CTRL + F when site is under extreme load

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When a Discourse site is under extreme load, the search function may be disabled. In this case, using CTRL + F to find a post within a loaded thread is also disabled, and instead requires pressing CTRL + F again to default to browser search. Heather_Dudley suggests disabling the CTRL + F capture during extreme load to avoid confusion. sam proposes adding a message, such as “Type CTRL-F again to search within this page”, to inform users of the workaround. Heather_Dudley agrees this would be a good solution, noting that their community is pushing Discourse to its limits.

1

Okay, so, this is less a bug and more an unanticipated side effect of a design choice. However, I wanted to log this as a potential issue.

When a site is overloaded, Search may be disabled. If this happens, CTRL + F disables a user’s ability to find a post within a thread they’ve loaded, even if they’ve already loaded a longer thread.

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I realize that pressing CTRL + F a second time will default to browser search.

However, as a future consideration, consider disabling the CTRL + F capture if the site is under extreme load. It effectively does nothing and the double-tap of F is not intuitive as a solution.

2

It is tricky, extreme load can be very very transient. We do not expect sites to be in this state for long, if at all. Designing for this edge case is not easy cause we can not accurately predict search will be available or not when you type even if you were just under extreme load.

Maybe we can add the text

Type CTRL-F again to search within this page.

Or something like that.

5 Likes
3

That would be a good solution. I think our community is definitely pushing Discourse to its limits!

2 Likes