1412263 - Provide preference to change/set default folder for saving bookmarks

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Eirin]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; rv:58.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/58.0
Build ID: 20171022220103

Steps to reproduce:

I updated the FF 58 Nightly build from the Oct 23rd, 2017 release to the new version from the 24th and/or higher. I thought this was a mistake, but it is still broken.


Actual results:

The default bookmark location is overwritten to "Other bookmarks" a sub folder which is hard to access and forces me to change the folder I want to save to manually every single time, ruining the usability by adding a unecessary extra clicks.


Expected results:

Leave the default bookmark location as "Bookmark menu" as it always has been or implement an about:config preference or setting that allows me to change the default bookmark location to any folder I please.

Comment 1

[Virtual_ManPL [:Virtual] 🇵🇱 - (please needinfo? me - so I will see your comment/reply/question/etc.)]

It was done due to standardization of default output folder for adding bookmarks by various methods.

If it's too hard for you to access now, you may want to try to use "Bookmarks Mane" button, instead of "Library" button. You could also use Bookmarks Sidebar.

Comment 2

[Eirin]

Okay I understand, it was broken not to have to deal with adding a setting so the user can decide herself. And please do _not_ assume that it is "too hard" for me to do configure things.

Are you seriously suggesting me I need to install more extensions because a feature that worked for 13 years was broken? I use FF since 2004 and usually people here can be reasoned with, I am asking for some common sense. The "Other Bookmarks" folder always has been a nuisance.

This feels more like involuntarily coercing the user into using it. I can create my own "temp" folder, I don't need Mozilla to do it and I don't want to be forced to do so. I want to talk to a different Mozilla dev and this needs to be re-opened.

Comment 3

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

The change has just unified keyboard and mouse actions, because it didn't make much sense to have the same op act differently based on how you execute it.
This change will allow more easily to change the default folder through a pref. Though, that bug doesn't exist, so maybe we could convert this one to cover that.

Comment 4

[Virtual_ManPL [:Virtual] 🇵🇱 - (please needinfo? me - so I will see your comment/reply/question/etc.)]

(In reply to Eirin from comment #2)
> Okay I understand, it was broken not to have to deal with adding a setting
> so the user can decide herself.
Preference for this unfortunately doesn't exist, yet.


(In reply to Eirin from comment #2)
> And please do _not_ assume that it is "too
> hard" for me to do configure things.
I never assumed this, that it's too hard for you to configure things.
I simply wrote reply with some easy "workarounds":
> (Virtual_ManPL [:Virtual] wrote in comment #1)
> If it's too hard for you to access now, you may want to try to use
> "Bookmarks Mane" button, instead of "Library" button. You could also use
> Bookmarks Sidebar.
to your statment
> (Eirin wrote in comment #0)
> [...]> The default bookmark location is overwritten to "Other bookmarks"
> a sub folder which is hard to access [..]


(In reply to Eirin from comment #2)
> Are you seriously suggesting me I need to install more extensions
I never suggest that.


(In reply to Eirin from comment #2)
> because a feature that worked for 13 years was broken?
Why change was made was explained in Comment 1 & Comment 3


(In reply to Eirin from comment #2)
> I use FF since 2004 and usually
> people here can be reasoned with, I am asking for some common sense. The
> "Other Bookmarks" folder always has been a nuisance.
This will be probably dealt with bug #1382532.


(In reply to Marco Bonardo [::mak] from comment #3)
> [...] This change will allow more easily to change the default folder through a
> pref. Though, that bug doesn't exist, so maybe we could convert this one to
> cover that.

Good idea.

Comment 6

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

Note, since now the code paths are unified, we keep this open. Bug 423617 is the old bug requesting this, and at that time the added complication didn't make sense, plus we had add-ons who could do whatever they wish.
This will stay open and available to the community to implement.

Comment 12

[sayonalion]

Do you guys understand what the word “default” mean? This means, when I do nothing, the thing should be applied. But, if I does something — the (default) thing should be changed. So, if I change the save folder in the “Edit this bookmark” dropdown, the default value should get out of the way. That's how the thing should work and there's no need any preferences for this.

Comment 14

[Thane K. Sherrington]

I understand that this may seem like a really small issue to devs and "power" users but to my end users, it's very confusing, and I have a lot of them say "Firefox is too hard, the bookmarks don't work". Apparently Chrome/IE/Edge don't do this (just tested Edge and it puts it in the main bookmarks list by default).

I really think that removing unnecessary friction for end users would help increase the Firefox userbase which I think is a good thing.

If this is something that isn't the end of the world to fix (I've no idea what the code looks like) then it would be wonderful if it could be prioritized.

Thanks,

Thane

Comment 15

[Mathew Hodson]

Can this be closed now that bug 1432604 is fixed? At least this should probably depend on bug 1432604 rather than block it.

Comment 16

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

The changes in bug 1432604 allow the default destination to follow the last used folder, but it's not possible to disable such behavior, so that the default folder is always the same. I asked that question to the team and they'll evaluate based on feedback.
So this is still partially valid in the sense now there is a pref, but it's not possible to make it static.

I agree with inverting the dependencies.

Comment 17

[Ankush Dua]

Hi, Is someone working on this bug? If not may I contribute to this patch?

Thank you!...

(Just read the heated convo for this design decision and Understandable if this need more thinking about). :-)

Comment 18

[Virtual_ManPL [:Virtual] 🇵🇱 - (please needinfo? me - so I will see your comment/reply/question/etc.)]

Good day. Sure thing! I'm redirecting needinfo to more knowledge and proper persons, so they will guide you.

Comment 19

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

The bug is not yet actionable, because a decision was not achieved yet. The team working on 2020H2 bookmarks improvements wanted to complete collecting users feedback and telemetry before evaluating further steps. Thus, while I'm in favor of this change, we should at least wait the end of that project.

Fwiw, there is already browser.bookmarks.defaultLocation, but that is updated to the last used folder as a consequence of bug 1432604. So the work here would pretty much introduce a pref to disable the behavior from bug 1432604 (don't remember the last used folder).

Comment 21

[Patrick Wigmore]

One way to integrate a "don't remember the last used folder" preference into the UI would be to have a checkbox labelled something like "Use this folder next time"; checked by default; located in the bookmark editor (the one that pops up from the bookmark creation star icon).

I think this would have to be accompanied by a change of behaviour, so that the folder is considered to be "used" if it gets selected in the editor UI, rather than waiting for a bookmark to be saved into it. Otherwise it could get rather confusing.

Then, if the checkbox is unchecked, the next time the editor shows, it defaults to a specific location (e.g. Other Bookmarks) and the box remains unchecked until manually checked again.

This was not an immediately obvious idea to me, so I thought I'd put on the table in case this preference gets implemented. There may very well be better ways, of course.

Comment 26

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Restricting comments as this bug appears to be attracting spam.