Prototype improve search interface #7423

[LachyP]

The original issue involved improving the search interface by using OmniSearch. Issue #7423 With the idea that eventually it would look something like this:

The following has been added by me and my team (@shameenkals @JasonBourne999 @mchellelm @artherdunger10):

• When a user selects an author from the autocomplete dropdown, "author=xyz" is added to the search text
• The heading "Author/Editor" appears above the search term results
• A function in SearchPopupSkin that can combine multiple observable lists together
• The code has been written for an autocompleter that searches by title instead of author, however, it is commented out at the moment

Early prototype looks like this:

Current Problems:

• Had to make SearchPopupSkin a non-static class since it wouldn't work otherwise
• Heading functionality relies on the fromString() method, however, all terms should ideally be converted to strings before being added to the ListView
• Haven't yet figured out how to search multiple different categories simultaneously.
• Haven't yet figured out how to alter the appearance of the autocomplete dropdown with css.

The development of this feature isn't done, however, we figure this will be a good space for my team to discuss with other developers, seek advice, and see what direction this PR is heading towards.

• [ ] Change in CHANGELOG.md described in a way that is understandable for the average user (if applicable)
• [ ] Tests created for changes (if applicable)
• [x] Manually tested changed features in running JabRef (always required)
• [x] Screenshots added in PR description (for UI changes)
• [x] Checked developer's documentation: Is the information available and up to date? If not, I outlined it in this pull request.
• [x] Checked documentation: Is the information available and up to date? If not, I created an issue at https://github.com/JabRef/user-documentation/issues or, even better, I submitted a pull request to the documentation repository.

[mchellelm]

Hi, I'm having some issues figure out what files and classes to change to make changes on the stylesheet. Any tips would be appreciated!

[tobiasdiez]

That looks already pretty good!

For the styling, did you try to style the class auto-complete-popup in the main css file? Somewhere hidden in the javafx docs there is also an overview of the styleable subcomponents. For this you could also try https://github.com/JonathanGiles/scenic-view, but I'm not sure if it works with the recent jdk version that we use.

[calixtus]

Any update here? Otherwise I would close it for now, until someone eventually wants to continue this one...