# No indication if an in-page CTRL-F search is returning results
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/no-indication-if-an-in-page-ctrl-f-search-is-returning-results/16371
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [9 ביוני, 2014, 9:32pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/no-indication-if-an-in-page-ctrl-f-search-is-returning-results/16371 "2014-06-09T21:32:01Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@downey](https://meta.discourse.org/u/downey)
#### Post date: [9 ביוני, 2014, 9:32pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/no-indication-if-an-in-page-ctrl-f-search-is-returning-results/16371/1 "2014-06-09T21:32:01Z")
Continuing the discussion from [How should we implement polls?](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-should-we-implement-polls/11911/69):
> [@How should we implement polls?](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-should-we-implement-polls/11911/69):
>
> Search does work within topics. What words did you search for?
_I’m not sure if this is a bug or just a TODO …_
It seems that (on a Chromebook, anyway) when searching a long thread with CTRL+F I get topic results that match the term entered, but I have no way to see whether or not there are any yellow highlighted terms matching the term without scrolling through the entire topic, visually scanning for the yellow highlight. (And no way to quickly move through them like a traditional browser in-page search.) There’s no clue like “N matches on this page”, etc.
My assumption, since I couldn’t see any results or any indication of the screen moving, etc., is that it was only searching topics themselves and not within the topic I had currently loaded.
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [9 ביוני, 2014, 9:50pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/no-indication-if-an-in-page-ctrl-f-search-is-returning-results/16371/2 "2014-06-09T21:50:17Z")
This is a feature request, not a bug.
Can you do a few mocks of how you would like this to work?
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [9 ביוני, 2014, 11:34pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/no-indication-if-an-in-page-ctrl-f-search-is-returning-results/16371/3 "2014-06-09T23:34:37Z")
> [@downey](#):
>
> It seems that (on a Chromebook, anyway) when searching a long thread with CTRL+F I get topic results that match the term entered, but I have no way to see whether or not there are any yellow highlighted terms matching the term without scrolling through the entire topic, visually scanning for the yellow highlight.
You have to click or tap the search results to get navigated to the match, like so, here I did the following
1. Clicked search icon
2. Typed “list” without the quotes
3. **Clicked the first match**
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### Author:  [@downey](https://meta.discourse.org/u/downey)
#### Post date: [9 ביוני, 2014, 11:43pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/no-indication-if-an-in-page-ctrl-f-search-is-returning-results/16371/4 "2014-06-09T23:43:31Z")
Ah, I see what you did there. Clever. 🙂
I guess it wasn’t obvious (to me) that the first _n_ results were results **on that page**. Because they were listed under “Topics” my mind just assumes they’re each different topics.
Perhaps those type of results could have their own header similar to “Topics” or “Users” along the lines of “Matches from this topic”?
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [9 ביוני, 2014, 11:46pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/no-indication-if-an-in-page-ctrl-f-search-is-returning-results/16371/5 "2014-06-09T23:46:21Z")
It should not say “Topics” there @sam. This is wrong now.
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [10 ביוני, 2014, 12:05am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/no-indication-if-an-in-page-ctrl-f-search-is-returning-results/16371/6 "2014-06-10T00:05:14Z")
I guess it should just clear the text or say “Results” cause it can be Topics and/or Posts.
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### Author:  [@downey](https://meta.discourse.org/u/downey)
#### Post date: [10 ביוני, 2014, 12:10am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/no-indication-if-an-in-page-ctrl-f-search-is-returning-results/16371/7 "2014-06-10T00:10:06Z")
“Results” would be better than “Topics” for me, but I think my confusion is because I’d only expect that box to show results from the site search. Combine that with the fact that there’s little visual distinction between the types of results, well, simple-minded me just thought they were all the same. 🙂
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [10 ביוני, 2014, 12:16am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/no-indication-if-an-in-page-ctrl-f-search-is-returning-results/16371/8 "2014-06-10T00:16:28Z")
Not exactly, just display no text there for now. The other sections would be “Users” (search matches users too) and “Categories” (and categories).
You could also display “Matches” or some other generic text but I think blank is OK for now and simpler. Omit Needless Words. The main unit of work on a forum is topics and replies, so it should be clear.. only matches to non topic stuff needs special names IMO.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [9 בספטמבר, 2014, 11:30pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/no-indication-if-an-in-page-ctrl-f-search-is-returning-results/16371/9 "2014-09-09T23:30:20Z")