keyboard shortcut to set focus on search textbox input field

MCTSQL

Frequent user of SQL Search, frequent "control-tabbing" to the tabbed SQL Search window, but the focus is always where I last left it (often a good thing). I always need to mouse-click to the search textbox (or do many many many shift-tabs). Is there a keyboard shortcut built into SQL Search that will set the focus on the search textbox?

KevinGreiner

Since the feature request page aren't operable at present....

bump

In addition to "set focus to search string," here are some more shortcuts that would be handy.

Select the current object in the Object Explorer
PageDn and PageUp in the bottom text view

A scroll-bar indicator showing where in the document search results were found would be very useful. I have to scroll to the bottom of the window to make sure that I haven't missed anything. Chrome implements this for Ctrl-F search results.

I know this is a free tool and I do thank you! It is quite useful, I use it every day.

Adam W

We have started work on SQL Search for a forthcoming release and aim to improve this.

In the current version CTRL+ALT+D should set the focus to the search field, but we are aware that this does not always happen. We plan to fix this and also make it easier to navigate the results.

Thanks
Adam

KevinGreiner

Thanks for the update, Adam.

Ctrl-Alt-D triggers an index refresh for me but doesn't move the focus from the results list. The refresh is a problem in that Ctrl-Alt-D is the same keystroke used to switch to SQL Search from another window. Because I find a keyboard to be much faster than switching to the mouse, my workflow ends up looking like this:

1. Editing query, type..type...type. Hmm, where is this view used?
2. Ctrl-Alt-D...
3. grab mouse
4. click on search textbox
5. type search term
6. wait for index refresh to finish. Because all my SQL Servers are remote via a VPN, it takes up to 60 seconds to finish.

Ideally, the keystrokes to activate or switch to SQL Search, index refresh, and set focus to search textbox would be three different keystrokes. Yes, it's more to remember but it leads to a much more efficient workflow for me.

Adam W

Hi Kevin,

Thanks for the additional detail, it's very useful for us. We'll see what we can do to improve this experience - if you'd like to test this when we have a prototype, please email usability@red-gate.com and we'll get back to you.