178514 - Add Bookmark - 'Create in' list should be expandable/tree

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, enhancement)

Description

[tom mutdosch]

When I add a bookmark using the Add Bookmark dialog, and open the "Create in"
drop-down, I get a large list of bookmark folders and subfolders to create the
bookmark under.  I think this can be improved to handle many folders.  I have
lots of folders and subfolders (especially symptomatic of importing in other
bookmark files or IE favorites) and the list in the drop-down can look like a
huge hodgepodge of folders.  It can be hard to quickly visually detect which
folders are subfolders just using the small indented space used to signify this.

I think it would be nice to have the folders in this list expandable, with a
memory of their last state.  That way, initially all of the folders would be
collapsed so the list would be managable.  Then folders could be expanded as
needed and left in an expanded state if the user desires.  This is similar to
mozilla's Manage Bookmarks or IE's Add Bookmarks handling, except I like
Phoenix's system better so if this was incorporated I think it would have the
best of all worlds.   

Using 0.4 Milestone build.

Comment 1

[Chris Lyon]

-> enhancement

Comment 2

[David P James]

This would clean things up a bit... the present drop down list can get
nightmarish as everything is already expanded needlessly. In fact, because of
this I typically drag items from the location bar into the bookmarks sidebar
instead.

-->Confirming as New for developer review

Comment 3

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

taking QA contact, sorry about the bugspam

Comment 4

[Steffen Wilberg]

Tweaking summary; hardware: PC->All.

We already have got a tree view in Tools-Options-General-Use Bookmark; see bug
205507.

Comment 5

[Steffen Wilberg]

*** Bug 205507 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 6

[Steffen Wilberg]

Taking over perf keyword from bug 205507.

There is also a tree view in Bookmarks-Manage Bookmarks-Move (in its toolbar). I
don't think we need the "Use Default" button though.

Comment 7

[Jesse Ruderman]

I'd like it to be a tree because with a tree it's easier to tell when something
other than the root bookmarks folder is already selected.

Comment 8

[Alexander Dietrich]

I'm in favor of a tree as well. But: I think it would be good to separate the
collapsed/expanded state of folders in the "Add Bookmark" dialog from the state
in the Bookmark Manager.

This is because in most cases I'm done with the bookmark after adjusting its
name and choosing a folder to place it in. In Mozilla, IIRC, I usually had to
open the Bookmark Manager and manually close the folder hierarchy I opened
during the process of adding the bookmark. If you didn't do this, you had a ton
of expanded folders in Bookmark Management after a while. Let's make it better
this time.

Comment 9

[Kevin Ar18]

Bug 207706 provides one suggested way on implementing a tree view (basically
IE's design).

Comment 10

[Andy Edmonds]

The current design favors small bookmark lists.  A GOMS style analysis would
show that it's more rapid to select from this list when say the total folders is
under 50.  Seamonkey's approach is superior as the number of folders grows in
terms of time to select.

Seamoney also has a killer advantage in repeatedly filing bookmarks to the same
folder.  I use this with great frequency as I track a particular topic.

The fact is most folks don't have a lot of bookmarks -- IE's interface has not
been sufficiently fluent to encourage the use of bookmarks is my conclusion.

I'd love to see the expandable hierarchy return, but if the current system
remains, a character needs to be swapped for the empty space that indidcates
folder hierarchy.  Perceptually, we can identify small multiples up to 5 or so
with great ease.

Comment 11

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

not going to block for a feature request, especially with the bug assignee on
vacation

Comment 12

[Oleg Sidletskiy]

I think this is [partialy] fixed in builds 20031209 and newer.

Comment 13

[Steffen Wilberg]

Sure it is! See bug 214527 comment 8. Marking fixed.

Comment 14

[Ed Hume]

Very nice. I am happy with it.

Just two things, one minor:

The expand button is blank on Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US;
rv:1.6b) Gecko/20031209 Firebird/0.7+

More important: the dialog/function box needs to be expandable, so we users can
see more bookmark folders at a galnce. If we have to take the time to scroll it
slows us down.

Comment 15

[Ed Hume]

Another problem with the new implementation is that if you repeatedly press the
blank button to the right of the Name field, the window gets wider and wider.
And when you reopen the window, it retains that wider size.

Comment 16

[Steffen Wilberg]

Re. comment 14: The button shows a triangle for me.
The dialog should indeed be resizable, that's bug 228040.
Re. comment 15: The growing of the dialog is bug 227951.

Please file new bugs for additional issues instead of adding comments here.

Comment 17

[David A. Cobb]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.6b) Gecko/20031210
Firebird/0.7+
I also notice the wierd horizontal growth noticed in Comment#15; also,
in the "unexpanded" position, I have no clue what the 4 or 5 folders shown are
supposed to represent.  They aren't anything obvious like "most-recently-used"
which BTW would be real nice!  
If I had not seen the bug report, there isn't a visual clue as to the purpose of
the "expand" button, and its placement next to the "name" associates it with the
bookmark's name property -- inaccurately.  
I going to stick my neck out and request REOPEN; this for some UI improvement;
it's really confusing as is.  Otherwise, GREAT WORK.

Comment 18

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

David, see the last comment before yours regarding how to handle issues in the
new implementation (file new bugs).  This has already happened for most of these
bugs.

Comment 19

[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