padding search field issue

This was actually a design choice on my part. I always felt the search widget looked "incomplete". A box inside a box..

Of course, you can re-add the padding quite easily if you'd like:

.widget.widget_search {
    padding: 40px;
}

hmm ... added already.
simply because it looks quite odd when having a defined gap between content and sidebar and only the search field peeps out towards the content and bridges tis gap unintended.

so regarding this i actually have some difficulties understanding your 'design choice' :-)
what did look 'incomplete so far?
if the search widget follows the rules of the other widgets that wont be (better wasnt) the case in my opinion, but if it does 'its own thing'... anyway - thats just my point as a designer :-)

btw: 'tadaaa' while typing this, got mail from client who discovered this right now on his site... so another one to tweak :-) dont mind.

I'm not too sure what you mean by the gap?

For example, I personally feel that this looks better: http://www.screencast.com/t/cGgR3iPqj

Than this: http://www.screencast.com/t/9uuLwuVwgBvN

The padding around the search bar seems unnecessary and creates a "box inside a box" effect.

Don't get me wrong, I love padding - white space is super important around text etc..

Of course, no one design will make everyone happy - I totally understand that :)

hi tom - got your point.
but then i had to think about it for a while and at the end i (sorry for that) have to disagree.
the main point is: you loose control for this item when setting padding in customizer! (see link to example below) another one is that the spaces get inconsistent. at first glance i could follow your thoughts, but then found out it breaks the logic of the spaces around the elements.

take a look at this page, where the sidebar-items has no colored spaces set around to separate them (i already tweaked the search field, but you know how to reset). in this case it breaks the layout (the gap...). and as far as i am concerned cases like this are by far the majority ...

so as my conclusion this decision might not be the best. sorry for that. for me it would be more logical if one might tweak it to your first example if used in the way showed there and maybe might like better. but in fact, your second example has more equal rooms and is optically the more logic one.

dont mind - just my two cents. but the way you did before was the better one 😀

Ah I see your point - that definitely doesn't work when there's no background color.

I could make it so left/right padding is added if no background color is set in the widget.

I'll play with it for the next version :)

... so why not just include a simple option in customizer whether to use 'zero padding' for search field or not? :-)
would cover both demands and user could easy switch depending on layout. (dont know if internal conditional depending on widget bg would cover all scenarios... and maybe kinda toggle just might be easier to implement?)

what do you think?

Think something like that deserves an option? Have to be very careful about adding options for every small detail like this - don't want to end up like Divi or Avada.

I'll see if I can come up with some logic that takes care of it for you. If not, I'll revert back to the way it was.

... great. thanks :-)

(good point regarding options btw)

Would also be great if anyone else reading has any input. Like it? Don't like it?