
Ask HN: What's the best 'non-frustrating' search/directory UI/UX you've seen? - taphangum
I&#x27;m trying to find some inspiration for a new search engine I&#x27;m working but have found most searchable directory ui&#x27;s to be very frustrating to use.<p>I&#x27;d love to know what you guys have seen out there. What have been some of the best examples of this type of ui that you&#x27;ve seen?
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isxek
If you means something that searches for files within any directory, I think
the best so far I've used was Everything
([https://www.voidtools.com/](https://www.voidtools.com/)). Lightweight, fast,
and really simple UI.

I'm still looking for a Linux equivalent (I'm currently using a shell wrapper
for `ag --depth 0 -g <pattern> <directory>`.)

~~~
lucb1e
> I'm still looking for a Linux equivalent

You mean `locate`? Package name in Debian is mlocate.

I don't know ag and it's not a package in Debian.

That said, I agree that Everything is a must-have on Windows. I don't
understand how Microsoft's own search engine is so incredibly crappy (and has
been since, what, Windows 95?) while Everything is a 200KB binary that does it
perfectly.

~~~
yoo1I
> I don't know ag and it's not a package in Debian.

You're in for a treat then: the package name is "silversearcher-ag".

Next time you want to grep a directory of files: instead of grepping it,
pause, remember this comment, install it and then do "ag <searchterm>"
instead.

It's quite a bit faster. Well, lots faster.

~~~
softawre
faster still:
[https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep](https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep)

~~~
e12e
Interesting. This probably the first utility in Rust I'm aware of that looks
like it might belong on a production system (other than "cargo" and other
rather excellent rust tooling). Nice way to show off rusts regular expression
engine too.

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digitalengineer
If we're talking ux it's how people search as well. We've got LATCH for that.
Location, alphabet, time, category and hierarchy. On the BBC website people
might search for a 'detective' (category), but also might search for
'tomorrow, this week' (time) or 'most viewed' (hierarchy).

~~~
retox
I've always found the search on iPlayer to be next to useless. Haven't got a
specific search to demonstrate, stopped using it after I deleted flash. It's a
real shame the BBC continue to use flash and recommend Adobe reader when they
link to a PDF. I've emailed recommending some alternative but never heard
anything back.

------
whitepoplar
Maybe it's not what you're looking for, but I've found McMaster-Carr's website
to be highly functional in its UI/UX:

[http://www.mcmaster.com](http://www.mcmaster.com)

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cogs
We built a SQL query tool for the filesystem (macOS) last year, and will be
launching for Windows in the next two weeks.

Finding files is pretty straight forward using the LIKE operator against text
in the filename, path or file contents. And the set-based logic of SQL works
very well for identifying sets of files to work with: we have an exec()
command that lets you run commands on file paths returned in query results.

License terms are free for personal use and $5/month commercial.

[http://etia.co.uk/](http://etia.co.uk/)

~~~
ComodoHacker
Were you inspired by Microsoft Log Parser?

~~~
cogs
We did look at Log Parser, and osquery, before starting to build Crab, but
neither of them have an exec() command to run programs on query results - such
as deleting them, unzipping them, or moving them. And Log Parser doesn't
support joins either, which are useful to compare the contents of one
directory or file with another.

------
JoshTriplett
Newegg has one of the most powerful product search/filter mechanisms I've
seen. It's not the best UX (could use more performance and a better multi-
select mechanism, and dividing the interface into three levels of
simple/advanced/power search doesn't seem ideal), but in terms of
functionality, it almost always has the features I want pulled out and
selectable. Search for a monitor, and you'll get options for resolution,
inputs, size, etc.

In terms of raw performance, I'm impressed with the speed and presentation of
[https://instantdomainsearch.com/](https://instantdomainsearch.com/) . Instant
live responsiveness improves usability significantly.

~~~
spking
I'll second
[https://instantdomainsearch.com/](https://instantdomainsearch.com/). Despite
lots of copycats and more "feature-rich" alternatives, I find myself using IDS
by default because of its speed and simplicity.

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tehwalrus
The very old iTunes search bar. I still miss it.

Basically, because the list of songs was short-ish (in CS terms), it would
fiter it based on the current search textbox what seemed like _instantly_.

I would have a large list and filter it down each time the user types another
letter: and concentrate on making that _as fast as possible_.

------
0restes
I do consulting for UX for faceted search, and the top of my shortlist for
ideas/inspiration is still
[http://devart.withgoogle.com/](http://devart.withgoogle.com/) But for a
search engine, I'm interested in how UI that works much like this example
would play out: [https://material.uplabs.com/posts/google-search-design-
conce...](https://material.uplabs.com/posts/google-search-design-concept)

------
carsongross
I tend to add live searches in the most important tabular views of my apps,
using something like this:

[http://intercoolerjs.org/examples/activesearch.html](http://intercoolerjs.org/examples/activesearch.html)

Search speed, good fuzzy matching and good row/chip design are as
important/more important than the basic search UI, IMO.

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mschoebel
Have you looked at
[https://uimovement.com/tag/search/](https://uimovement.com/tag/search/) and
[https://uimovement.com/tag/filter/](https://uimovement.com/tag/filter/)

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TickleSteve
Sublime text....

ctrl p, type fuzzy match, instant results.

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Buetol
I've been collecting examples of search interfaces, maybe it can help you:
[https://sortandfilter.tumblr.com/](https://sortandfilter.tumblr.com/)

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brudgers
A few examples of search UI?UX and an indication of their design shortcomings
might provide context for answers and a starting point for discussion.

------
gbog
Not sure if it counts as ui buy it is for me the only non frustrating way to
search anything in my filesystem: grep and find in the terminal.

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6DM
I don't know about a system for all file types, but I've always really liked
how wallbase did image search. That went down but this is supposed to be the
upcoming replacement:
[https://alpha.wallhaven.cc/](https://alpha.wallhaven.cc/)

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pquerna
I don't think its perfect, but I think Yelp's search UI does pretty well for a
ton of choices, and integrates Geo-boxing in a way that most people can
understand more easily than within 20 miles of a zip code

Example:

[https://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=tacos&start=0&l=g:-122...](https://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=tacos&start=0&l=g:-122.37739562988281,37.80839662111562,-122.47970581054688,37.726977588897356)

They keep the most common filters quickly available, make it easier to dive
into more, and their search result entry contains the neighborhood so i can
quickly figure out where something is, a photo, part of a review, phone number
and address.

------
ivan_gammel
Pinterest is good as a directory of almost everything that has a picture. A
lot of people in UX is using it to collect inspirational UI screenshots,
diagrams etc, so it's possible that you can find something there.

------
perlgeek
I like Jira's JQL search functionality. (This is for rather structured data,
which are issues in a project management system).

It offers autocomplete for logical operators, search operators, field names
and even for values (where there is a limited amount of data available to
select). And it offers enough power for nearly all queries I could think of so
far.

(In contrast to SQL there are no subselects or explicit joins, but there are
plugins that make subselects available).

------
BrunoJo
Have a look at [https://www.pexels.com/](https://www.pexels.com/). I think the
UX is great to find photos.

~~~
fsniper
Wow, this site has beautiful photos. Absolutely fantastic.

------
NathanKP
I've also been working on a search engine website, and personally my approach
for the search/directory UI has been to keep it as minimal as possible, like
early Google.

Not sure how inspiring it is, but here you go:
[https://changelogs.md/](https://changelogs.md/)

The goal of this UI is to have the bare minimum of useful info easily
accessible.

------
kodisha
Upvoted, can't wait to hear some great comments and examples, because I too
find this to be one of the most frustrating areas in my daily routine.

------
rocky1138
grep

~~~
Godel_unicode
I am amazed that Google and grep are at the bottom of this thread. I guess
they're not cool anymore, but they're two of the best examples of search UX
there are.

~~~
colejohnson66
As powerful and fast[0] grep is, it's probably because Regular Expeesssions
aren't exactly user friendly

[0]: [https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-
current/2010-Aug...](https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-
current/2010-August/019310.html)

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singularity2001
google ... before it became frustrating to be under total surveillance.

~~~
colejohnson66
Google is amazing! However, to be fair, it'd be pretty hard to provide such
amazing and accurate results without knowing a lot about you. Granted, I do
wish they'd let you control more about what they know about you.

I'm reminded of the (not surprisingly) defunct Google Desktop and how it would
build an index of your file system and let you search it "fuzzily" like you
can with Google Search.

~~~
vram22
Some time back Google also had a product for sale to enterprises called the
Google Search Appliance or something like that. IIRC they were pushing it as a
packaged solution for on-prem search. Not sure what happened to it later.

Edited to add: Searched Google for it (how meta). Found this:

[https://enterprise.google.com/search/products/gsa.html](https://enterprise.google.com/search/products/gsa.html)

and this:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Search_Appliance#Retire...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Search_Appliance#Retirement_and_Shutdown)

So it may still be available - until 2018.

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collyw
Google.

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ChoHag
mu

