1282231 - Oddities in WHAT's NEW (Release Notes) - no longer "new", can't see upcoming

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Menus, defect)

Description

[Dan Pernokis]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:47.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/47.0
Build ID: 20160604131506

Steps to reproduce:

Under HELP, click "About".



Actual results:

ABOUT shows current version, plus a link to "What's New".

(i) If the current version was installed awhile ago, then the info is no longer "new".

(ii) If a new version is imminent (update pending), then there is no way to see what is new in the release about to be installed.

(iii) If a new version is imminent *AND* FF is configured for automatic updates, then the update starts automatically without allowing the option of seeing what's coming in the new release.  (Maybe we don't want it just yet...)


Expected results:

Case (i):  Current version should read "Release Notes", which is more truthful.  (There appears to be plenty of room in the current location beside version number).  Link to current release notes (as now).

Case (ii):  Add "What's New" to the UPDATE panel and link to release notes for the new release about to be installed.

Case (iii):  Add "Release Notes" to HELP menu so someone can get release info from there too.  This could be a sub-menu with two choices:  "Current Release" which would like to current release notes (as now), and "What's New" which (if possible/if practical) would resolve to the next release.

Comment 1

[Dan Pernokis]

This bug is a carry-forward from BUG 1047395 -- see my comments (specifically #16 and #28) and suggestion from Sylvestre to move the discussion here (#29).


The gist of my suggestion in #16 is this:

As for location:
(1)  HELP is a good (standard) place for it:  TB puts it there, ABOUT is there (Windows standard, I believe), it is actually help-type info, etc.
(2)  Great idea to have it on the ABOUT/UPDATE window too, as per John's Comment #8 about point of need.  But it would be needed on both the ABOUT to check current release ("Release Notes") and on the UPDATE panel to check the imminent new version ("What's New").
(3)  Could easily be done in all three locations -- that puts it where expected (under HELP, as usual) and on ABOUT panel ("curious for more since I'm here"), and on UPDATE panel (where needed, "I'm about to do an update - what's new?").

The downside of using the ABOUT/UPDATE area is this:  My updates are manual -- I check for update available, then trigger it if I want to do it.  But I recall changing an option which was the default when installed -- the update is automatic as soon as you check for updates.  So someone just checking current version would automatically jump into (trigger) an update without getting the chance to check current OR new version info.  (As a web developer, I use Google Chrome quite often too -- and it does not even allow checking version number without automatically forcing an update -- don't like this at all.)

Comment 2

[Sylvestre Ledru [:Sylvestre]]

> Case (i):  Current version should read "Release Notes", which is more
> truthful.  (There appears to be plenty of room in the current location
> beside version number).  Link to current release notes (as now).
This was a request from UX
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1047395#c13
But more information here:
* For Thunderbird, we used "Releases notes"
* The French translator decided to write "Notes de version" (French for release notes) instead of "Quoi de neuf?"

Philipp, what do you think?

> Case (ii):  Add "What's New" to the UPDATE panel and link to release notes
> for the new release about to be installed.
This is a different request. You should open a new bug for this (but not sure it is going to be easy to implement that).

> Case (iii):  Add "Release Notes" to HELP menu so someone can get release
> info from there too.  This could be a sub-menu with two choices:  "Current
> Release" which would like to current release notes (as now), and "What's
> New" which (if possible/if practical) would resolve to the next release.
This has been removed in bug 607234. Not sure we want to bring it back...

Comment 3

[Sylvestre Ledru [:Sylvestre]]

Or Stephen have a better idea

Comment 4

[Dan Pernokis]

Case (i):  This is a semantic point.  Regardless of language translation, the notes are "current" (ie- no longer "new") shortly after installation.  The term "Release Notes" is fairly universal as a description for this kind of documentation.

Case (ii):  This is looking at what's coming -- what is truly new, and contextually should be at the point of update.  Yes, I guess the difficulty is resolving with the current installation where the new notes would be.  But this isn't any more difficult than finding the new update itself -- a generic URL that would resolve to the new one.  (See Thunderbird "Release Notes" under HELP -- they provide a generic URL that resolves to the proper notes and the process works quite well -- except when somebody forgets to define the correct forwarding  URL. :)

Case (iii):  It would be handy to have both under HELP, but I can live without.

Comment 5

[(Currently slow to respond) Philipp Sackl [:phlsa] (Firefox UX) please use needinfo]

Forwarding this to Michelle, since it is really a content issue...

Comment 6

[mheubusch]

I think it's ok to use What's New with the link to the release notes.  I agree that there is a semantic difference between what's current and what's new, but think that What's New is a friendly invitation to explore our now more plainly written notes.  I don't think it's worth overthinking this or changing it at this point.

Comment 7

[Sylvestre Ledru [:Sylvestre]]

OK, let's wontfix it then.

Comment 8

[Dan Pernokis]

Well, we still can't see what is upcoming in an about-to-be installed release -- which is the other part of this bug report.  Maybe I don't want it just yet (for various reasons).

Comment 9

[Sylvestre Ledru [:Sylvestre]]

One bug = one issue, don't hesitate to open a second one!