Configurable minimum characters before autocomplete user searches

[tomneedham]

Motivation:

For large user lists searching for the first two characters can be very slow to return.

[PVince81]

custom groups also has such autocomplete...

Here's a possible approach:

1. Create a new oc_appconfig setting that sets the minimum chars for any user or group related autocomplete
2. Config value is exposed over capabilities API
3. Add setting in UI somewhere or keep it internal but documented ?
4. Frontend code must read capability value (accessing through OC.getCapabilities()) and adjust autocomplete threshold accordingly (needs change in sharing code and customgroups)
5. Backend code UserManager and GroupManager refuse to work if the search pattern given to any find* and search* methods is shorter than the minimum. This saves us for modifying backend for any other endpoints.

One concern with 5 is that some code paths might call the search functions with empty string. Maybe we should still allow empty string. But then need to check that the autocomplete backend code doesn't allow for empty string either (it already shouldn't).

[tomneedham]

call the search functions with empty string

Hmm why would they do that... to list all users. We have other methods for that.

[PVince81]

I don't know... legacy stuff...

[PVince81]

as discussed in chat, the approach above is what we want to do

[PVince81]

• also apply the limit to ajax/share.php's "getShareWithEmail" that is used by the link share email field (see Link share dialog email must not list local users #30670 for steps) => this will die with Link share dialog email must not list local users #30670

[VicDeo]

#30798 and #30994 were merged -> close.

[lock]

This thread has been automatically locked since there has not been any recent activity after it was closed. Please open a new issue for related bugs.