Allow adding multiple bookmarks at once to an existing folder, rather than creating a new folder
Categories
(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, enhancement, P5)
Tracking
()
| Tracking | Status | |
|---|---|---|
| firefox98 | --- | affected |
People
(Reporter: aminomancer, Unassigned)
Details
(Keywords: blocked-ux)
When adding multiple bookmarks in the edit bookmarks dialog via showBookmarkPagesDialog, we should somehow make it possible to add bookmarks to an existing folder rather than always creating a new folder. Here's a support thread about it.
STR
- Open some tabs and multiselect them
- Right click one of them > Bookmark Tabs...
- The edit bookmarks dialog opens, with the Name field pre-filled with
[Folder Name]. - Empty the Name field
- Select a parent container with the menulist or tree
- Hit "Save"
Actual
Firefox will create an untitled folder within the selected container. Before hitting Save, it will show a preview of the new folder in the tree view.
Proposed
Firefox will put the bookmarks directly in the parent container rather than putting them in a new folder within the selected container. To make that more clear, we could stop pre-filling the Name field and make the input placeholder say [No Folder] (that is, an actual placeholder, not pre-filled text).
And if the Name field is empty, since saving it will not result in a new folder, the places node preview should not be shown until/unless the Name field has a user typed value. So that would mean if there's text in the input field, it works as it currently does. If the input field is blank, it doesn't create a new folder.
I think that might be preferrable because creating an unnamed folder isn't a good outcome. I thought this behavior might already exist, since I didn't see any other way to add the bookmarks to an existing folder in this dialog. So that was the first thing I tried and I ended up making an unnamed folder.
Alternatively, it could hide the Name field altogether and just not create a new folder at all until the user presses the New Folder button. And then the folder's name would be entered into the tree input field. Probably easier to implement but it would change the default behavior.
|
||
Comment 1•3 years ago
|
||
(In reply to Shane Hughes [:aminomancer] from comment #0
Firefox will put the bookmarks directly in the parent container rather than putting them in a new folder within the selected container. To make that more clear, we could stop pre-filling the Name field and make the input placeholder say
[No Folder](that is, an actual placeholder, not pre-filled text).
The problem with this is that it will confuse users more.
The operation of selecting multiple tabs and adding to bookmarks is intended most of the times as creating a group of related things, rather than just "please bookmark these urls". And that's why we group them within a folder.
Not doing that may break expectations for a part of users, so we break someone's expectations regardless.
Maybe there should be a way to opt-out of new folder and instead pick an existing one, maybe similar to the old downloads dialog where you can open or save, here you'd create a new folder or pick one.
I think that might be preferrable because creating an unnamed folder isn't a good outcome. I thought this behavior might already exist, since I didn't see any other way to add the bookmarks to an existing folder in this dialog. So that was the first thing I tried and I ended up making an unnamed folder.
Naming is a similar story, it would be great to have a content-aware system that can extract a meaningful group title from the tabs, like if they are automotive related pages it could be Automotive. We have nothing like that, so the current placeholder is quite not smart.
Though we allow the user to immediatly modify that name, it's preselected in the dialog.
I'll confirm as an enhancement, maybe there's also an old one similar to this and eventually one could be duped.
This of course requires UX approval, but one could create a mockup and submit it for approval, without actually waiting for them to do a full design.
|
Reporter | |
Comment 2•3 years ago
•
|
||
(In reply to Marco Bonardo [:mak] from comment #1)
The operation of selecting multiple tabs and adding to bookmarks is intended most of the times as creating a group of related things, rather than just "please bookmark these urls". And that's why we group them within a folder.
I didn't mean to suggest anything contrary to that. User almost certainly wants to group them together. (And it would need to be a vastly more complex interface to allow you to put each of the bookmarks in a different folder) But that doesn't say anything about whether they want to group them in a new folder or an existing folder.
Right now, you can group all of them in a new folder but you can't group all of them in an existing folder except as a subfolder. Currently afaict there is no way to "please bookmark these urls" either, except to multiselect and drag and drop the tabs into some bookmarks view, which isn't as discoverable as the context menu item.
Maybe there should be a way to opt-out of new folder and instead pick an existing one, maybe similar to the old downloads dialog where you can open or save, here you'd create a new folder or pick one.
Yes I agree, a way to opt out of creating a new folder. Right now no matter what folder you click on in the bookmarks tree view, it places a preview container node in the folder you clicked on. So I'm just saying if you send an empty Name string, instead of creating a new node it just puts the bookmarks in the node that was selected in the tree. Whereas if you send a non-empty string it will create a new subfolder as it currently does.
And of course, it won't show the preview node in the tree until the user types something, so it would be visually apparent whether or not it's going to create a new folder. Along with the placeholder [No Folder] it doesn't seem confusing to me. At least, it's less confusing than the current behavior, which automatically creates a new folder without a strong visual indication that it's doing that, since the Location row is collapsed by default. That said, maybe there is an even less confusing alternative like a new checkbox.
Naming is a similar story, it would be great to have a content-aware system that can extract a meaningful group title from the tabs, like if they are automotive related pages it could be Automotive. We have nothing like that, so the current placeholder is quite not smart.
Though we allow the user to immediatly modify that name, it's preselected in the dialog.
Hmm, it's a bummer but naming seems like a separate issue, since even if Firefox had some kind of AI naming system, that wouldn't resolve the issue that there's no way to add a bunch of automotive related pages to an existing Automotive folder. I think that's a more urgent issue because user could waste a lot of time in this view, not expecting that there would just be no way to do that from this view. Usually I'd expect a dialog to have more advanced options than a "drag and drop" feature.
This of course requires UX approval, but one could create a mockup and submit it for approval, without actually waiting for them to do a full design.
I may get around to this eventually if I have time, though the original input field method seems like a lot of work. Idk, maybe a checkbox is a good solution if it corresponds to a pref. Then the checkbox not only disables adding a new folder for the current view context, but also persists across all future contexts. Maybe that's a good compromise?
There's a bookmarks tree in the dialog (the location row) and it's currently buggy as a result of constantly making a "New Folder" preview node in whatever container the user clicks. Like, the existing containers flicker when you click them, and if you click a container that already has a folder in it, for some reason clicking the container selects the child folder instead of the folder you clicked. None of which happens with other bookmarks trees that don't do this automatic new folder-adding business.
Description
•