246274 - Firefox advanced browsing option "open links in the background" misleading

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, defect)

Description

[Tim Meader]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040608 Firefox/0.8.0+
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040608 Firefox/0.8.0+

This is an analog to the Mozilla Suite bug I've been working on, #111842

To sum up, the preference under General Browser in Firefox's Advanced options
labeled "Load links in background" is EXTREMELY confusing. It was slightly
better (though still misleading) in the Mozilla Suite since it was under Tabbed
Browsing preferences. Under General Browser in Firefox, it makes it seem as if
the browser is "precaching" pages that are linked to on the current page. In no
way does it specify that it has something to do with the manner in which new
Tabs (and Bookmarks) are opened.

I've created a patch that his been approved (but waiting for sr, neither have
gotten back to me for the past five days though) which basically gives a new
text for the option, as well as automatically reverse the meaning of the pref in
the backend. Shouldn't break anything existing that depends on this pref.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:




I would normally set this to "Trivial" but this is a VERY confusing option. I
believe it's rather important to clear up for 1.0 exactly what's happening when
people enable or disable the preference.

I'll try to get the patch submitted tonight.

Comment 1

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

this is a dupe, iirc

Comment 2

[Tim Meader]

Mike, there is one for Mozilla Suite that I'm also working on, but a search for
the pref text in Bugzilla reports no duplicates that I can find. Please let me
know if I'm wrong. Changing summary text to better reflect it.

Comment 3

[Tim Meader]

Attachment: Firefox port of the Mozilla Suite patch

mconnor, I'd written you a little over a week ago about possibly getting this
into Firefox as well as the Suite. Here's my first crack at it. This is patched
against today's AVIARY branch.

Comment 4

[Tim Meader]

Comment on attachment 150499 [details] [diff] [review]
Firefox port of the Mozilla Suite patch

Setting to mconnor for review

Comment 5

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Bug 215441 is what I'm thinking about, the wording changed when it moved to the
advanced panel.  I think I like this wording much better, but I'm sleep-deprived
now :(

Comment 6

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Comment on attachment 150499 [details] [diff] [review]
Firefox port of the Mozilla Suite patch

This is definitely better wording.

rlk, please note the wording change for Help

Comment 7

[R.J. Keller]

Thanks mconnor! Fix checked in on FIREFOX_HELP_1_0_BRANCH on mozdev.

Comment 8

[Tim Meader]

I appreciate assigning it to me, if nothing else than to get it off Ben's
plate... but I unfortunately don't have CVS checkin ability. If everyone thinks
this patch is fine, please mconnor, when you get the chance, go ahead and check
this in.

Thanks in advance.

Comment 9

[R.J. Keller]

Fix checked in on the trunk. I'll check it into aviary soon.

Comment 10

[R.J. Keller]

Fix checked in on the aviary branch.

Comment 11

[Grey Nicholson (they/them)]

I'd've gone for "Automatically switch to newly opened tabs", but that's fine too.

Comment 12

[Tim Meader]

Unfortunately that doesn't specify that it only applies to tabs opened from
links. If you click new tab, that is ALWAYS selected, there's no option for
that. Anyhow, gonna download today's and make sure it's working alright. Will
close after that if so.

Comment 13

[Jeff Walden (gone starting June 8)]

I hate to be a nag over such a trivial issue, but is "Focus" a better choice
than "Select"?  It's shorter, and it doesn't seem as awkward to me as "Select"
does.  To me "Select" implies a conscious choice among alternatives (but there's
no conscious choice at the moment the tab's opened), while "Focus" simply says
the tab will be displayed.

If this doesn't make sense, ignore or reply as you wish - this is trivial enough
that it's not worth the time to explain why my suggestion doesn't make as much
sense as the original suggestion.

Comment 14

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Jeff, "focus" is a term that isn't a) 100% specific, since we're choosing a
different tab, not just focusing it, and b) isn't necessarily clear (the concept
of "focus" is more abstract than selection to users).  Tell your grandma to
focus the tab and she won't know what you mean, 9 times out of 10.

Fixed branch and trunk, resolving.

Comment 15

[Marek Stępień [:marcoos, inactive]]

Verified, Firefox 0.9.

However, as a Firefox localizer I am strongly opposed to such changes between
0.9 RC and 0.9 final. :-( 

Comment 16

[Grey Nicholson (they/them)]

(In reply to comment #14)
> Jeff, "focus" is a term that isn't a) 100% specific, since we're choosing a
> different tab, not just focusing it, and b) isn't necessarily clear (the concept
> of "focus" is more abstract than selection to users).  Tell your grandma to
> focus the tab and she won't know what you mean, 9 times out of 10.

"Switch to"?