[Bug] Prompt With List Gets "Stuck" on Non-Matching Queries

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In KM 8.1 and 8.1.1, if you bring up a list prompt without a title:

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And enter a query that doesn't match any of the results:

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The prompt will then fail to display any results even after deleting the non-matching query:

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or entering a valid one:

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Once the prompt is in this state, it becomes non-functional, neither displaying results nor letting the user select the last result shown, and must be dismissed and tried again.

If you bring up a list prompt with a title:

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The prompt will still get "stuck" if you enter a query that doesn't match any results:

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But unlike prompts without titles, this at least can be soft-reset by deleting the query and trying again:

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So whatever is going on here, it seems to be related to the new title functionality added with 8.1.

(Incidentally, while this isn't a bug per-se, I just noticed while putting this post together that giving a prompt a title also prevents it from displaying its results when no queries have yet been entered, which does not seem like the expected or ideal behavior.)

@peternlewis, is there any chance this bug could be fixed by the next version? Prompt With List has been hands-down one of my favorite and most-used additions to KM 8, and I'm also incredibly impressed with its performance (I have one macro that prompts from a list of around 100,000 lines of text, and it is almost as fast and responsive as the one I used here that only prompts from a list of my n most recently used macros) so for what it's worth, I would love to see this kink ironed out soon.

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@peternlewis:

Confirmed with Evernote 6.11.1 (455059) on macOS 10.12.6.

I agree that is undesirable behavior. The Prompt list should be displayed whether or not it has a Title.

Also, if you give the Prompt action a Default value, then the Title is NOT shown. Also unexpected behavior.

IMO the Prompt Title should always remain visible, regardless of the default or search text that is entered.

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perhaps a related issue: on my system, Prompt with List shows the list of items only if I don’t include a Title in the action. If I put in a Title, then I get a one-line high prompt window displaying the title only but now list (though selecting a choice from the list from the keyboard brings up matches - strange.)

Fixed for the next version.

There is no where to see the title, except the header field, so if you want to see the title field, there has to be nothing selected, which means there has to be nothing displayed.

So yes, if you have a title, then when nothing is entered in the search field, nothing will be displayed, but the title will be visible. Note that also nothing is displayed if there is more than 100 items and the search field is empty.

Since there is no sensible place to put the title otherwise, or otherwise make the title permanently visible, you have a choice as to what is more important to you - the title or the display of the items.

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@gglick, OR, as a third alternative, use the excellent Spotlight-style Search system by @DanThomas, and get both title and data, and a lot more:

MACRO: Spotlight Search Prompt

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While @DanThomas’s SSP, like everything else he’s made, is of course great, and I do use it for some things, it completely chokes on the kinds of huge data that Prompt With List handles without breaking a sweat (as I said above, PWL’s performance is tremendously impressive) so unfortunately, it isn’t a viable option for some use cases.

What size (number of items) have you observed this behavior?
I've tested it with 1,500 items and it worked fine for me.

It’s been a while since I compared the two, but I recall SSP bogging down at around 15,000 to 20,000 items. By comparison, I’ve found PWL to handle data with around 100,000 items almost as quickly as it handles data with 10 items.

Wow! I have never conceived of a list manager with that number of items. Of course, as Peter has stated, the KM PWL does NOT show any data, if there are more than 100 items, until you enter a search term. Whereas Dan's SSP shows the top 30+ items.