187989 - "Advanced" preferences category is unhelpful: subcategories could become top-level items

Status: VERIFIED INVALID

(Firefox :: Settings UI, enhancement)

Description

[dan]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.3a) Gecko/20021221 Phoenix/0.5
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.3a) Gecko/20021221 Phoenix/0.5

The practice of hiding some settings under 'advanced' is unhelpful - it just
means that there are two places to look for every change.  By what rule is
'animated images loop only once' "advanced", but 'always use my fonts' is not? 
It's not apparent to me, except by reference to where they were historically.



Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.  Decide to change a preference
2.  Tools -> Preferences
3.  Search linearly through preferences categories until you see the desired
setting or reach the end
4.  Click on 'Advanced'
5.  Search linearly through preferences categories until you see the desired
setting or reach the end
6. (optional) repeat from step 3 looking more closely

Actual Results:  
I bugzillad and found that 'empty cache' is now under Privacy

Expected Results:  
Don't know

Comment 1

[David P James]

I hadn't thought of this, but you're right... there's little if anything under
Advanced that warrants the designation or where an alternate designation
wouldn't be more appropriate.

-->Confirming for developer review
-->All OSes (enhancements, unless OS-specific, should be filed as All)
-->Clarifying summary to include "preferences"

Comment 2

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

this bug is mooted by the prefs rewrite

Comment 3

[David P James]

I'd say it was fixed by the preferences reorganization, but regardless, it's not
there anymore.

Comment 4

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

taking QA contact, sorry about the bugspam

Comment 5

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

verified.

Comment 6

[John Levon]

Re-opening, the Advanced pane is back in Firebird :(

Comment 7

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

This bug as it stands is invalid, the Advanced panels in the old prefs dialog
have nothing to do with the current Advanced prefs panel.  There is also no room
to add a bunch more top-level panels, so its not exactly a valid bug.  Also,
there is very little duplicate between the advanced categories and the top-level
categories, so this bug still isn't valid.

If you want to pursue this, file a current bug which spells out a valid
alternative. 

Back to invalid.

Comment 8

[John Levon]

Of course, I am aware I'm wasting my time trying to triage UI for firebird these
days, but ...

> the Advanced panels in the old prefs dialog have nothing to do with the
current Advanced prefs panel.

That's entirely irrelevant.

> There is also no room to add a bunch more top-level panels

Not true, I just measured with xdelimitarea, and there is room for two more
panels before it gets close to 600 pixels high. Furthermore, you've entirely
discounted the possibility of re-arrangements without even giving it one
moment's thought. Very disappointing.

> very little duplicate between the advanced categories and the top-level
categories

Think about it for about a second, please. "Web Features" ? "General" ? Comment
0 stands.

Comment 9

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Its relevant to this bug, since this referred to the old style of prefs, which
might have had panels for General, and Advanced->General.  The Web Features and
General panel names/feature division are irrelevant to this bug.

like I said, if you want to file a bug about current behaviour, file a new bug,
preferably with a viable alternative that doesn't involve a lot of sub-dialogs,
since a "flat" prefs dialog is the goal here.  Thunderbird is also using the
same prefwindow layout with an Advanced button, so you're asking to redefine a
UI spec that the *birds are using as a standard already.

Comment 10

[John Levon]

If you want me to file a new bug with the same substantial content, fine.
Seems a little strange to me, but OK.

> a "flat" prefs dialog is the goal here

You have not had anything like this for quite some time :

Downloads->Plug-ins
General->Connection settings
Privacy->View Cookies
Privacy->View Saved Passwords
Web Features->Advanced
Web Features->Permissions
Web Features->Fonts & Colors

> you're asking to redefine a UI spec

Where is this UI spec ? I assume you mean one in somebody's head
rather than an actual specification.

In which case, this point seems a little disingenous, given that until
a couple of weeks ago, Firebird did *not* have an Advanced panel.

Comment 11

[John Levon]

For reference: bug 216931

Comment 12

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

sorry for bugspam, long-overdue mass reassign of ancient QA contact bugs,
filter on "beltznerLovesGoats" to get rid of this mass change