous and the advantages of delimited searches so few that I can see almost no occasions when a delimited search would be preferred." This was followed by a footnote reading, "A search is either incremental or excremental."[6]
Incremental search has been criticised for exhibiting low affordance,[7] as the text fields which provide it offer no visual indication of that fact until after the user begins typing.
Specific applications
Non-modal incremental find is found in:
Modern web browsers:
Modern operating systems:
- Spotlight (which searches the entire computer)
- Help menu (10.5 and newer)
- System Preferences
- Microsoft's Windows Vista and 7
Editors and development environments:
Other applications:
- Apple Incorporated's iTunes
- Google Toolbar 5
- less
- Windows Media Player
- Quicksilver (software)
- Blender's search menu (version 2.5 and newer)
References
- ^ Ciccarelli, Eugene (January 1978). "An Introduction to the Emacs Editor". AI Memo No. 447. Retrieved 2009-06-16.
- ^ Shapiro, Ezra (1989). "The Cat is Dead, Long Live the Interface". Language Technology Magazine. 13.
- ^ "Patterns and search commands". Bram Moolenaar, SourceForge. 24 April 2006. Retrieved 1 August 2009.
- ^ http://bizdharma.com/blog/never-use-google-instant/
- ^ http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Web+Search/thread?tid=4d9dab8ab0f64ca8&hl=en
- ^ Raskin, Jef (2000-04-08). The Humane Interface. Addison-Wesley Professional. p. 126. ISBN 978-0201379372.
- ^ Jesper Rønn-Jensen (2007-05-05). "Affordance of Autocomplete Text Fields".
External links
- Plain text viewer - simultaneously highlighting several search strings — StrapUtils
- White-paper about problems solved by Exorbyte's commercial incremental search solution - AJAX
- Keyboard Feature: Find As You Type — Mozilla.
- Incremental Search — Emacs.
- Using Incremental Find — Eclipse.
- Find As You Type Add-on — Internet Explorer
- Inline Search Add-on — Internet Explorer
- Tip #13 - Incremental search — Vim