248024 - Prefs are in different places and are differently named depending on the OS

Status: VERIFIED INVALID

(Firefox :: Menus, defect)

Description

[Galileo Vidoni]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; es-ES; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040117
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; es-ES; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040117

In Firefox 0.9 for Linux, the preferences can be reached via Edit-->Preferences
(the typical Mozilla way, like in the suite). On the other hand, in Firefox 0.9
Win32, the preferences are called 'Options', and are located in the 'Tools' menu.

This, apart of being nosense, is a direct threat to Mozilla and Firefox's
cross-platform nature, as there start appearing significant (and unnecessary)
differences between the different versions.

This way, we can't say that Firefox is completely cross-platform, but that it is
a Windows-centered browser which has been ported and re-implemented for working
on Linux and Mac OS X. And that's not true.

So, the preferences must be in the same place on all Firefox versions, no matter
the OS being used. I think Edit-->Preferences would be more normal, as it has
been like that since Netscape 4.0, and because putting it under 'Tools' means
copying Microsoft. Also, preferences aren't a tool.

Anyway, the important think here is that the preferences should be always in the
same place, and with the same name.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.In Firefox for Linux, go to the preferences.
2.Now try to do the same on Windows.
3.Whoa, there aren't preferences but options and they are even in another place.

Actual Results:  
The preferences are differently located and named.

Expected Results:  
They should have been in the same place both in Windows and Linux, and with the
same name, wether they were in Edit-->Preferences OR in Tools-->Options.

Comment 1

[Bill Mason]

It is deliberately different on Linux.  See bug 245765.

Comment 2

[Galileo Vidoni]

(In reply to comment #1)
> It is deliberately different on Linux.  See bug 245765.

I use Linux, but that actually doesn't means I must be using GNOME. GNOME is no
an OS, apart from the fact that not all gtk applications are GNOME applications
and  so have to follow the GNOME HIG. Remember, gtk was even previous that GNOME.

The sames happens with Qt and KDE. You can perfectly have a Qt application which
has nothing to do with KDE, nor it follows the KDE UI guidelines.

The strongest poing of Mozilla products is that they are cross-platform, so I
can use the same way Win32 Firefox at work and Linux Firefox at home. If this
ridiculous differences continue to happen, that cross-platform nature is
completely lost.

If things continue like this, perhaps it even becomes better for people to use
REAL native browsers, like MSIE on Windows and Konqueror on Linux, rather than
pseudo-cross-platform things.

Finishing, as it can be seen in bug 245765, all the desision process has been
made by Ben Goodger, without any comments up to the VERIFIED FIXED. I know that,
as has been many times said, Firefox is not a democracy (which is higly
questionable), but one opinion can't be taken as the correct and definite one.

Don't just mark bugs as INVALID, try to understand what the reporter is saying
rather that running to quickly fulfill the dictator's whims.

Comment 3

[Michael Lefevre]

I don't know about Bill, but I do understand what you are saying. What you are
saying is that you don't think the decision that our "dictator" took was
correct. That can be a matter of argument in the forums, but it doesn't belong
in bugzilla. Bugzilla (and us folks triaging bugs) are here to do whatever the
"dictatorship" wants. See http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html 

You can question whether it should be a democracy (although here isn't the right
place to discuss it), but in fact it is not a democracy.

so, this bug is invalid...