[TxMt] i-search in TextMate

[Allan Odgaard]

On Nov 29, 2004, at 0:27, Ollivier Robert wrote:

>> value of incremental searching ;) is the advantage that you (can) 
>> write shorter search strings than you'd normally do in a find window?
> No, the fact that the search begin at the first character you type and
> refines itself when one types more characters.  Think "Spotlight" (in
> Tiger) or the search in Mail.app or iTunes.

But Mail/iTunes/etc. filter the contents based on the string typed. As 
I understand it (and currently see the iSearch plugin function) this 
incremental search selects a single item and does no filtering.

So this is (as I see it) realtime feedback on the string you enter in 
the find panel (but no new functionality).

With my typing speed I probably have the find panel open for less than 
a second, so incremental search wouldn't do anything for me, also 
because I rarely synchronize my "typing" with what's going on on the 
screen.

That's the reason why I asked if it gave rise to shorter find strings 
-- I can imagine that with lesser/no knowledge about the text searched 
and/or a slower typing speed and/or more reliance on the visual 
feedback given while typing, it could be an advantage to type 
letter-by-letter until observing that enough had been typed to find the 
desired string.

But maybe I'm overlooking something -- it would be nice to hear from 
users of this feature why they see it as an advantage over normal 
search.

Speaking in general here, I don't mind implementing features that I 
personally have no use for, but I do want to understand why others have 
a use for the feature before implementing it! :)