63103 - add "About Plug-ins" to the Help menu

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(SeaMonkey :: Help Documentation, enhancement)

Description

[Niko Pavlicek]

The description says all, there should be a menu-item which opens the
about:plugins page, because IMHO this feature is very unknown, and should be
accesable for the user without knowing any pseudo-URLs

Comment 1

[Jure Repinc (JLP)]

I agree.

Comment 2

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Excellent idea.

Comment 3

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Attachment: Patch to add an "About Plugins" item to the help menu

Comment 4

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Comments on the patch:

1) I added the necessary entities to the utilityOverlay.dtd files in l10n (under
en-GB and en-DE).  Should I be doing that?

2) The utilityOverlay.dtd file already has a AboutPluginsCmd.label entity
defined as ".About Plug-Ins".  Note the leading ".".  So I ended up making up a
new entity name (AboutCommPluginsCmd.label) for this patch.  Should I just
modify the text for AboutPluginsCmd to kill the "."?  Or is that reserved for
some sort of future use?

Comment 5

[Brian Staples]

This has got a vote from me. Excellent idea.

Comment 6

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Adding some keywords

Comment 7

[Peter Lairo]

This feature should also work with the "modal" help about window.

Comment 8

[Fabian Guisset]

Two comments about the patch :
1) Does the patch need to define new accesskeys for the en-DE and en-GB dtd?
2) Why not put the oncommand directly on the menuitem (we could fix the way the
release notes menu item works too)

Comment 9

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Actually, looks like release notes does it that way because the URL text needs
to be dynamic. There is no reason for the about:plugins to be dynamic, so moving
that to the xul.

Going to attach an updated patch that addresses Fabian's comments.

Comment 10

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Attachment: new patch. adds accesskeys and defines oncommand in the xul

Comment 11

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Attachment: patch getting rid of unnecessary name= attribute on the menuitem

Comment 12

[Fabian Guisset]

r=fabian. We could also remove the name= on the about menu item. Also I think
having dtd entities on name= is a bad mojo, but I'm not sure. Can anyone confirm
what I'm saying?

Comment 13

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Alec, could you sr?

Comment 14

[Jesse Ruderman]

I think the menuitem text should be "Show Installed Plug-ins" instead of "About 
installed plugins".  Also, I don't think the command should be on the Help 
menu.  How about Tasks->Tools or Debug?

Should about:plugins eventually be integrated into the "Helper Applications" 
prefs panel, and then changed to just refer/point to that panel?

Cc mpt.

Comment 15

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Tasks->tools, perhaps.  Debug, absolutely not.  This should be in a menu that
will be included in commercial versions of Mozilla, in my opinion.

Comment 16

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Jesse, just to comment further on the points you raise.  There is I believe a
separate bug on improving about:plugins itself and maybe integrating it with the
helper app prefs.

This bug is just for a quick way to get to about:plugins.  If about:plugins is
done away with, this will need to go away too.  But since it's unlikely that
about:plugins will change form in the near future, it would be nice to have a
menu option for pulling it up instead of expecting users to know arcane urls to
type.

Comment 17

[timeless]

About Plugins is the right menu name.

However, in nc4 plugins is above About Communicator, and I think that's correct 
for mozilla too.

I'm sorry i didn't look at the patch earlier. I was thinking about this feature 
a while ago and thought that it should only be in the navigator menu [which you 
can't currently do...], but after checking nc4 the menuitem does indeed appear 
in mail.

in nc4 navigator about plug-ins changes the current window to about:plugins.
in messenger it finds an open navigator window and uses it.  ie, new windows 
are opened as a last resort.

verah is gone, reassigning. cc german/ben for opinions.

Comment 18

[Jesse Ruderman]

It makes no sense to me that going to a Help option in Mail should cause a 
destructive action to take place in Navigator (re-using a window).  But then 
again I think it's evil that we do that for links in e-mail messages, too.

Comment 19

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

If it is in menus, it should be in the Help menu, like 4.x. The current patch has 
three problems. Firstly it says `Plugins' when it should say `Plug-ins'. Secondly 
it is below the main `About' item, when the main `About' item should always be 
the last item in the `Help' menu (preceded by a separator), which means that 
`About Plug-ins' should be above it. Thirdly, the current `About' item should be 
renamed `About Mozilla' (or `About &suiteNameShort;', if there is such an entity) 
to avoid confusion, and adding another `About' item just makes this more urgent.

However, items in the `Help' menu should be kept to an absolute minimum, because 
generally those users who need to access help need as little confusion as 
possible. So eventually about:plugins should be replaced by information in the 
Helper Apps prefs panel.

Comment 20

[german]

> when the main `About' item should always be 

> the last item in the `Help' menu



unless you are talking about Mac OS Classic where it is common practive to have 

the app "About..." first and any other items underneath as the first items of the 

Apple menu.

Comment 21

[timeless]

there already bugs for us doing useless stuff in the apple menu, and i'm sure 
you can file a bug for About &shortSuiteName;. let's leave this bug for About 
Plug-ins [I wrote it right 2 out of 3 times in my previous comment, which is a 
passing grade].

Comment 22

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Yes, I was talking about the `Help' menu rather than the Apple menu. See my

2000-11-22 comment in bug 43935 about how XP Toolkit should handle `About' items 

in the Apple menu.

Comment 23

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Attachment: Patch based on mpt's feedback

Comment 24

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

mpt, that last patch addresses the first two points you raise.  As for the third
point, that menuitem currently has its value dynamically reset in
utilityOverlay.js to the value of aboutStrName in the brand.properties file.  So
in the menu it says 'About Mozilla', not 'About'.

I'm not sure whether we should change the dtd given that it's not being used. 
In fact, I would be in favor of eliminating that value= from the xul altogether;
that way people will notice if it's not being set properly in the js...

Comment 25

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

If the only time people will see it is if a JS error occurs, perhaps you could 
change `About' to `[An error occurred while processing this directive]' ... :-)

No, leave it as `About' for error-resiliency, but (if you can be bothered doing 
so) add a comment to the source code noting that it should never be seen.

Comment 26

[Fabian Guisset]

if the design masters agree with the design, the coding part is ok too

Comment 27

[timeless]

Personally i'd prefer if we followed nc4's approach of putting all about items 
into one group.

Comment 28

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Attachment: patch adding comments to the dtds and class="about" to the menuitems

Comment 29

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Added the comments mpt requested.  Also per mpts request added class="about" to
the about menu items (for use in Apple menu stuff).

timeless, it seems that NS 4.x is inconsistent as to whether the separator is
there or not.  On Unix/Win it is not, on Mac it is.  I feel that having it there
is better in case we end up with yet another "about" menu item....

Comment 30

[timeless]

should you use class="about application" for "about" so that we can separate 
it?

Comment 31

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

My thinking is that XP Toolkit will take the class="about" items, insert the 
last one first in the Apple menu (since that will be the `About NameOfApp' 
item), and then insert the rest in their original order.

Comment 32

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

I think class="about application" is more flexible since that way we can either
use the class or mpt's proposed solution.  Attaching revised patch.

Comment 33

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Attachment: Patch against 2001-02-10 tree. Same as before except class="about application"

Comment 34

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

class="about application" specifies *two* classes for the item at once -- the 
`about' class and the `application' class. Is that really what you want?

Comment 35

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

I thought that was the point.  An "about" class for all the About items so we
can separate them from other menuitems and an "application" class in addition to
that for the global About so that we can separate it from other About items.

Comment 36

[timeless]

*** Bug 70007 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 37

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

So.... timeless?  mpt?  comments?  I hear there is a localization freeze coming
soon and since I've added a new label....

Comment 38

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Attachment: Patch updated against the changes jag made in bug 70112

Comment 39

[timeless]

r=timeless. the stupid about nonsense does not belong in this bug, if/when mac 
people or mpt care, they can file a new bug.

ben please a=

Comment 40

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

we don't need a separator between the about plugins and the regular about (see 
4.x)...  other than that, a=[e-mail]

Comment 41

[timeless]

fix checked in, thanks

Comment 42

[Terri Preston]

Verified fixed windows 98 build 2001051404
Verified fixed mac build 2001051408
Verified fixed linux build 2001051412