Automatically type *
when activating the filter bar via Quick Key is definitely a confusing option.
From my understanding, the option's main purpose is to help with typing wildcard patterns in a very specific scenario:
- Filter Bar must not be set as the default Quick Key mode.
- Filter Bar's Quick Key must be assigned to
*
.
- Filter Bar assumed to be used in Wildcard mode.
Regarding 1: It's odd that this is a requirement for the option. If it is in fact set as the default mode, the assigned Quick Key, *
by default, is passed through anyway.
Regarding 2: If the Quick Key is bound to something else, e.g. y
, then the option is rendered pointless as y
must be pressed before *
anyway. If the Filter Bar mode is also made the default mode, the option is still pointless as *
is not a Quick Key any more and will be treated like any other non-Quick Key and filter immediately.
Regarding 3: I use the Filter Bar in regular expression mode. Starting with *
is invalid regex so the option in question wouldn't provide any benefit to pass it through on first press anyway.
Now bear with me...
It seems to me to make more sense if the option to pass through *
or not was instead generalised to be whether to pass through the Filter Bar's assigned Quick Key or not (i.e. the mode's default key as you worded it). This would still provide the benefit of not needing to type double-asterisk when using the bar in wildcard mode if you wanted, but if that's what you had chosen, then the only way to open the bar without initially filtering by anything would be to reassign the Filter Bar's Quick Key to something other than *
. For those who don't use the Filter Bar in wildcard mode and therefore don't need the initial asterisk consumed, typing *
(the factory default key for the Filter Bar) would toggle the bar open without initially filtering by anything (if the proposed, generalised Quick Key pass-through option is off).
"But why open the Filter Bar by its Quick Key without it filtering by said key?" If I want to type a regular expression beginning with .*
, normally I can't because .
is the Quick Key for the Find mode. If I could open the Filter Bar first, then begin typing, typing *
, .*
would succeed. Well, I currently can open the Filter Bar first, I just have to delete the initial character before starting my actual pattern (e.g. o
, Backspace
, .*
). Alternatively, I could set the Filter Bar to always be displayed, but that's a bit much for a compromise, I think. The final reason I can think of as to why one would want to open the Filter Bar without initially filtering by a character is that you may not want to type a pattern at all: you may want to pick one from the list of extensions (button to the left of the filter field), or filter by the other buttons (file / folder buttons).
In short, it's a bit awkward that we must first filter by a single character pattern (assuming Filter Bar is the default mode), only to delete it and write our intended pattern in some cases. Let us simply toggle the Filter Bar open like is possible when it's not set as the default mode.
I hope I'm not operating under some misunderstanding, and that you see some of the sense in my points. This was written from the perspective of using regex with the Filter Bar by default, and the Filter Bar being the default Quick Key mode, so I may have overlooked some workflow I don't use.
Thanks.