+1 for the idea (I wish we could actually create "virtual folders", perhaps .desktop files with a search URL in them)

Not too happy with the button's placement. Perhaps put it in the search bar, definitely add a save icon, perhaps "Save" is enough, or "Add [search] to Places" ?

Yeah I thought about that, but the clear search button already appears inside the search bar and I was worried that it would get too crowded in there. Also, adding it inline would require probably subclassing QLineEdit and making this a much bigger patch.

I could also make the button actually not appear at all until needed, like this:

In D8454#159471, @ngraham wrote:

Yeah I thought about that, but the clear search button already appears inside the search bar and I was worried that it would get too crowded in there. Also, adding it inline would require probably subclassing QLineEdit and making this a much bigger patch.

Nope, we could just use QLineEdit::addAction()

Okay, I put it inside the text field:

Personally this isn't my favorite since now it's just a tiny icon which presents a challenging click target; there's no longer a nice clickable button with icon and text. But there is a certain minimalistic elegance to having it inside the text field, and this is certainly better than having no visible UI at all.

I have one question: right now I seem to be able to compile and run this code just fine without having #include-ed QAction anywhere, even though I'm using it. Is this... expected?

I think this is a great feature. I just want to bring a suggestion and a discussion point:

1. Perhaps it would look better if a different icon were to be used. All the icons in the sidebar at that resolution are "flat"(if that is even the right word) and the one this patch currently uses is different and may look out of place.
2. Does this perhaps need it's own category? "Saved Searches" or something of the sort in the places panel?

Also, the save button inside looks so good now that the "cross" icon which closes the search looks out of place.

@emateli

1. I agree that the icon isn't quite right. It appears to be using the baloo icon when it should be using folder-saved-search-symbolic. However, that's the way it already is; I didn't change that, and it doesn't seem to be set in Dolphin. It looks like KIO::iconNameForUrl() is giving us the wrong icon, so the fix is elsewhere and out of scope for this patch (though I do want and plan to fix that soon).

2. Same thing: for this patch, I didn't actually want to change anything about how saved searches are handled, just make the feature discoverable.

3. The red close button is standard throughout KDE software, so I'm not sure we should change that. There is an outstanding request to make the toolbar's Find button a toggle (https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=353227) which could eliminate the need for a separate close button as long as the Find button is on the toolbar, but if you remove it, then there is no only GUI method to hide the Find bar.

@emateli I found a way to fix the icon in Dolphin itself for the purpose of this feature, and also filed a bug to fix KIO::iconNameForUrl() or its data source: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=386182

@emateli, if you like it, would you mind adding yourself as a reviewer and accepting it? I'm going to wait a bit as @markg suggests, but more approval should help it get through. :)

All done, @elvisangelaccio!

There is some small stuff that perhaps are worth discussing.

1. I still feel that this needs it's own category on the places panel
2. The search text can be a bit misleading

Eg: Searching for "Images" with period of "This month" will produce "Images this month in <folder>".

However, the "this month" is not contextual. Next month it will still show searches from October, because during the time it was made "This month" referred to October so to say. I'm not proposing changes to make it aware of this, but I hope I get my point across on how it can be a bit misleading for some users.

In D8454#160751, @emateli wrote:

1. I still feel that this needs it's own category on the places panel

Not sure I agree; the "Search For" section seems like the right category here. You are searching for things, after all. :)

In D8454#160751, @emateli wrote:

1. The search text can be a bit misleading
   
   Eg: Searching for "Images" with period of "This month" will produce "Images this month in <folder>".
   
   However, the "this month" is not contextual. Next month it will still show searches from October, because during the time it was made "This month" referred to October so to say. I'm not proposing changes to make it aware of this, but I hope I get my point across on how it can be a bit misleading for some users.

That's a good point, and I agree that this should be made relative, not absolute. It looks like Baloo doesn't have the ability to store relative dates, only absolute ones, so a bit of work will probably be needed there. I'll follow up in the following bugs:

• https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=386255
• https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=386257

Not sure that's worth blocking this on since it only affects date searches. But yes, we need to fix that.

@elvisangelaccio, is this approve-able now?

@elvisangelaccio and @anthonyfieroni, any remaining concerns?

Any remaining concerns? @elvisangelaccio?