UX regression: keyboard disappears during search after a very short interval

[climategadgets]

Action Taken

Entering the search term, pause momentarily to hunt for the next key

Expected Behavior

Entered text stays, keyboard stays, all the way until the search activation button is tapped

Actual Behavior

After a very short timeout, the keyboard disappears and the search is executed. This disrupts the search flow and forces the user to summon the keyboard again - only to repeat the same experience

Suggested Corrective Action

One of:

• Revert to old behavior (keyboard stays until the search activation button is tapped) - it was decent
• Make the delay configurable, don't forget the tooltip explaining where to go to change the behavior
• (most complex) modify the UX in such a way that the keyboard stays in focus but search is executed in the background and the results are visible

Not To Get Up Twice

This deserves its own issue, but let me just briefly mention that the search results are rendered in a misleading and excessive way. It might be worth it to gray out or remove altogether the sections where there are no search results present, and revisit the count of 1 when the only result is "Empty" :)

Version Information

Squeezer 2.3.11, Pixel 7, Android 16

[kaaholst]

Thanks for the feedback on user experience, it's appreciated!

I've implemented option 3 to keep the keyboard up and the input field focused search when the search is executed. Also, the keyboard is brought up when a search page is entered.

You can try it out with this apk
This version will automatically be updated when a new version (both production and beta) is released.

If you don't want to use an apk, you can wait for a beta version, which will be released shortly.

Regarding the “Empty” results, currently, Squeezer takes the naive approach and just shows what is returned from the server. If nothing is found, this happens to be one element with the text “Empty”. I'll see what I can do about that. The other point about misleading and excessive result is more complex. An earlier version of Squeezer tried that, but it had a side effect; when a search is performed in Pandora, it would create a new Pandora station!

[kaaholst]

I've put a new version in the apk link above, where Empty item are not selectable and not counted.