1686523 - Hide the home button by default

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: Toolbars and Customization, enhancement)

Description

[Mark Striemer [:mstriemer]]

If the user's homepage is set to Firefox Home, and the home button hasn't been used recently, it should be removed from the toolbar. It should still be possible to manually add the home button back, and have it stay on the toolbar.

Comment 1

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

The prefs for determining if the items have been used recently: https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/07342ce09126c513540c1c343476e026cfa907bf/browser/app/profile/firefox.js#2059-2062

Comment 2

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

The traditional way of doing this is:

1. Removing the item from the default toolbar set here: https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/c03e8de87cdb0ce0378c0886d3c0ce8bbf9dc44e/browser/components/customizableui/CustomizableUI.jsm#244-254
2. Add a migration to put the toolbar back for users that have used the button before in here: https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/c03e8de87cdb0ce0378c0886d3c0ce8bbf9dc44e/browser/components/customizableui/CustomizableUI.jsm#244-254
3. In that same migration, remove the item for users that have customized their toolbars but never used the item

The problem here is timing. You can think of a UI migration almost like a database migration, except we're writing to the toolbar customization pref rather than a database. Yes, it's reversible, but the reversing requires additional logic, and it's all very state dependant.

I think the simplest thing to do is make the migration one-way, and if people test Proton, and then disable the pref, make sure they're aware that the things that were removed are in the customization palette. The less simple thing to do would be to somehow realize that Proton had been flipped on, and then flipped off, and put everything back. I suspect that this is more trouble than it's worth.

Comment 3

[Emma Malysz]

Attachment: Bug 1686523, remove home button if proton is enabled and the button hasn't been used

Comment 4

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/2cd494905b89
remove home button if proton is enabled and the button hasn't been used r=mstriemer,mconley

Comment 5

[Bogdan Tara[:bogdan_tara | bogdant]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/2cd494905b89

Comment 6

[Catalin Sasca, Desktop Test Engineering [:csasca]]

Verified that the Home button is hidden by default. Tests were performed on Firefox 88.0b3 and Nightly 89.0a1 (2021-03-25) under Windows 10, macOS 10.15.7 and Ubuntu 20.04

Comment 7

[Bernd Schmidt]

I recently upgraded from Firefox 78.14.0esr to 91.8.0esr from Debian Unstable Repository. The Home Button disappeared without notice. Is that really the intended behaviour?

Comment 8

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Yes, this is expected behaviour.

Comment 9

[Bernd Schmidt]

Sorry, but why? Why would you remove a core button without notice, confusing users unnecessarily? Not everyone readily knows how to get it back. As a user I expect that the buttons stay as they are and not suddenly disappear for no apparent reason.

Comment 10

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Our telemetry indicates that most people actually don't engage with the Home button, so we removed it from the defaults. It can be returned to your toolbar by going to the App Menu > More Tools > Customize Toolbar, and dragging it back into your toolbar.

This was done back in Firefox 88. For users that are not on ESR, we did our best to maintain continuity by keeping the Home button in the toolbar if they had used it from versions Firefox 85 and onwards. I'm afraid that didn't account for ESR builds which (as you know) span a much much wider set of versions between upgrades.