169837 - scroll bookmarks but not other menu items in bookmarks menu

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, defect, P4)

Description

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

we should just scroll the bookmarks, leaving the Add bookmarks and Manage
bookmarks menu items visible.

Comment 1

[:deanis74]

possibly related: bug 98119

Comment 2

[Brett Denny]

See also bug 83935 for Mozilla - http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=83935

Comment 3

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

*** Bug 213094 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 4

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

taking QA contact, sorry about the bugspam

Comment 5

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

Attachment: patch

Well, this seems to work for me.

Comment 6

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

nominating since we have a patch. blake or ben, can you look at this?

Comment 7

[Blake Ross]

-> vlad, can you take a look at the patch?

Comment 8

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

p4 priority - not a blocker. if a fully reviewed patch materializes, please
nominate for aviary approval. 

Comment 9

[jayfromtaiwan]

This patch works but it also causes:
1. It's not possible to jump to bookmarks anymore (example, press "M" to jump to
a bookmark named "Mozilla.org"
2. The menu automatically scrolls to the top everytime you open the bookmarks
menu no matter where you left it off the last time

Intended? Or accidental? :-P

Comment 10

[Raanan Barzel]

These are minor inconveniences compared to the initial problem. Better implement
the patch immmediately and look for a better solution later, if at all.

Comment 11

[:deanis74]

(In reply to comment #10)
> These are minor inconveniences compared to the initial problem. Better implement
> the patch immmediately and look for a better solution later, if at all.

No, #1 from comment 9 is not minor.  It's an accessibility issue that should not
be sacrificed for this functionality.

Comment 12

[Raanan Barzel]

(In reply to comment #11)
> (In reply to comment #10)
> > These are minor inconveniences compared to the initial problem. Better implement
> > the patch immmediately and look for a better solution later, if at all.
> 
> No, #1 from comment 9 is not minor.  It's an accessibility issue that should not
> be sacrificed for this functionality.

I have been using Firebird/Firefox for a year and a half now without knowing
that you could access a boolmark this way, and was very happy without it. I
think that 1.0 aims at a much larger population than current users of Firefox,
and that population will not miss what it did not know existed. On the other
hand, the disappearance of the two commands is not a good design and should be
corrected.

The Jump to Bookmark could be reinstated later along with other bugs &
improvements sidelined for 1.0.

 

Comment 13

[jayfromtaiwan]

This patches also makes it not possible to navigate the menu with keyboard

How to reproduce:
1. Download and ubpack my build:
http://pryan.org/firefox/jayfromtaiwan/1.0RC1/JTw-Fx-1_0_RC1-advA(169837).exe ,
which contains the patch
2. Open firefox and try pressing ALT-F 

Actual Result:
- The "File" menu is opened, but the first option "New Window" is not
highlighted, and pressing directional keys doesn't have any effects

Expected Result:
- "New Window" is highlighted and it's possible to navigate the menu using the
keyboard

My guess is this is related to the "vbox" change ... i may be wrong tho

Comment 14

[José Jeria]

*** Bug 272132 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 15

[nrlz]

(In reply to comment #9)
> 1. It's not possible to jump to bookmarks anymore (example, press "M" to jump to
> a bookmark named "Mozilla.org"

The following may not be too helpful, but I experimented with a variation of the
patch by creating a special xbl that extended from "xbl:popup" and moved the
unscrolled elements inside there:

<binding id="bookmarksmenu"
extends="chrome://global/content/bindings/popup.xml#popup">
<content>
  <xul:menuitem key="addBookmarkAsKb" ../>
  <xul:menuitem key="manBookmarkKb" ../>
  <xul:menuseparator/>
  <xul:arrowscrollbox>
    <children/>
  </xul:arrowscrollbox>
  </content>
</binding>

But I received the opposite effect of what you guys experienced. I could jump to
the bookmarks entries with a key, but I could not reach the "Add Bookmark" and
"Manage Bookmark" menuitems with the keyboard. Pressing up/down traversed the
bookmarks only and wrapped around. I could access the add/manage bookmark with
the mouse only.

The reason I tried this particular variation was because I wanted to write an
extension and wanted to avoid using "xul:vbox" which would require fidgeting
with CSS skins (since the xul:vbox broke the CSS hierarchy). Also, "Add
Bookmark" doesn't have an id so I could not override it in an overlay.

> 2. The menu automatically scrolls to the top everytime you open the bookmarks
> menu no matter where you left it off the last time

I think this behavior is related to bug 280399. I'm also experiencing it with my
variation too. The reason I'm not releasing my extension is because the
automatic scrolling is even worse with the changes than without.

Comment 16

[Dimitrios]

Nominating for 1.1 final.

Comment 17

[Majken Connor [:Kensie]]

had someone ask about this in irc today.  Is this being left to Places or did it just fall off the radar?

Comment 18

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

sorry for bugspam, long-overdue mass reassign of ancient QA contact bugs, filter on "beltznerLovesGoats" to get rid of this mass change

Comment 21

[Shawn Wilsher :sdwilsh]

I'm going to WONTFIX this bug.  No system menus every scroll just some of their entries, so this would break a strong platform convention across the board.

Comment 22

[Raanan Barzel]

If this is technically impossible, then too bad. But platform convention by itself is not very convincing as a reason. After all, platforms change, and Firefox could show how to improve them. In fact, Word menus, while not providing this sort of behavior, are dynamic, which is not conforming to any platform convention, and vaguely approach the idea expressed in this "bug".  With conventions alone, there would have been no Internet, nor many other things...

Comment 23

[Shawn Wilsher :sdwilsh]

Martin - please do not reopen bugs that have been WONTFIXed without specifying a reason.  Platform convention is a reason we've WONTFIXed bugs in the past because we want to feel native to users.

Comment 24

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

See https://developer.mozilla.org/en/What_to_do_and_what_not_to_do_in_Bugzilla#Resolving_bugs_as_WONTFIX
Afaik, you're not a module owner or peer for this component.

And fwiw, IE's bookmark menu does scroll part of their entries, so that defeats you argument that no system menu does this.

Comment 25

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

(In reply to comment #21)
> No system menus every scroll just some of their entries, so this would break a
> strong platform convention across the board.

"break strong platform convention" on its own isn't a strong enough argument to reject something outright, since in many cases we defy platform conventions to provide a better user experience. If your argument is actually that the platform awkwardness and/or implementation cost outweighs the functionality win, then that's a different argument entirely, and much more justifiable.

Comment 26

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

I'm pretty sure that it is better to scroll the entire menu, as opposed to just the bookmarks area.  Introducing new behaviors that are not conventions of the platform is good when it makes something significantly easier to use, but in cases where something is mostly the same, or only slightly better, I think the change is a net loss because users have habituated to the platform behavior.

Also, when the user is visually scanning for a particular bookmark, isn't it better to devote more visual area to the list of bookmarks, instead of keeping unrelated commands around in the unlikely event that they want to change their overall goal?

Comment 27

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

IE does this kind of thing, so this is in fact a platform convention on windows at least.

Comment 28

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

Yeah, you're right.  And even if IE hadn't done this, I really am all for completely disregarding the HIG when we want to make a UI better, or specialized for a particular use case.  So platform convention is often only a consideration when there isn't a good reason for something to be different.

But taking the discussion to a higher level, if the user is scanning the menu aren't they looking for a particular bookmark, and if they are looking for a particular bookmark, why keep the other unrelated commands around?

Comment 29

[Majken Connor [:Kensie]]

If the menu starts remembering what bookmark you were scrolled to, then it starts making sense. I don't think this would be an illogical next step. If people save related things in folders, and are going back and forth working on that thing it'd suck to have to keep scrolling to the bottom of the menu.

Otherwise I have to agree, there's currently no use case where someone would want the commands *and* their bookmarks at the same time. I was originally thinking this would be cool, but I totally agree that scrolling the whole menu makes more sense because it lets you see more bookmarks at once.

Comment 30

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

(In reply to comment #28)
> But taking the discussion to a higher level, if the user is scanning the menu
> aren't they looking for a particular bookmark, and if they are looking for a
> particular bookmark, why keep the other unrelated commands around?

Yes, you're right. There was a time where it seemed useful to me, but I can't think of a reason currently anymore. 
It seems as what Opera9.60 is doing is a smarter and more efficient way to browse through the bookmarks. They also have a "Bookmark Page" item in every folder, which is a handy way to bookmark a page in a particular folder.

Comment 31

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

(In reply to comment #30)
> They also have a "Bookmark Page" item in every
> folder, which is a handy way to bookmark a page in a particular folder.

That is what Add Bookmarks Here 2 makes, and i'm totally available to integrate that behaviour by default if UX team thinks that's useful.

Comment 33

[Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich)]

WONTFIXING per the analysis in comment #28.

(In reply to comment #29)
> If the menu starts remembering what bookmark you were scrolled to, then it
> starts making sense. I don't think this would be an illogical next step. If
> people save related things in folders, and are going back and forth working on
> that thing it'd suck to have to keep scrolling to the bottom of the menu.

This sounds like how I leave my desk messy, but know where *some* things are because I remember the state of the mess. #doingitwrong

I think a better way to resolve this use-case would be to provide a better browsing/managing tool than a menu.

Comment 34

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

Fwiw, I don't agree with the resolution of this bug.

Comment 35

[mmortal03]

(In reply to comment #30)
> (In reply to comment #28)
> > But taking the discussion to a higher level, if the user is scanning the menu
> > aren't they looking for a particular bookmark, and if they are looking for a
> > particular bookmark, why keep the other unrelated commands around?
> 
> Yes, you're right. There was a time where it seemed useful to me, but I can't
> think of a reason currently anymore. 
> It seems as what Opera9.60 is doing is a smarter and more efficient way to
> browse through the bookmarks. They also have a "Bookmark Page" item in every
> folder, which is a handy way to bookmark a page in a particular folder.

From my perspective, the only reason we even need to have the stuff at the top of the menu more quickly accessible anymore is to allow quicker access to the Bookmarks Library link.  All other menu items listed there have faster alternatives elsewhere in the UI -- the star and RSS icons in the address bar, and right clicking the tab bar to select the option to bookmark all tabs.  If there was a button I could add to the navigation bar to open the Bookmarks Library, it would save me a click, and I would never have to enter the Bookmarks menu for anything other than bookmarks.