181870 - Enchance Navigator startup behaviour via bookmarks.

Status: RESOLVED EXPIRED

(SeaMonkey :: Tabbed Browser, enhancement)

Description

[dylang]

Instead of just having a startup page, would it be possible to define a special
bookmark subfolder which could contain a bookmark of sites/tabs that could be
opened on start?

IE: when I start my browser, I have 4 tabs open and populated with data that
interests me regularly.  If you had the browser start using a "startup" bookmark
subfolder, it would make the behaviour much more configurable (one page, no
page, many pages, bookmarklets, etc), and easier to configure on automatic
installs (since it's in the bookmarks.html file).

(Of course, if the "remembers tab/window states" bug ever gets fixed, this will
only be useful in the rollout scenario :))

Comment 1

[Chris Lyon]

You can already specify a bookmark group to open on startup in the preferences
window.

Is that what you mean?

Comment 2

[dylang]

Ok, I've never seen that before.  Perhaps it would be more obvious if the prefs
dialog was reformatted a bit.   The core feature I want is there.

Now, if only 100% stateful browser tabs existed :)  Then I could just close and
open the browser, while having everything there again.

Comment 3

[dylang]

Ok, I've done some more investigation into this.  I think this does need to be
addressed.  While you can set the "Home page" to a set of tabs, and then have
that homepage displayed on startup, it is not what I had envisioned.

What I want, is to keep my "Home" button for MY home page, but to have a
separate bookmark folder which is opened on startup.  As it stands, the home
page button on the quick bookmark bar would be rendered useless if I were to
follow the current possible path to have a set of startup tabs.  And it still
isn't as flexible for VARs or other distributors from their point of view.

Comment 4

[Chris Lyon]

Why not set the tab group to be your home page, remove the Home button from the
Personal Toolbar (though the preferences window), then create a bookmark labeled
"Home" and put it on the Personal Toolbar?

That way your tabs open up when you start Mozilla, and you can get to your
"home"page when you click the button.

Comment 5

[dylang]

Don't you think the fact that I, an experienced computer user, long-time Mozilla
user (over 2 years now as my primary browser), and a developer, need a long
description of how to get the desired behaviour means that there is a problem
with the current design?

While what you say will probably be a good temporary solution, it still doesn't
address usability, nor does it address VAR-extended startup behaviour.

Comment 6

[Chris Lyon]

What sort of usability and VAR concerns are you thinking of?

Comment 7

[dylang]

Chris, I don't know if you know this, but I did write several comments already
explaing exactly why this is an issue.

Maybe it's not clicking in your head.  The functionality is not obvious.  In any
way.  And when you did explain it, I asked how the home button could be
duplicated.  Again, you explained a big, non-obvious method for accomplishing
the goal.

Maybe this doesn't show up as a big blip on your "this thing is hard to fscking
use" radar, but it's right up there on mine.  If I have to find an Oracle in
order to use a product that I have used for some years, to the point of working
on its code, there is some sort of problem with the usability.

As for the VAR, read my comments regarding shipping with an alternate
bookmarks.html.  With the proposed functionality, all that a VAR would have to
do is ship with a special bookmarks file.  Right now there would have to be
profile changes that are invasive enough to potentially break over a short
period of time.

Comment 8

[Chris Lyon]

Wow, that last comment was uncalled for.

First off, I explained a 3 step process, not "a big, non-obvious method". 
Essentially you want to use a tabbed group as your home page (step 1), set
another bookmark as your "home" (step 2), and remove the old Home (step 3).  I
don't understand why you find this process so complicated.  

Second, the home page is not stored in the bookmarks.html file, but in the
prefs.js file (see bug 141907).

VARs can supply their own bookmarks file, like you said, as well as supply a
default prefs.js file with the home tabgroup setting.

So, a workaround has been provided for your initial issue, and now your VAR
concerns have been addressed.  

You say you're a developer, would you care to submit a patch to fix this issue?

Not a bookmarks bug
->Tabbed Browsing

Comment 9

[Robert Kaiser]

MASS-CHANGE:
This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 10

[Robert Kaiser]

MASS-CHANGE:
This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 11

[Robert Kaiser]

MASS-CHANGE:
This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 12

[Robert Kaiser]

MASS-CHANGE:
This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but still has no comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project 5 years ago.

Because of this, we're resolving the bug as EXPIRED.

If you still can reproduce the bug on SeaMonkey 2 or otherwise think it's still valid, please REOPEN it and if it is a platform or toolkit issue, move it to the according component.

Query tag for this change: EXPIRED-20100420