164945 - Location Bar Autocomplete should work more logically

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 96700

(SeaMonkey :: General, enhancement)

Description

[Christopher M. Casey]

Current Mozilla:
When I enter http://www.ds into the location bar, the autocomplete adds
lreports.com/forums.  The second entry in the list is http://www.dslreports.com,
which is what I believe should be initially selected.

Proposal:
Make autocomplete work more like IE, or BASH in linux.  When I type in
http://www.ds, autocomplete should fill in lreports.com (or the shortest part
matching that alphabetically, stopping at any "/" character.  Pressing the END
key would then allow me to type an additional "/f" onto the URL, and
autocomplete would add orums.  Then I could add an "/e" and autocomplete should
list all matches of that, and fill in the shortest one.

Basically, son't autocomplete an entire URL string at first, autocomplete the
domain name only, then start by autocompleting directory by directory, like IE
does.  Even just listing the shorted versions would be better (so if i go to
http://www.dslreports.com/forums/earthlink/comments.cgi?blahblah only, and never
have been to www.dslreports.com main site, whne I type in http://ds in the bar,
http://www.dslreports.com, http://www.dslreports.com/forums,
http://www.dslreports.com/forums/earthlink, and
http://www.dslreports.com/forums/earthlink/comments.cgi?blahblah would be in the
autocomplete list.

Thanks.

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

to url bar.

Comment 2

[Jo Hermans]

Reporter, does bug 109758 do what you want ? When you press tab, it will
autocomplete up to the longest substring, not the first one in the list
(whatever the sorting order is, see bug 140404).

Comment 3

[Christopher M. Casey]

No, that bug does not do what I'd like.  Instead of displaying an entire URL
(http://www.dslreports.com/forums/earthlink/comments.cgi?blahblah, if thats the
only file I have ever veiwed on DSLreports.com) with autocomplete if i type
"http://www.ds", I think it should first complete lreports.com, or at least make
that a choice.  As it is currently, if autocomplete it turned on, i have to type
http://www.dslreports.com, then hit DEL to delete the rest of the text that
autocomplete puts in for me.

Do I need to find a better way to explain what I think the behavior should be?

Comment 4

[mhardy]

I agree the functionality of autocomplete should be modified to the description
in the original post. Initially, autocomplete should only fill in the typed
parts of a URL, not the complete address to a file. Say, I type in "www.trill"
it should add "ian.cc" to complete the domain "www.trillian.cc" rather then
"www.trillian.cc/forum/showthread.php". But if "www.trillian.cc" was never
visited, but "www.trillian.cc/forums" was, then that should be the suggested
URL, rather then "www.trillian.cc" or "www.trillian.cc/forum/showthread.php".

Comment 5

[Ruurd Koons]

Agree on #4.
Additionally I think it should have a delay before completing (like NS4.8) so in 
case it remembers www.trillian.cc/forums/ I can chop off the forums/ part 
without autocomplete immediately completing it again.  This would allow me to 
select the forums/ part replace it by / and press enter to go to the main site 
without being annoyed by the autocomplete thing.

Comment 6

[snebeling]

Isn't this a duplicate of bug 96700?

Comment 7

[OstGote!]

Feel free to reopen if you disagree.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 96700 ***