174991 - Better UI for quality factors

Status: RESOLVED INACTIVE

(Core :: Internationalization, enhancement)

Description

[Kjetil Kjernsmo]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.1) Gecko/20020913 Debian/1.1-1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.1) Gecko/20020913 Debian/1.1-1

Now that we've passed 1.0 by far, I think it is time to reopen some issues I and
others pointed out in Bug 55800. Mozilla needs a better UI for quality factors.
Now, there isn't an UI for that at all, really. There has been an argument that
automatically assigning q-values is good enough for most users, and perhaps it
is, but it is not in itself a reason not to move beyond. 

Clearly, the current linear q-values nowhere near represent how well I read the
different languages that I have listed. True, very few use this feature, but tha
t is again no reason to neglect it.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.



Expected Results:  
What I have in mind is a GUI with a ruler, not only for languages, but also for
all the other things that allow q-values to be assigned. That way, people can
explicitly say what formats they prefer, how well they speak different
languages, etc.

For every MIME-type, language or charset, imagine a dialogue box with a ruler,
that you can slide between "I read this excellently" to "I can't read this at
all" (or some similar phrase). In one end, q=1, in the other q=0. Since q-value
fits in a finite interval  and the extremes have a well-defined meaning, this is
a really great UI to q-values. 

Say, I install SVG, and I want my setup to reflect that I prefer SVG to a
representation of the same thing in PNG, I would use this ruler to set SVG with
q=1 and PNG to 0.9, yeah and GIF to 0.01.

Yeah, I've seen image/gif;q=0.2 by default, which is cool, but this is the kind
of power I'd like each individual user to have. 

Finally, I'd like to point out that the absence of *;q=0.001 is still a pain for
those of us who would like to use language negotation with minimum effort. I
still think it is a Bad[tm] decision not to include this by default, and I think
most people using this feature would agree.

Comment 1

[Christopher Hoess (gone)]

over to Networking, as bug description is not limited to Accept-Language.

Comment 2

[Darin Fisher]

please don't assign a UI bug to the networking component. that just doesn't make
sense.  i can help explain what q values are for, but i'm not the right guy to
be hacking on browser UI.

back to intl

Comment 3

[Simon Montagu :smontagu]

cc-ing some folks who were involved in this issue before. Personally I don't
think that this belongs in the default UI, but it is worth considering as an
extension.