414330 - Loading live bookmarks *while* reading them is confusing

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, enhancement)

Description

[Yaakov Belch]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9b2) Gecko/2007121016 Firefox/3.0b2
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9b2) Gecko/2007121016 Firefox/3.0b2

It seems to me that Firefox starts loading live bookmarks when I look at them.

Technically, this makes sense as it implies that live bookmarks that are never read are not loaded.

But from an usability point of view, this can be very confusing: I scan the list from the top for interesting items ---- and just while I am reading, the list changes and I have to start reading from the top again.

Note: This is only a problem for live bookmarks that are opened by clicking on them.  If the list is constantly open in the side bar, the change most likely happens when I am actually not scanning the list.



Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Probably you have to wait for some time until the RSS feed changes.
2. Click on a live bookmark and start reading the headlines...

Actual Results:  
1. Right in the middle of reading the bookmarks, the list changes
2. I get unhappy that this "is just not right".

Expected Results:  
I should be happy with Firefox!

===== Until here, this is just a complaint.   How can this work better?

Honestly, I don't have a perfect solution.  But here are some alternatives:

(A) Load live bookmarks *before* showing the list.
(B) Load live bookmarks *while* showing the list (this is the current solution).
(C) Load live bookmarks *after* showing the list.
(D) Load live bookmarks regularly in the *background*.
(E) Load live bookmarks in the background when the browser is started.
(X) Choose options (A-E) according to frequency of bookmark display and fetching speed.
(Y) Allow the user to select options (A-E), possibly combining them.

Notes: 
(C) can be optimized like this: load bookmarks *while* reading the list but update the list only when it is closed.

(D) and (E) can be combined with the other options.

Each option has its own disadvantages:
(A) If loading is noticeably slow, this is the worst option: You want to read but have to wait.  But if the feed can be loaded quickly, this option is the best: You get up-to-date data without any changes.
(B) This is a reasonable solution.  Just almost every time I look at the live bookmark, I get unhappy...
(C) This is good if you don't mind slightly out-of date information.
(D/E): These options consume additional bandwidth. These options reduce the problems of (B/C): They reduce the likelihood of out-of-date information (C) or update-while-you-read.

Note: If I could choose the setting on my browser, I would choose (C) and (E).

Comment 1

[Yaakov Belch]

This problem seems to have disappeared.

Comment 2

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Bug 451915 - move Firefox/Places bugs to Firefox/Bookmarks and History. Remove all bugspam from this move by filtering for the string "places-to-b-and-h".

In Thunderbird 3.0b, you do that as follows:
Tools | Message Filters
Make sure the correct account is selected. Click "New"
Conditions: Body   contains   places-to-b-and-h
Change the action to "Delete Message".
Select "Manually Run" from the dropdown at the top.
Click OK.

Select the filter in the list, make sure "Inbox" is selected at the bottom, and click "Run Now". This should delete all the bugspam. You can then delete the filter.

Gerv