Contributor wile_e_wonka

Nautilus has a massive search problem:

1) Nautilus should save search results while the same window remains open.

2) It should not have to run the search again when I change the display from "icon view" to "list view."

3) And it should not have to run the search again when I navigate away from the search and back again.

4) A search should also show the path to the result.

5) Tracker should not be a separate program, but instead integrated within Nautilus. So the search feature in Nautilus would be fast. But be sure to allow restriction of a search to a sub-directory, if needed. Also, this would require an option to do a slower, more thorough search for items not yet indexed, if needed.

I'll explain...

Last night I wanted to find every reference to the word "opera" in my file system. It's hard to explain why. Anyway, I tried tracker, but it wasn't working for my purposes; I don't remember why exactly. So I did a search at the top level for "opera". After about five minutes the results finally appeared. There were several folders in the result titled "opera," but I couldn't see the path, so I navigated into the top search result. Then I pressed the "back" button to return to my search results. Nautilus had to perform the entire search over again! So, for 5 minutes again, nautilus searched. Just after it finished I realized the results would be easier to view in list form rather than as icons. So I hit the button to change this--it ran the entire search again! 5 minutes just to rearrange the results it had already found! Crazy!