Idea: Search (CTRL+F) option to blink the matches

[freedom4all]

This is a wild-hair idea that I've wished for for years in the back of my mind but never thought to bring up to anyone. I sort of wish this was a standard option in all browsers.

When using CTRL+F, it highlights the search term(s) on the page that match, to help the user locate the search text. Color highlighting alone generally works just fine in 99.5% of cases, but dependent on the page color, graphical content, font size and complexity of the page content, every once in a while it can still be difficult to visually locate where the matches were found.

My proposal is to add an additional toggle button in the search box with the label "Flash Matches" next to "Highlight All".

It would be off by default (non-persistent setting), but when manually toggled on, the highlighted result(s) would blink on and off to help grab the user's attention to where it is.

Just an additional assistive feature that would rarely ever be needed, but very helpful when it is.

[Moonchild]

works just fine in 99.5% of cases

This should be a good indication that this would be something to make an extension for instead of making changes to the core

[freedom4all]

works just fine in 99.5% of cases

This should be a good indication that this would be something to make an extension for instead of making changes to the core

I did consider that, but it seemed to me like something that would fit in nicely as a baked-in feature.

The "match case" checkbox I've probably only needed a handful of time in the last couple decades, but yet it's there to help the user if it's ever needed. Yet the inability to quickly locate matches comes up for me about once a week .. not just in PM, but other browsers too. Now something like adding regex, yea, I could see that being more suited for an extension.

Not a big deal if it isn't considered, just thought I'd toss the idea out there

[BenFenner]

The "match case" checkbox I've probably only needed a handful of time in the last couple decades, but yet it's there to help the user if it's ever needed.

Chrome not having this feature is just another one of a dozen infuriating UI missteps.

[Moonchild]

Also, clicking "highlight all" will highlight all occurrences. It just won't blink them or use any other kind of arbitrary way to grab your attention.

[athenian200]

My first thought is to just use the highlight all option, but add a random character in the search box (that you know isn't part of your query) so the results disappear after they've been found, then take it away again so they get freshly highlighted and draw your attention again as you're scrolling down. That way, you still control when it goes away and comes back... rather than having it either statically highlighted once, or else blinking at a fixed interval.

EDIT: Nevermind, I just realized the main problem with this approach... web browsers act like a text editor and bounce your screen back to where the first result is located when you do that, rather than highlighting the results in the background and letting you passively scrolling through them all while changing your query (and the associated highlighting). I somehow forgot about that little quirk momentarily. I could have sworn browsers do this differently than text editors because their main function isn't finding/editing words in text, but apparently they still do that thing where they reposition the screen to the first occurrence.

EDIT2: I just realized the browser normally only highlights one occurrence at a time and lets you sift through them, and "highlight all" isn't the default... and you can actually toggle "highlight all" without the window jumping back or forwards already. So I guess that idea does work? That is, you can still manually blink them by toggling the option on or off as you scroll around. In fact, you can use ALT+L to do so, apparently.

[jars_]

Code: Select all

findbar.highlightAll = true
findbar.iteratorTimeout = 1000
ui.textHighlightBackground = #FFD700
ui.textHighlightForeground = #008000
ui.textSelectBackgroundAttention = #8A2BE2

[moonbat]

Better idea - search on CAA for legacy addons that may already do what you're asking for

SearchWP is it - caa:addon/searchwp

[jars_]

Better idea.... SearchWP ...

press F3 button