211023 - Firefox needs "Sort by Name" functionality for the bookmarks menu

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Neil Parks]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; en-US; rv:1.5a) Gecko/20030628 Mozilla Firebird/0.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; en-US; rv:1.5a) Gecko/20030628 Mozilla Firebird/0.6

As specified in comment #80 in bug 77411, I am requesting that the same fix
should be applied to Firebird.



Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1

[Steffen Wilberg]

I agree. Sorting bookmarks works fine for Mozilla, so let Firebird participate.
According to comment #73 in bug 77411, it was fixed by bug 205378.

As Jan Varga said in comment #77 in bug 77411, transforming the changes to
Firebird "should be easy using some bonsai/cvs/diff magic".

Comment 2

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

Confirming.

Comment 3

[noririty]

*** Bug 212823 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 4

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

taking QA contact, sorry about the bugspam

Comment 5

[Hussam Al-Tayeb]

Sorting bookmarks if found in almost all browsers, so it should exist too in
firebird.

Comment 6

[Steffen Wilberg]

It's actually bug 205378 which has the patch attached.
Nice little patch, only +1774/993 lines in 85 files changed.

The checkin is here:
http://bonsai.mozilla.org/cvsquery.cgi?date=explicit&mindate=2003%2F05%2F23+05%3A00&maxdate=2003%2F05%2F23+05%3A30

Comment 7

[Andrew]

Attachment: a first attempt

This adds the sort feature to firebird as well as the fix for 207779(Bookmark
Manager View->Show Columns menu does nothing.)

Comment 8

[Steffen Wilberg]

Comment on attachment 131783 [details] [diff] [review]
a first attempt

Pierre, can you have a look at this please?

Comment 9

[Pierre Chanial]

Comment on attachment 131783 [details] [diff] [review]
a first attempt

Thanks for the effort, but I want to take care of it personally.

Comment 10

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

*** Bug 222636 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 11

[u119030]

I deliberately arrange my bookmarks so I can use them in 
a structured way. I am not interested in sorting bookmarks 
whatsoever and any sorting of bookmark data would spoil all 
my arrangements.
Therefore, I think the request of bug # 64272 was a really bad idea, 
and the changes of # 205378, even though there is a warning dialog, 
may be harmful if someone - not being completely aware of the 
consequences or in a hurry - just applies a sort and thus looses much 
work.
Please reconsider this issue and if possible refrain from any 
sorting of bookmark data. If you don't, please add a configuration 
option to suppress this ill "feature".

Comment 12

[Pierre Chanial]

I completely agree with Thomas. That's the reason why I didn't port the
seamonkey fix as is. However, we should find a solution that is acceptable for
the two populations (those who prefer to sort manually, and those who prefer an
automatic alphanumerical sorting)

Comment 13

[Chris Bloom]

While I agree that some people (albiet the minority) propably sort their book
marks in a custom fasion, it is still a valid extension.  Asking for the feature
to be squashed outright is not the answer however.  If it's going to be build
(it should) then it should be built with some sort of customizable
implimentation.  A simple OFF/ON switch would be the quickest/simplist/fastest
way to accomplish this.  We could even get into the specifics and develop an
option to sort only a specific set of folders (grouped using a seperator), or
even an option to sort only the actual bookmarks, but not the folders.  What I'm
getting at is that it shouldn't be squashed - it's a valid and useful tool. It
could/should be built with users like Thomas in mind, however.

Comment 14

[Neil Parks]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that this fix would apply only if you go
into "manage bookmarks" and select a sort option.  Right now the selected sort
applies only within the bookmark manager but not on the pulldown menus of
bookmarks.  It is the menu display that needs to be fixed to match the view in
the manager.

The "unsorted" option presumably would remain available.  Doesn't that solve
Thomas Wolff's problem?

Comment 15

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

Chris Bloom, keep your hands off the blocking flags, if a flag has already been
set by a developer. In this case it was the Bookrmarks Module Owner of Firebird,
which gives his decision even the more weight.

Comment 16

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

*** Bug 226003 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 17

[Ali Ebrahim]

*** Bug 226359 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 18

[Jean-Marc]

I totally agree with Neil Parks (comment #14) : the pulldown menu - [CTRL]+D -
should be sorted according to the last Bookmarks Manager view (sorted or not
sorted).
Whenever you use that a lot and have 20 or so *folder* entries and that you
don't really see how to do a hierarchy out of them it would be nice to have them
automatically sorted (again, for those who want it and don't like to spend their
time sorting them by hand).

Comment 19

[Jean-Marc]

Sorry : I mistook the pulldown (existing) bookmarks menu for the "Add to
Bookmarks" dropdown listbox, but the sorting issue affects both.

Comment 20

[Thomas Wolff]

About Comment #14 From Neil Parks  2003-11-12 09:33 
> The "unsorted" option presumably would remain available.
> Doesn't that solve Thomas Wolff's problem?
I can only judge the disputed feature from the description in 
Comment #17 From Jan Varga  2003-05-20 14:17 to bug # 205378:
> UI changes:
> - all sort related items have been removed from the View menu in bookmarks man
ager
> - added two new items to the Edit menu in the context menu (Sort 
>   Folder..., Sort Folder by name)
> - added a new warning after clicking on a column header that the 
>   sorting is undoable ("If you sort this list, you will not be able 
>   to Undo it. Are you sure you want to sort the list?")
So after invoking the sort option, there would be no undo.
Obviously, then there can be no more "unsorted" option either unless 
it would apply a random arrangement :(

Another aspect is that this kind of table column sorting at the 
user interface (by clicking on the column title) is a very wide-spread 
feature and is - as far as I know - always just applicable to the 
presentation, never to the original data. So the feature implemented 
for Mozilla would deviate from all commonly known and expected 
behaviour in this respect.

Comment 21

[Neil Parks]

The problem has been solved by the Sort Bookmarks extension:

http://members.lycos.nl/mozillafirefox/extensions/Sort%20Bookmarks%200.3.xpi

Comment 22

[Jon Henry]

Is this a final decision from Ben or one of the other Firefox peers? No offense
meant, but it seems ridiculous to not include basic bookmark sorting as part of
the default build. Especially when the code already exists on the SeaMonkey side
and a patch is attached here.

Comment 23

[alanjstr]

Fixed means Fixed.  I think Neil was looking for Invalid.  However, this
obviously isn't invalid.  

Comment 24

[Pierre Chanial]

right, this bug will be fixed, hopefully for 1.0, but not the seamonkey way.

Comment 25

[Chris Bloom]

(In reply to comment #24)
> right, this bug will be fixed, hopefully for 1.0, but not the seamonkey way.

So then it's not fixed? Yet? 

Comment 26

[Stefan Pietschmann]

just to add this (apart from the fact that such a function should be part of the
core, not an extension):

the bookmarks sort extension 0.4 doesn't work for me in Fx.8 anyways.

Comment 27

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

*** Bug 234166 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 28

[shadytrees]

If we're talking about extensions and third-party apps, then Mozilla Bookmarks
Sorter has fixed this for quite a while now.
http://mbs.mozdev.org/

Comment 29

[Charles Fenwick]

*** Bug 234580 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 30

[Steve Weiner]

(In reply to comment #14)
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that this fix would apply only if you go
> into "manage bookmarks" and select a sort option.  Right now the selected sort
> applies only within the bookmark manager but not on the pulldown menus of
> bookmarks.  It is the menu display that needs to be fixed to match the view in
> the manager.
> 
> The "unsorted" option presumably would remain available.  Doesn't that solve
> Thomas Wolff's problem?

I completely agree with this. Bookmark manager sorts should exist to permit
customization of the main interface. An alphabetical sort of bookmarks should be
available in the pulldown menus.

Comment 31

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

parity-opera? since when is parity with Opera for features a goal?  Opera has
dozens of features that I doubt we will ever want to implement as core features.
 parity with IE is more important, but we don't use parity-ie in Firefox (at
least not that I've seen in any "official" context)

Comment 32

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

*** Bug 239504 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 33

[Jason Barnabe (np)]

*** Bug 236609 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 34

[Martin]

(In reply to comment #26)

> the bookmarks sort extension 0.4 doesn't work for me in Fx.8 anyways.

The latest version of Sort Bookmarks (0.5.0.1) should support FF 0.8, 0.8+ and 0.9.

Download: http://www.extensionsmirror.nl/index.php?showtopic=102

Comment 35

[Zach Spoelstra]

*** Bug 246391 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 36

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

*** Bug 234545 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 37

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

*** Bug 249009 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 38

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

*** Bug 248729 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 39

[Kent Fitzsimmons]

The way IE does it is to leave everything unsorted unless you right click and 
select "sort by name".

This sorts the current level of the list, leaving sub-levels unsorted. 

This behavior is familiar to IE users and also allows control over what you 
want to sort and leave unsorted. 

And yes, it does sort the underlying data, not just the presentation order. 

Comment 40

[Kent Fitzsimmons]

The way IE does it is to leave everything unsorted unless you right click and 
select "sort by name".

This sorts the current level of the list, leaving sub-levels unsorted. 

This behavior is familiar to IE users and also allows control over what you 
want to sort and leave unsorted. 

And yes, it does sort the underlying data, not just the presentation order. 

Comment 41

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

*** Bug 249514 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 42

[Joey Day]

(In reply to comment #24)
> right, this bug will be fixed, hopefully for 1.0, but not the seamonkey way.

I'm not sure what is meant by this. Are you talking about the underlying code,
or the methods of sorting available to the user?

I really like Seamonkey's context menu options when it comes to sorting
bookmarks. I'd like to see something similar in Firefox.

Comment 43

[Aaron P]

Why not modify the patch a bit to make it sort by default using a new pref
"browser.bookmarks.sort_mode"
sort_mode = 0 would not sort at all, ever.
sort_mode = 1 would sort all bookmarks the same way that Mozilla 1.x does it.
This would be the FireFox default.
sort_mode = 2 would let the user could choose to sort or not on a per-folder
basis. (This setting could initially be unimplemented and added after FF 1.0 if
there isn't enough time.)

Comment 44

[u88484]

(In reply to comment #43)
sounds good 

Comment 45

[Blake Ross]

I'm renaming this to clarify that this is the bug for Sort by Name functionality
in Firefox's Bookmarks menu. We don't want the crap Seamonkey has that clicking
the sort columns in the bookmarks manager changes the sort of the Bookmarks
menu. I seem to recall, however, Seamonkey also having "Sort by Name" in the
Bookmarks menu--just like IE--and that *is* something we want. Hopefully it's
not too difficult to just port that patch.

-> vlad

Comment 46

[Neil Parks]

(In reply to comment #45)
>  I seem to recall, however, Seamonkey also having "Sort by Name" in the
> Bookmarks menu--just like IE--and that *is* something we want. Hopefully it's
> not too difficult to just port that patch.

The "Sort Bookmarks" extension does the job nicely.  Is it possible to just
incorporate that code into the core?

Comment 47

[Blake Ross]

Ben, I'm renominating this:

- IE has this. It really is an important feature. Our bookmarks menu is terrible
without it.

- Seamonkey has this. This is the real reason I nominated this--it's probably
not very hard to port over just the Sort by Name context menu functionality.

- Vlad has offered to fix bookmarks bugs for 1.0 and says he has very few
blockers on his plate.

Comment 48

[Blake Ross]

Replussing based on:

<blake> vlad: do you think porting seamonkey's Sort by Name functionality in the
bookmarks menu ctxt menu is something you'll have time for for 1.0?
<vlad> yes
<vlad> I can't imagine it taking longer than a few hours
<vlad> I'll get the translatable "Sort by Name" bit in the entity file before
PR1 though

Comment 49

[Vladimir Vukicevic [:vlad] [:vladv] (needinfo me, slow to respond)]

Reading over this and related bugs, it looks like we want between one and three
bits of functionality for firefox:

1. "Sort by Name": do this sort now, once, by name.  Right-click context menu
item for folders, also Edit menu item in Bookmarks Manager, active for folders.
 (Errr, non-livemark folders)
2. "Keep Folder Sorted": Right-click context checkbox menu item, also checkbox
menu item in bmgr.  Automatically keeps the folder sorted by name.
3. "Sort new bookmark folders automatically": pref, possibly hidden pref for
now, that turns on "Keep Folder Sorted" from #2 by default for new folders.

Do we want just 1, 1 & 2, or 1 & 2 & 3?  (3 is pretty much free after 2)

Also: Can we kill the View menu in the bookmarks manager?  The functionality is
available through the table UI itself (clicking on columns to sort, clicking on
dingus in the upper right corner to add/remove columns), and it's just confusing
clutter.  I've got a patch that moves the "Set as Personal Toolbar Folder" to
the Edit menu (as it has nothing to do with View); the only thing we lose is the
ability to turn the toolbar off, which I don't think is a big deal.

Comment 50

[mmortal03]

If Sort by: Name is implemented, there needs to be an option set that determines
HOW it sorts by name.  At the moment, Bookmarks can be sorted Alphabetically,
but Folders and Bookmarks are sorted as equals.  I assume somebody wants it like
this.  There should, however, also be the option that when Sort by: Name is
selected, that it sorts folders first, then individual bookmarks (how IE and
most file managers sort files).  The bug for this is Bug 192641.  It is
currently blocking-aviary1.0 as well.  
I don't think these bugs should necessarily be considered as dependant on each
other, as their fixes can probably function separately temporarily, but
ultimately, they do need to work hand-in-hand.

Comment 51

[Vladimir Vukicevic [:vlad] [:vladv] (needinfo me, slow to respond)]

Attachment: bookmarks-sort-by-name-0.patch

Implements sort by name, in a manner described by #1 above.  Just a simple
right-click sort by name, folders sorted before bookmarks.

Note that the sorting is -not undoable-.  This is pretty much not fixable
without a lot of pain, I don't think.  This patch depends on bug 255134.

Comment 52

[Gérard Talbot]

*** Bug 255272 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 53

[Erik Arvidsson]

WHat about sorting of separators? Looking at the code it seems like the
separators are just removed. It would be nice if sorting could take separators
into account. The extension "Sort Bookmarks" does this by grouping items into
groups.

Item 7
Item 3
Item 6 (folder)
---
Item 2
Item 5
---
Item 4
Item 1 (folder)
Item 8

would be sorted as

Item 6 (folder)
Item 3
Item 7
---
Item 2
Item 5
---
Item 1 (folder)
Item 4
Item 8

Comment 54

[Benjamin Smedberg]

l10n impact, PR or bust

Comment 55

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

vlad landed the string changes last weekend, so there's no l10n impact if the
code lands late.

Comment 56

[Hussam Al-Tayeb]

Now that 255134 is in, can somebody look at the patch mentioned above?

Comment 57

[Vladimir Vukicevic [:vlad] [:vladv] (needinfo me, slow to respond)]

Not yet; I'll request a review when the patch is ready :) Should be tonight or
tomorrow.

Comment 58

[Vladimir Vukicevic [:vlad] [:vladv] (needinfo me, slow to respond)]

Attachment: bm-sorbyname-1.patch

new patch

Comment 59

[Vladimir Vukicevic [:vlad] [:vladv] (needinfo me, slow to respond)]

in on branch, will land on trunk when I merge

Comment 60

[u88484]

When I sort by name the bookmark manger shows the bookmarks sorted but is not so
on the pull down bookmarks menu. also shouldn't the folders be sorted
seperately? it looks so weird when not. 

unless i missed something when reading through this bug!?

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040909 Firefox/0.10

Comment 61

[Vladimir Vukicevic [:vlad] [:vladv] (needinfo me, slow to respond)]

(In reply to comment #60)
> When I sort by name the bookmark manger shows the bookmarks sorted but is not so
> on the pull down bookmarks menu.

The "View" business in the bookmarks manager is a disaster that has no
reflection on reality.  It just changes the view in the manager only.  Sort by
name actually sorts the folder.

> also shouldn't the folders be sorted
> seperately? it looks so weird when not. 

Whoops, yes.  I'll add this today.

Comment 62

[Grey Nicholson (they/them)]

(In reply to comment #61)
> (In reply to comment #60)
> > also shouldn't the folders be sorted
> > seperately? it looks so weird when not. 
> 
> Whoops, yes.  I'll add this today.
> 

I personally prefer folders to be interspersed among other bookmarks; is there
any (easy) way this could be made an about:config option (off by default, of
course)?

Comment 63

[John Liebson]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040909 Firefox/0.10

Bookmarks sort works only on folders as far as I can determine. It does not work
on 'freeestanding" bookmarks, the ones that are added by clicking on "Create in
Bookmarks"when adding them, rather than placing them in individual folders.

Comment 64

[Ger Teunis]

(In reply to comment #63)
> Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040909 Firefox/0.10
> 
> Bookmarks sort works only on folders as far as I can determine. It does not work
> on 'freeestanding" bookmarks, the ones that are added by clicking on "Create in
> Bookmarks"when adding them, rather than placing them in individual folders.

I confirm, sorting the 'root' bookmarks should be possible when Opening the
bookmarks menu, rightclicking a 'root' bookmark.

Comment 65

[:deanis74]

Is this going to get confused with the View > Sorted By Name menu?  My concern
is that action isn't permanent whereas this one is.  Users may think that this
context menu item is a shortcut to that menu item and use it instead.

Based on comment 61, are changes coming to the View menu?

Comment 66

[Tracy Walker [:tracy]]

verified with Firefox Branch 2004-09-10-08-0.9

Comment 67

[Vladimir Vukicevic [:vlad] [:vladv] (needinfo me, slow to respond)]

See bug 258692 for further issues with sort by name.

Comment 68

[Steffen Wilberg]

This was fixed before 1.0PR. -> marking so.

Comment 69

[Neil Parks]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040910 Firefox/0.10

I don't see any bookmark sorting feature in this release.

Comment 70

[Ryan Polk (Quark)]

It's in the context menu of folders.  Right Click a folder -> Sort By Name will
sort all the bookmarks in that folder.  It may need better UI, but that should
be a seperate bug probably.

Comment 71

[kota]

I'd like to have the folders sorted first, then sort the actual bookmarks.
That's how Mozilla does it.

Comment 72

[Matt Cosentino]

Shouldn't the context menu item be available when clicking on a bookmark within
a folder?  The problem is that I want to sort the bookmarks in the root folder
by opening the "Bookmarks" menu item, right clicking, then sorting.  But because
there is no folder to right click on I can't do that.  This is how it works in
Internet Explorer, and it seems much more intuitive.

Comment 73

[Matt Cosentino]

You can't sort the root folder even when going into "Manage Bookmarks...", this
is a serious oversight.

Comment 74

[MORA]

Any reason why 'Sort by name' has been greyed-out for active bookmarks folders?
I'd like to sort them too.  

Comment 75

[Kenneth]

(In reply to comment #73)
> You can't sort the root folder even when going into "Manage Bookmarks...", this
> is a serious oversight.

Agreed, this is a serious problem that limits the usage of this function... the
only workaround is to place all of your bookmarks in a "My Bookmarks" subfolder
of some sort, and then sort that.  Should this be addressed in this bug or
opened up in a new bug??

Comment 76

[Steffen Wilberg]

Matt and Kenneth, that's bug 258692 ("Sort by name" should sort siblings, not
children), which was already mentioned in comment 67.

Comment 77

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

this has nothing to do with bookmark groups in Seamonkey's impl.

Comment 78

[Jesse Ruderman]

*** Bug 261481 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 79

[Worcester12345]

(In reply to comment #77)
> this has nothing to do with bookmark groups in Seamonkey's impl.

My mistake, sorry. (I was looking at several bugs at once.) Oops.

Comment 80

[Hussam Al-Tayeb]

Shouldn't this be open since it's not in the trunk?

Comment 81

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

This will get taken care of when /browser and /toolkit get merged to trunk. 
Yes, that's not the traditional thing, but managing the large number of FIXED
bugs that aren't on trunk would be a large waste of time at this point.

Re-resolving.

Comment 82

[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