1446325 - Stop inserting the default smart bookmarks into new profiles

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, enhancement, P2)

Description

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

We have 2 smart bookmarks at the moment:

1. "most visited" in the bookmarks toolbar. The toolbar is hidden by default so likely most users won't ever see this. Additionally we could make the Address Bar empty popup pretty much replace this functionality by fixing bug 1376911. In practice the empty search dropdown currently only returns "typed" urls, but our typed definition is very wrong. We could make it just return top frecency pages.

2. "Recent Tags" in the bookmarks menu. The Tagging UI in general needs a redesign, it's unclear if knowing which tags one added recently has value, and if we'd really want it, we could add this query as a static item in the bookmarks menu.

Clearly we'd stop creating these bookmarks in new profiles, but we'd not remove them from existing ones.

The downsides are mostly related to code complexity and perf: on every startup we  check if we should update these smart bookmarks, on bookmarks restore we must figure out if we should also recreate them or not, Policies must have a rule to exclude them and Sync must check to not dupe them by mistake.
It's a lot of complexity for barely useful things.

Bryan, do you oversee any problems with my thinking?

Comment 1

[Mike de Boer [:mikedeboer]]

After talking about this with Marco during our 1:1, I think it'd be fine to:

 1. Remove the 'Recent Tags' smart folder, considering its ultra-low value,
 2. Turn the 'Most Visited' smart folder into a static query that is run when the folder is opened.

I'm looping in :verdi as well, because he may want to make the call here.

Comment 2

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

(In reply to Mike de Boer [:mikedeboer] (Back! Processing backlog...) from comment #1)
>  2. Turn the 'Most Visited' smart folder into a static query that is run
> when the folder is opened.

Which folder are we speaking about?
My suggestions was to remove Most visited, and fix bug 1376911 so that the empty Address Bar panel becomes a good replacement for it.
There is still a pending problem though, that is by removing most visited the toolbar will be empty and may look awkward, so we probably should have some placeholder text on it.

Comment 3

[BelFox]

Hi, just want to give some feedback:

- Existing profiles have a third smart bookmark "Recently created bookmarks". Seems useful to keep this.
- I've been using FF for 12 years now, and while bookmark tags are a very useful and unique FF feature that I've been using extensively, I have never used the "Recent Tags" folder. Tag suggestions in the "Create Bookmark" panel are sufficient. I concur this smart bookmark is ultra-low value and can be removed.
- "Most visited" however can be useful for users who chose to display a blank New Tab Page or chose to hide the Top Sites section (because they prefer a subtle folder over "in your face" Top Sites, for privacy reasons). Also, some of them may be using custom smart bookmarks (see https://support.mozilla.org/nl/questions/1136252#answer-910157). It'd be sad to see yet another long-time FF feature disappear to (over?)simplify things or for some minor performance improvements. My suggestion: keep these smart bookmarks, but as they are static queries and no real bookmarks, exclude them from Sync. This will unblock bug 1309930 while maintaining this functionality.

Comment 4

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

(In reply to Ruben from comment #3)

> - Existing profiles have a third smart bookmark "Recently created
> bookmarks". Seems useful to keep this.

We don't remove old smart bookmarks anyway. That one in particular has been deprecated long time ago from new profiles, we didn't remove it from old profiles.

> - "Most visited" however can be useful for users who chose to display a
> blank New Tab Page or chose to hide the Top Sites section (because they
> prefer a subtle folder over "in your face" Top Sites, for privacy reasons).

Yes, that's why I'm suggesting to basically move this functionality to the empty Address Bar popup.

> Also, some of them may be using custom smart bookmarks (see
> https://support.mozilla.org/nl/questions/1136252#answer-910157).

We don't plan to remove the functionality, only the default instances of it.

Thank you for the feedback.

Comment 5

[BelFox]

(In reply to Marco Bonardo [::mak] from comment #4)

> Yes, that's why I'm suggesting to basically move this functionality to the
> empty Address Bar popup.
My point was that even new users could arguably benefit from a "Most Visited" folder of some sort. 
Fixing bug 1376911 is fine, but only works as a temporary replacement (that is, until the address bar is no longer empty)?

> We don't plan to remove the functionality, only the default instances of it.
Glad to hear that. But without any default instances, new users will not know this concept and its possibilities.
Maybe the SUMO documentation should provide power users with a quick guide (https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/2i4qcy/smart_bookmarks_a_quick_guide/) on how to use them, unless you actually want to phase out this functionality?
I don't want to exaggerate the importance of this feature though!

Comment 6

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

a WebExtension can be made to build place queries easily, much better than what we have now.

Comment 7

[BelFox]

(In reply to Marco Bonardo [::mak] from comment #6)
> a WebExtension can be made to build place queries easily, much better than
> what we have now.

Fair enough. Thanks for your response.

Comment 8

[Verdi [:verdi] Best to slack me]

We can remove both the Most Visited and Recent Tags smart bookmarks for new profiles. They offer limited utility and are available in other ways.

(In reply to Marco Bonardo [::mak] from comment #2)
> There is still a pending problem though, that is by removing most visited
> the toolbar will be empty and may look awkward, so we probably should have
> some placeholder text on it.

I think we're ok here - new profiles also have the "Getting Started" bookmark in the toolbar so it won't be completely empty. 

(In reply to Marco Bonardo [::mak] from comment #2)
> My suggestions was to remove Most visited, and fix bug 1376911 so that the
> empty Address Bar panel becomes a good replacement for it.

If we do that, I'd prefer we do something like https://mozilla.invisionapp.com/share/95IXV3LUFM7#/screens/297802259_Topsitesonclick but I don't think it's required for removing these smart bookmarks (not that you said it was - just noting it).

Comment 9

[Phabricator Automation]

Attachment: Bug 1446325 - Stop inserting the default smart bookmarks into new profiles.

MozReview-Commit-ID: AGQaw1rgukO

Comment 10

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Try push is here:

https://treeherder.mozilla.org/#/jobs?repo=try&revision=7fd815c59bb424bbda6c104fbfb5037cf97cc239

Comment 11

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Lina, I *think* I've covered all the sensible removals in sync.

However, it might be worth someone from the sync team doing a follow up to see if the sync item types "query" and "bookmark" can be merged or not. I'm not 100% sure, it seemed like the services/sync code could possibly be tidied up more, but maybe not the toolkit/components/places code.

Comment 12

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Oh, I should have also said, this depends on bug 1467996 which is on autoland.

Comment 13

[Phabricator Automation]

Comment on attachment 8987862 [details]
Bug 1446325 - Stop inserting the default smart bookmarks into new profiles.

Lina Cambridge (she/her) [:lina, :kitcambridge] has approved the revision.

https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D1831

Comment 14

[Phabricator Automation]

Comment on attachment 8987862 [details]
Bug 1446325 - Stop inserting the default smart bookmarks into new profiles.

Marco Bonardo [::mak] has approved the revision.

https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D1831

Comment 15

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/bace7eb6b60e
Stop inserting the default smart bookmarks into new profiles. r=mak,lina

Comment 16

[Arthur Iakab [arthur_iakab]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/bace7eb6b60e

Comment 17

[keeganwitt]

Could we update this doc page (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/restore-default-smart-bookmarks-folders) for those that want to add these back? The steps described there no longer seem to work.