UI of OEIS search bar

[katestange]

Comment from a participant: when entering a sequence by its oeis code (into the dialog box), the enter key doesn't register. I can click on whatever appears in the dropdown menu but it is natural to type enter and have it search.

[gwhitney]

The tricky bit here is that numberscope is auto-searching with every keystroke. As the poster pointed out, the found sequences are always displayed just below that dialog box. So the question becomes, what should the enter key do? Should it add the first match from the results as a previewed/selectable sequence for visualization? If so, should it close or not close the search results? I have asked the original suggester of this what makes sense to him. (The scenario I am concerned about is that someone quickly enters "triangle", hits "enter" to "do the search", and then some more-or-less random sequence that matches "triangle" is added, and the search results all disappear, when maybe what the person was interested was there on the screen as the third hit, for example.)

[katestange]

The user was typing an A number in the search bar and expected to be able to simply hit "enter" to use it, without having to view any search results or anything else.

[gwhitney]

OK, I get that. So if the proposal were that when there was only one search result, hitting enter would use it, then there wouldn't seem to be any issue.

But the typical search has many results: Search term "multiple" will return the maximum allowed number of results (I for get the exact limit, ten or twelve I think). Search term "crescent" returns three results. Search term "A001024" returns the maximum number of results. "A016384" returns just one result, that sequence itself.

What should happen if one hits enter in each of these cases? Should all the search results be "used," i.e. added to the list of previews? I don't think that'd be great, because adding sequences in batches of 10 or 12 will go crazy pretty quickly. Should just the first sequence be "used"? That will have the desired behavior for valid sequence numbers, since the sequence with that number always comes first. But it seems just sort of random for word-based searches; the matches are not in sequence-number order. I am not quite sure what order they are in, although it seems matches within the description of the sequence place higher than matches elsewhere in the sequence entry.

Or is typing a sequence number and then hitting enter a special case, which uses that exact sequence? But if so, is it frustrating when you type "lemon" (and there is only one sequence showing, which is actually the case) that hitting enter doesn't just use that one sequence?

Here's another proposal: as you type search characters, as soon as there are any matches, the first match is highlighted (say by being boxed with our blue color). The up and down arrow keys in this search box change which match is highlighted. Pressing enter at any time uses the highlighted sequence and closes the search.

Because for a sequence number search term, that sequence itself comes first, this proposal would have the desired effect that typing A001024 in the search bar and hitting enter would use A001024. It would also always allow hitting enter, and simultaneously make it clear looking at the screen what will happen if you hit enter.

Anyhow, we have to decide exactly what we want the behavior to be before we can "fix" this admittedly confusing/frustrating bit of UI.