1417735 - about:preferences and new tab preferences are disjoint

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1417155

(Firefox :: Settings UI, defect, P5)

Description

[Martin Thomson [:mt:]]

about:preferences does not show the new tab preferences.  There is a nice section on tab-related preferences, which could at a minimum, provide a some sort of link to the preferences for the new tab page.

Comment 1

[Jared Wein [:jaws] (please needinfo? me)]

I'm pretty sure this is going to get closed as wontfix because if we were to include preferences for each specific feature within about:preferences then the page will start to grow unbounded.

Tina/Markus, what do you think about this from a preferences/activity-stream viewpoint?

Comment 2

[Mark Nottingham]

Just to give some context -- as a user, I wanted to control what was on the new tab page, and went to preferences as the place to configure it.

Preferences already contains "When Firefox Starts" and "Home Page", but not any configuration for what to do for a new tab -- which is conceptually very similar. Having that preference in a different place with no reference is very confusing.

Comment 3

[Markus Jaritz [:markus] (UX)]

(In reply to Martin Thomson [:mt:] from comment #0)
> about:preferences does not show the new tab preferences.  There is a nice
> section on tab-related preferences, which could at a minimum, provide a some
> sort of link to the preferences for the new tab page.

Thanks for filing this. I can understand how this might happen. 
We observe a similar behavior for people try to change extensions and end up going to preferences.

(In reply to Jared Wein [:jaws] (please needinfo? me) from comment #1)
> I'm pretty sure this is going to get closed as wontfix because if we were to
> include preferences for each specific feature within about:preferences then
> the page will start to grow unbounded.
> 
> Tina/Markus, what do you think about this from a preferences/activity-stream
> viewpoint?

UX has been talking about gathering all options to customize ones Firefox in one place.
In this context, this is something worth considering. Aaron, what's your thoughts on that?

(I think edit might still make sense in context, but the rest could link to a section in pref.)

Comment 4

[Tina Hsieh[:Tina_Hsieh] UX]

I can see the value of having the new tab preferences in context. It's very straightforward to see the adjustments immediately when users are making changes. I wouldn't suggest moving the entire new tab preferences to about:preferences. A link add to about:preferences may work, but that's based on the assumption that people couldn't spot the settings icon right in the corner of the new tab page. 

It's a nice-to-have feature for me. Agree with Jared that we can make it as a wontfix.

Comment 5

[Tina Hsieh[:Tina_Hsieh] UX]

Sorry for wrong status! I'll change it back now.

Comment 6

[Aaron Benson]

I agree with Tina that modifying content (adding rows, moving sections, hiding sections, etc) is better done to the *actual* content and not in an abstract representation somewhere else. Which is to say, there should be customization controls on New Tab for content and then settings within Preferences that clearly explain how to set a custom homepage. I'll explore making some linkages between the two so that many paths can lead to the right place.

I'm working on this as part of our post-Quantum work and hope to have some mockups to share in here shortly, so I'll keep this as NI from me. :)