158543 - Redesign bookmarks menu items.

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 160461

(SeaMonkey :: Bookmarks & History, defect)

Description

[Jason Bassford]

From Bugzilla Helper:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.1b) Gecko/20020719
BuildID:    2002071911

The idea for this bug was brought up in bug 156121 comment 2.

It encompasses two different changes, but cannot be filed as two separate bugs
since making one of the changes without the other would make no sense:

1. Remove both "Bookmark This Page" and "Bookmark This Group of Tabs..."

2. Rename "File Bookmark..." to "Bookmark Web Page(s)..."

This would result in: 

Bookmarks
 Bookmark Web Page(s)...
 Manage Bookmarks

I feel that both "Bookmark This Page" and "Bookmark This Group of Tabs..." are
covered by the currently named "File Bookmark..." and there's no real reason for
the redundancy.  Simplifying is always better.  This would also, incidentally,
address bug 149625 and bug 135417.  (The context menu item would be replaced by
"Bookmark Web Page(s)" too.)

Secondly, "File Bookmark..." should be renamed to something that makes more
sense to the lay person - such as "Bookmark Web Page(s)..."  When I first saw
"File Bookmark..." appear in the UI I wasn't QUITE sure what it meant (although
I could make a good guess and my assumptions were borne out when I clicked on it
to investigate).  If I wasn't quite sure what it meant, I find it hard to
believe that a non-technical person would have a better time of it.  ("File the
bookmark where?  How is that different from just bookmarking it?")

I don't think that we need to have 3 different menu items that can all be
accomplished by just one.

Comment 1

[Shark Daddy (Jonathan L.)]

I agree with this completely, but the reason for Add and File is supposedly for
the type of person who doesn't organize their bookmarks (at least not at the
same time they bookmark them), or use bookmarks a lot.

Comment 2

[Jason Bassford]

It's only an extra mouse-click to do the same thing with "File".  Do enough
people really file so many unorganized bookmarks that they need a function with
one less click?  (It's two clicks to add a bookmark via "Bookmark", three to get
to "File".)

Comment 3

[Jason Bassford]

Also note that you *can* get a bookmark added to your list with the same 2
clicks as Bookmarks -> Add Bookmark by simply bypassing the menu and clicking on
the proxy icon to the left of the URL and then clicking OK.  So even if Add
Bookmark is removed there's still a way of doing what it did.

Comment 4

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

*** Bug 160625 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 5

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

<biesi> mpt: ok, so I should do this: 1) remove "Bookmark this page" and "..this
group of tabs" and 2) rename File Bookmark to Add Bookmark..., right?
<mpt> biesi: Correct.

taking bug

Comment 6

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

History lesson: Originally there was one bookmark-addition menu item, and a 
`Bookmarks' prefs panel containing largely useless stuff, including a checkbox 
to specify whether that menu item should show a dialog. In bug 68654, Ben 
Goodger implemented a suggestion of mine to split the menu item into `Add 
Bookmark' and `Add Bookmark As...', the latter becoming `File Bookmark...' in 
bug 77400. (The prefs panel was removed circa bug 81220.)

To be honest, I don't know what I was thinking in bug 68654. Apparently I was 
under the impression that people often want to add bookmarks in a hurry, when 
that seems ludicrous now. In my defence, I was very, very young at the time ...

Comment 7

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

> Apparently I was under the impression that people often want to add bookmarks
> in a hurry

They do, although tab group bookmarks do the trick for me atm. (The major reason
for me using Add Bookmarks back then was that I had 30 yet-to-be-read windows
open and had to quit the app for some reason. Now I use tabs most of the time.)

Encouraging users to file bookmarks in folders and to rename the titles is a
good thing I supposed. I'm only concerned that we might overlook an important
use of Add Bookmark (given that the menu item is do old and prominent).

Comment 8

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

I'll not get to this until after 1.1 is branched and my other patches affecting
the necessary files are checked in. Also, I'll be on vacation from monday
through saturday, so don't expect me to work on this during the next week.

Comment 9

[Pierre Chanial]

a patch in bug 160461 is just waiting for the tree to open.
It does not remove the 'bookmark this group of page' menuitem, thought.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 160461 ***

Comment 10

[Jason Bassford]

> It does not remove the 'bookmark this group of page' menuitem, thought.

Then it's not a complete duplicate, and, once bug 160461 fixed, this bug can be
morphed to address the remaining issue of also removing "Bookmark This Group of
Tabs..." which is part of this bug's statement.

Reopening.

Comment 11

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

I have learned that UI patches are not wanted in this project. reassigning to
default owner.

Comment 12

[Olivier Cahagne]

*** Bug 180565 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 13

[Craig]

As Bug 180565 is not purely a duplicate of this bug, would anyone looking into
fixing this please read that bug too.

Comment 14

[Felix Miata]

I almost filed a new bug entitled 'Remove "file bookmark" from bookmarks menu,
replacing "bookmark this page" behavior with current "file bookmark" behavior',
but this was the last in my search list and seems to be the same thing. This is
what I had written in the file new bug form:

'"file bookmark" has no obvious meaning to average users, most of which have
used IE prior to Mozilla. IE's excellent add favorite behavior is similar to
Mozilla's "file bookmark" behavior, which should be Mozilla's default, if not
its only non-tabs bookmark creation behavior, since it presents the user with
both a reminder of the proposed result of the action, and an opportunity to
modify the proposed result, to make it something more meaningful than "search
results", "untitled", or "welcome to ...". '

In bug 47599, Blake Ross wrote: "Great.  Now adding a bookmark, something you'll
probably want to do often, has become a two-step process."

I think the two step process is preferable, deciding you want a bookmark first,
then verifying the sensibility of the proposed bookmark prior to its actual
creation only after an opportunity to validate its sanity is presented for edit.
See bug 180611 for the discussion that prompted my interest in this subject.

Comment 15

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

Mass reassign of my non-Firefox bugs to [e-mail]

Comment 16

[Peter Weilbacher]

The subject of this is more general, but it really wants the same as bug 160461
and that one already has a patch (although old). Duping to that one.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 160461 ***