1364703 - Use a tab for "About Firefox" (maybe the existing "about:")

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: General, enhancement)

Description

[Tobias B. Besemer [:BesTo] (QA)]

Use a tab for "About Firefox" like Google Chrome do it for his "About"-Page.

Comment 1

[Darkspirit]

Me on bug 1325171 comment 16
> unification/quantum: library in a tab (bug 697359) like chromium or the fancy about:preferences do.
> Please evaluate a "everything in a tab or as bubble like the downloads panel" policy as part of Photon's style guide.

Do you think "About Firefox" is still needed since there is about:preferences#advanced ? Couldn't both get combined like chrome://settings/help (Chromium) to have it tidy?
(But I would be sad if that fancy blue Nightly planet would be completely gone.)

Comment 2

[Tobias B. Besemer [:BesTo] (QA)]

(In reply to Darkspirit from comment #1)
> Me on bug 1325171 comment 16
> > unification/quantum: library in a tab (bug 697359) like chromium or the fancy about:preferences do.
> > Please evaluate a "everything in a tab or as bubble like the downloads panel" policy as part of Photon's style guide.
> 
> Do you think "About Firefox" is still needed since there is
> about:preferences#advanced ? Couldn't both get combined like
> chrome://settings/help (Chromium) to have it tidy?
> (But I would be sad if that fancy blue Nightly planet would be completely
> gone.)

Needed to check this first... ;-)
My first thought was "Yes, should be still needed."...
...and my idea was to use "about:about"...
...but "about:about" already exist and there is a page just called "about:"... ;-)
A combination with "about:preferences#advanced" would also work for me...
...but after "about:" already exist... ;-)
Also, make the link to https://www.mozilla.org/credits/ more visible for users and maybe open it in a frame under the normal "About Firefox", will be welcome from my side.

Comment 3

[Tobias B. Besemer [:BesTo] (QA)]

Attachment: "About Firefox"-Dialog from Nightly

Comment 4

[Tobias B. Besemer [:BesTo] (QA)]

(In reply to Darkspirit from comment #1)
> Me on bug 1325171 comment 16
> > unification/quantum: library in a tab (bug 697359) like chromium or the fancy about:preferences do.
> > Please evaluate a "everything in a tab or as bubble like the downloads panel" policy as part of Photon's style guide.

Btw.: Bug 697359 is about the Photon Theme and bug 1346488 is about Photon itself. ;-)

Comment 5

[Tobias B. Besemer [:BesTo] (QA)]

(In reply to Tobias B. Besemer [:BesTo] (QA) from comment #4)
> (In reply to Darkspirit from comment #1)
> > Me on bug 1325171 comment 16
> > > unification/quantum: library in a tab (bug 697359) like chromium or the fancy about:preferences do.
> > > Please evaluate a "everything in a tab or as bubble like the downloads panel" policy as part of Photon's style guide.
> 
> Btw.: Bug 697359 is about the Photon Theme and bug 1346488 is about Photon
> itself. ;-)

Sorry! Bug 1325171 & bug 1346488! ;-)

Comment 6

[Jan Niklas Hasse]

What's the reason for this?

Comment 7

[Tobias B. Besemer [:BesTo] (QA)]

(In reply to Jan Niklas Hasse from comment #6)
> What's the reason for this?

That people think a "all in tabs"-policy like Google Chrome have it would looks better. See e.g. also bug 697359.

Comment 8

[Jan Niklas Hasse]

I can see the benefit for complex stuff like Bookmarks, but not for the about dialog. IMHO having the about dialog as  a window looks much better, as its content size is static (unlike Bookmarks for example).

Comment 9

[Tobias B. Besemer [:BesTo] (QA)]

(In reply to Jan Niklas Hasse from comment #8)
> I can see the benefit for complex stuff like Bookmarks, but not for the
> about dialog.

The about-dialog would be the only window that is still used in/with Firefox. Google Chrome have a "all in tabs"-policy, too. They did the about-dialog in the past with chrome://help/ and now with chrome://settings/help.


> IMHO having the about dialog as  a window looks much better,
> as its content size is static (unlike Bookmarks for example).

IMHO a (static) about-page would looks also great!
IMHO the page under "about:" can just gets improved...

Comment 10

[Darkspirit]

(In reply to Tobias B. Besemer [:BesTo] (QA) from comment #9)
> IMHO the page under "about:" can just gets improved...
Sorry, I missed that. IMHO "about:" should get a rework anyway. I want to withdraw my about:preferences#advanced suggestion.

Comment 11

[Sören Hentzschel]

(In reply to Tobias B. Besemer [:BesTo] (QA) from comment #7)
> (In reply to Jan Niklas Hasse from comment #6)
> > What's the reason for this?
> 
> That people think a "all in tabs"-policy like Google Chrome have it would
> looks better. See e.g. also bug 697359.

That's not a valid reason. Some people think so, some people have another opinion. That's a matter of taste. While I agree that chrome://settings/help/ looks okay that's not reason enough for me to replace the about dialog because the current about dialog also looks okay. So what are the *real* benefits?

Comment 12

[Darkspirit]

(In reply to Sören Hentzschel from comment #11)
> So what are the *real* benefits?

I would think to remove as much XUL as possible (bug 1325169) to get rid of it some day and to tidy up the UI, to remove duplicate content?

Comment 13

[Tobias B. Besemer [:BesTo] (QA)]

(In reply to Sören Hentzschel from comment #11)
> So what are the *real* benefits?

IMHO it would be just "straight forward".
Mozilla started a long time ago to have with tabs for pages all in one window. Doing it now with the last windows too would be straight forward for me. Also I can imagine some benefits for tablet users to have all in one window. What was the reason Google Chrome did it? Looks better and is more modern?

Comment 14

[Jan Niklas Hasse]

> Also I can imagine some benefits for tablet users to have all in one window.

Why is that a benefit?

> What was the reason Google Chrome did it? Looks better and is more modern?

If you're still asking this, it doesn't sound like you know the reason yourself.