1700418 - Context menu items "Copy Link", "Copy Image Link" are confusing, possibly inaccurate

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Menus, defect)

Description

[Asif Youssuff]

Been seeing this for a while and realized why I was getting confused while selecting items from context menus.

Specifically:

• Copy Link
• Copy Image Link

are confusing to me and also feel inaccurate - my understanding is that links contain an anchor and a location - these menu items only copy the location. To be accurate, the "Copy Link" function would copy the text and the location such that I could paste it into a word processing application and have it look like "Text" (linked) instead of https://example.com

This is also unlike other browsers - I looked at Safari and Chrome, both of which use "Address" along with or instead of "Link" in the labels above.

Address to me seems like a reasonable substitution for Location (the label prior to regression).

74:07.04 INFO: Narrowed inbound regression window from [cef2239f, 463d2392] (3 builds) to [cef2239f, d8804e88] (2 builds) (~1 steps left)
74:07.12 INFO: No more inbound revisions, bisection finished.
74:07.12 INFO: Last good revision: cef2239fe5abc11e51701d2924e0268f48439587
74:07.12 INFO: First bad revision: d8804e8807b315e77797c1df8f99b72258879fe9
74:07.12 INFO: Pushlog:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/pushloghtml?fromchange=cef2239fe5abc11e51701d2924e0268f48439587&tochange=d8804e8807b315e77797c1df8f99b72258879fe9

Comment 1

[Tom S [:evilpie]]

Changing this to "Copy link address" would also help out by making a the shortcut key.

my understanding is that links contain an anchor and a location

This is similar how in Firefox for Android, "Share Link" will share the link "name" and address. I think Copy link address is a good compromise here.
Edit: This might have changed recently. It only seems to share the address now.

Comment 2

[:Gijs (he/him)]

This was a UX/product decision and I have already forwarded this to them for consideration. I will update the bug when I hear back.

Comment 3

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

Set release status flags based on info from the regressing bug 1690561

Comment 4

[Romain Testard [:RT]]

We considered the following options as part of decision making:

• Copy Image Address/Copy Video Address/Copy Link Address
• Copy Image Link/Copy Video Link/Copy Link

"Copy link address" was found to be confusing with "link" and "address being to many people similar concepts - being technically accurate is sometimes not what's most helpful to most users. We also must retain consistency on how we refer to URLs across context menu options.
Hence we landed on the current implementation which adds cross browser consistency (similar to Edge implementation).
I realize that this won't be the favorite choice for everyone but we wanted to design with most users in mind for this change.

Comment 5

[lilydjwg]

It's unfortunate for "rightclick-a" people but I find that I can make an addon to compensate: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/copy-link-address-a/ (code: https://github.com/lilydjwg/copy-link-address).

Comment 6

[Quasar Nebula]

Hence we landed on the current implementation which adds cross browser consistency (similar to Edge implementation).

I haven't confirmed, but per the original post, both Safari and Chrome use "Address" rather than or alongside "Link"? Chrome (and possibly Safari) is/are by far the majority popular browser(s), so they seem more important to side with than Edge, considering cross-browser consistency.

Comment 7

[Quasar Nebula]

I've opened bug 1701324 with more details on the accessibility impact of the change discussed here, particularly under repetitive circumstances (e.g. copy-pasting many links).

Comment 8

[Asif Youssuff]

(In reply to Romain Testard [:RT] from comment #4)

We considered the following options as part of decision making:

• Copy Image Address/Copy Video Address/Copy Link Address
• Copy Image Link/Copy Video Link/Copy Link

"Copy link address" was found to be confusing with "link" and "address being to many people similar concepts - being technically accurate is sometimes not what's most helpful to most users. We also must retain consistency on how we refer to URLs across context menu options.
Hence we landed on the current implementation which adds cross browser consistency (similar to Edge implementation).

As an addendum, the "Copy Link" feature in Edge actually does copy links - meaning it doesn't just copy the link location, depending on the context. See https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/improved-copy-and-paste-of-urls-in-microsoft-edge-d3bd3956-603a-0033-1fbc-9588a30645b4 for more information on how this works. They call it "improved copy and paste". In any case, unfortunately, this means that the label is consistent with Edge, but the functionality is not.

The fact that the functionality is not the same might be perceived as a papercut bug, given the fact that the labels are the same.

Comment 9

[:Gijs (he/him)]

(In reply to Asif Youssuff from comment #8)

As an addendum, the "Copy Link" feature in Edge actually does copy links - meaning it doesn't just copy the link location, depending on the context.

Please file a separate bug for adding the HTML flavour to the clipboard when using this menuitem. It'll need more testing to see exactly how it works to avoid regressing existing behaviour (ie pasting raw HTML when the user expects just a plaintext URL).

Comment 10

[Asif Youssuff]

Attachment: copy image.html

I attached a test case of an issue that seems wrong to me that I think is worth evaluating again.

In the attached test case I have an image that links to a page.

If you context click on the image, you see options: "Copy Link" and "Copy Image Link".

This feels very ambiguous to me and it doesn't give me a lot of clarity into what URL I am going to get when I select either option.

Worse still, the rest of the UI doesn't help me out here either.

When context clicking the image, the status bar is shown, and it shows "example.com". While not a proposal for a change in status bar display, I realized that I was looking at the status bar for an indication or preview of what data would be copied while hovering over the menu items, because the menu options were so ambiguous. Of course, it never changed from example.com.

Romain, can you please re-evaluate the menu items in this case? I understand that you consider that technical accuracy isn't as important, but confusion and increased ambiguity seem like real issues that are introduced by this change.

Comment 11

[jefas64315]

[redacted - mhoye]

Comment 12

[jefas64315]

[redacted - mhoye]

Comment 13

[jefas64315]

[redacted - mhoye]

Comment 14

[jefas64315]

[redacted - mhoye]