158446 - Pref UI: Remove "Enable Internet Keywords"

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(SeaMonkey :: UI Design, defect)

Description

[Blake Ross]

We currently allow the user to turn off Internet Keywords from the Navigator >
Smart Browsing pref panel.  This appears to also turn off searching from the url
bar.  This pref is useless, because if you turn it off and enter a
space-separated phrase in the urlbar, you just get an alert saying "The URL is
not valid and cannot be loaded."

We should either:
* remove the pref entirely
* make this pref not control searches, which would give some utility to the pref

The latter might be difficult since I think right now the decision to fallback
to search is made on the server-side (i.e., we just pass phrases to
info.netscape.com and it decides whether it's an Internet keyword or a search
phrase).  Since the pref is useless in its current form, I say let's remove it.

Comment 1

[Blake Ross]

*** Bug 158445 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 2

[Kari Hurtta]

Well, If I make typo or paste wrong content to URL bar, I do not
want that browser goes to some search page.

Comment 3

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

I disabled this feature because i can search with the dropdown.
BTW: I get a error page :-)

Comment 4

[Jason Bassford]

I've also turned the feature off as it annoys me to no end that I will get a
search page when I've simply made a typo - or I'm trying to have it prepend
"www" and append "com" by putting in just the "name" part of a domain name.

Comment 5

[Kari Hurtta]

Comment to #4: IMHO these adjustements should happen only when user explicity
asks them -- there is Search button on right hand side of URL box.

Comment 6

[Theblueman]

Are you saying remove the feature to allow the searches or allow the searches
but remove the pref?
I like the pref.  I can type "revenue canada" and it takes me to the correct
page and if it can't find the right page it brings up a search result page - all
in one step. The best part is if you don't like the feature it can be turned off. 
With the feature enabled, I tried a non-existent URL and the result was correct
"..URL could not be found".  I wasn't able to duplicate the problem indicated in
comment #2.

Comment 7

[Jesse Ruderman]

Dup of bug 76547 or bug 131648?

Comment 8

[TGOS]

To comment 4:

This is what I most hate about Mozilla. I rarely want to go to www. .com, but to
www. .net, www. .org or www. .<country-domain>. It's completely stupid of
Mozilla to assume that every page is www.  .com

I like to use the keyword feature to run searches. I have configured it to run a
Google search. So whenever I search something, I just enter keywords in the
address bar and hit enter.

Comment 9

[benc]

blake: I think this is a WONTFIX for mozilla. The bug for removing the entire
feature was marked WONTFIX (bugs mentioned in jeese's comment), so I think it is
implied this should be won't fix.

Additionally, it is not mentioned in this bug, but the feature is off by default
in Mozilla.

spamcop: you are talking about "domain guessing". That is an entirely different
feature. When IK is on, Domain Guessing will rarely take effect.

Comment 10

[benc]

I'm going to cash in some cred and mark this wontfix.

This is easily confused with the search features, because the seamonkey UI overloaded the functions. 

This feature is off by default in seamonkey, but some people insist on using it, so they need a way to turn it on.

http://www.mozilla.org/docs/end-user/internet-keywords.html