Page MenuHomePhabricator

Implement a complex Gmail-style "to:<name>" query language
Closed, WontfixPublic

Description

Extracted from T10589.

This is a feature request for a convenience function for power users that Gmail has (e.g. put in your Gmail search the following text: in:inbox is:unread -is:starred "test body text in exact order"). Most of us, especially QA, use Phab daily all day, so we are power users and this would significantly speed up our day (5-10 seconds instead of 1 minute or more per search), especially for QA who does tons of searches all day. In other words, being able to type in the top right search bar, for example, these literal words:

in:maniphest from:davidm to:nicolast status:open created:yesterday priority:high body:"this is text from the body word for word"
instead of doing a lot of clicking around. This efficiency is in Gmail and is a huge time saver

Event Timeline

epriestley triaged this task as Wishlist priority.Mar 22 2016, 1:22 AM
epriestley added a subscriber: epriestley.

We are vanishingly unlikely to pursue this naturally. It is very complex and we do not consider it valuable. We have never seen similar requests from other installs, and this UI seems far worse for most users because it makes discovery difficult.

epriestley renamed this task from Search: Gmail-style "to:<name>", etc. searching to significantly speed up power users to Implement a complex Gmail-style "to:<name>" query language.Mar 22 2016, 1:22 AM
epriestley added a project: Search.

@epriestley as the former PM on Gmail I can tell you that for power users this was an incredibly valuable feature - and I've read from your docs that your typical user that your optimizing for is a power user that users Phab regularly. There's plenty of ways to make it discoverable. But I am not the PM here so all I can do is ask...

epriestley claimed this task.

We haven't seen significant additional interest in this in more than a year. I expect to implement T7860 but, not a query microlanguage.

FWIW I don't see this as something people would express interest in so it doesn't surprise me you haven't heard it from people, but if a user discovered it (e.g. there were an indicator below/during a search query as a power feature), I imagine they would use it. Just my 2 cents.