1837693 - [Regression] Address Bar completion broken

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(Firefox for Android :: Toolbar, defect)

Description

[Master ? [:masterquestionable]]

Attachment: 0.png

    The button aside each suggestion to fill in the suggestion text went missing.
    And there seems to be no way to invoke the completion.

    Regression of version 115, not influencing 113.

Comment 1

[Master ? [:masterquestionable]]

== Potentially related changes [1] ==

    Bug 1826622 - Constrain autocomplete popup like select.
    https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/b6fe0412464bfe0dd3aab0d6820448fed004fff3

    Remove --toolbar-field-icon-fill-attention, --lwt-toolbar-field-icon-fill-attention
    https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1815899

    Firefox for Android (with dark theme) shows a dark dynamic-toolbar-sized area at the bottom of the screen, when scrolling pages that use `mix-blend-mode`
    https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1764606

    Wrong text color in the tabbar with dark system theme on Linux
    https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1832732

    If the search service fails to initialise properly, allow the Firefox to be used in a limited mode
    https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1648188

[ [1]
    https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/pushloghtml?startdate=2023-04-10+05:00:00&enddate=2023-06-04+18:00:00
    RegEx match: /(?<![^\W_])(?:(?:a(?:ddress|wesome)|tool)[ \-]?bars?|(?:auto[ \-]?)?complet(?:e|ions?))(?![^\W_])/gi ]

Comment 2

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

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:skhan, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit BugBot documentation.

Comment 3

[zesanup]

Hi, could this bug be triaged, please? It's a regression that doesn't need to make it past one release.

Comment 4

[Master ? [:masterquestionable]]

    I show my condolence.
    But couldn't help.

Comment 5

[zesanup]

Hi, this regression has unfortunately made it into the 116 release. Could this please be triaged so that it can be fixed for 117?

Comment 6

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

Jonathan, is this UI change related to Unified Search? Is this a bug or an intentional design change?

Comment 7

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

The bug has a release status flag that shows some version of Firefox is affected, thus it will be considered confirmed.

Comment 8

[Jonathan Almeida [:jonalmeida]]

Attachment: Screenshot 2023-08-14 at 1.48.12 PM.png

This is not a bug. We only show the arrows on search suggestions and not on bookmarks or history items.

We could see if there is a feature request that already exists or file one though.

Added a screenshot of v115 that shows the arrows on only search suggestions.

Comment 9

[Jonathan Almeida [:jonalmeida]]

Closing as won't fix for now.

Comment 10

[Jonathan Almeida [:jonalmeida]]

Sorry, ignore comment 8. I misread OP's comment. This is indeed a regression. I do not know if it's because of unified search, but that seems like a likely cause.

skhan, could you bring this up in your team's triage since this a regression which will probably give it a higher priority?

Comment 11

[Jonathan Almeida [:jonalmeida]]

Attachment: Screenshot 2023-08-14 at 1.51.45 PM.png

Attaching a screenshot of v113 that shows a comparison of comment 0's screenshot.

Comment 12

[Joe M [:jmahon]]

This is technically a regression, but it was an intentional one, to deal with a different UX issue we were encountering with the Unified Search behavior (see Bug 1831104).

:verdi, what do you think about this? Can we add back in the ability to autofill a URL to satisfy this use case? (I'm curious if you have more info about your original comment from that bug of "These don't make sense on a url.")

Also - bookkeeping note: this technically is a regression caused by 1831104, but that bug shouldn't be rolled back - we should instead fix this one deliberately.

Comment 13

[zesanup]

For a really frequent use case: you can have https://reddit.com/r/ bookmarked, which lets you easily append whatever subreddit you wish to access near-instantly.

Comment 14

[Mike a [:mavduevskiy]]

I wonder what is the expected behavior for the OP, what's the use case? The UX thinking, as far as I remember, was to make everything (with a link) clickable only, with search suggestions being available for prefill.

Comment 15

[Verdi [:verdi] Best to slack me]

(In reply to Joe M [:jmahon] from comment #12)

:verdi, what do you think about this? Can we add back in the ability to autofill a URL to satisfy this use case? (I'm curious if you have more info about your original comment from that bug of "These don't make sense on a url.")

I'm not sure what "add back in the ability to autofill a URL" here would mean that's different from rolling back Bug 1831104. Can you say more? What I meant by these don't make sense is that I don't think most people think of clicking on a bookmark as a shortcut for pre-filling a string that you append with the final portion of the URL. As clever as that is, I think for many it's a button that doesn't quite do what you want which is to load the bookmark or history item.

If you visited a number of subreddits previously (for the use case in comment 13) then typing /r will bring up a list of them for you to load. This fails though if it's one you haven't been to before. In that case you have to type it out.

Comment 16

[zesanup]

If you visited a number of subreddits previously

I use private browsing. From that POV, this feature suddenly gains a lot more utility. It basically gets you history-like suggestion/completion without having to store history.

Comment 17

[Master ? [:masterquestionable]]

    [ Quote Verdi @ CE 2023-08-15 20:19:02 UTC:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1837693#c15
    I'm not sure what "add back in the ability to autofill a URL" here would mean that's different from rolling back Bug 1831104. ]
<^>    I'm not sure what "remove them from all url suggestions" there would mean to address hitting 【Enter】 somehow not causing navigation of the Address Bar.

    [ Quote (previous):
    ... I don't think most people think of clicking on a bookmark as a shortcut for pre-filling a string that you append with the final portion of the URL.
    As clever as that is, I think for many it's a button that doesn't quite do what you want which is to load the bookmark or history item. ]
<^>    I don't think most people even understand the use of the Address Bar: would that qualify as a valid cause to remove the Address Bar outright?

    [ Quote Joe M @ CE 2023-08-15 14:32:58 UTC:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1837693#c12
    This is technically a regression, but it was an intentional one, to deal with a different UX issue we were encountering ...
    regression caused by 1831104, but that bug shouldn't be rolled back ]
<^>    Throwing jade to hit mice?..


    [ Quote Mike a @ CE 2023-08-15 17:23:40 UTC:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1837693#c14
    I wonder what is the expected behavior for the OP, what's the use case? ]
<^>    I believe it's already clear in Comment 0: (also in zesanup's replies: #13, #16)
    Alternating queries from saved items.

Comment 18

[Master ? [:masterquestionable]]

    I'm greatly concerned about the project's development.
    Managed to mark my comment "off-topic" in almost half an hour, rather than to triage: having the real issue there hanged for months.

    Apparently malapropos decision can be so trivially made and carried out.
    Development by short-sighted developers in shotgun debugging style maintenance...

Comment 19

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

Set release status flags based on info from the regressing bug 1831104

Comment 20

[Joe M [:jmahon]]

Attachment: Screenshot 2023-09-01 at 10-18-49 Screenshot.png

Comment 21

[Joe M [:jmahon]]

This bug has gotten confusing for a variety of reasons. I'm fully resetting the thread here.

Context:

• When we launched the Unified Search functionality, we made a conscious decision (per Bug 1831104) to remove the "insert" arrow from autosuggest items, since it was causing confusion for many users (who saw it as a bug that hitting that arrow does not "trigger" the search).
• Reporter of this bug has a use case that leverages the prior autocomplete functionality, therefore considers this behavior change to be a regression.

From what I'm understanding from the various comments and exchanges in the above thread, it seems like the missing use case could be adequately fulfilled by using the custom search engine functionality (images of an example use case attached at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=9351223). The only downside is that you need to manually enter them before using them - but, as long as the URLs that you search don't change all that often, that's what that feature is expressly designed to support.

:masterquestionable, am I misunderstanding your use case?

(We won't revert this change because the reason we made it in the first place remains true - people were confused about the behavior of that arrow - but I'm interested in figuring out if there's a better way we could facilitate search queries for more peoples' use cases in the future)

Comment 22

[zesanup]

:jmahon Your attached image provides a solution for search engines. But it doesn't address other websites. I gave the example of Reddit.

As the current situation stands, users who use private browsing (meaning no History) have no way to get the URL to autocomplete. None of the toggles under Address bar in Search settings give back this ability.

There is an Autocomplete URLs toggle here which I would have expected to work. If that toggle can be made to affect saved bookmarks, I think that might qualify as the alternative method you're looking for.

Comment 23

[Master ? [:masterquestionable]]

    Should that very arrow for search engine suggestions also mean "Go" then?..
    Such arrow meaning "Completion" is the standard behavior of Chrome and (very likely) other browsers (both mobile desktop).

    The simplest workaround:
    Long-click (holding) on an item as the trigger for "Completion".
    .
    More decent solution:
    A setting specifically switching on/off the existence of such arrow. (to address their peculiar needs)


    Hardly adequate.
    And the attachment image seemingly implied you scarcely use the Search Engine functionality (perhaps even the browser at all).
    .
    The Search Engine functionality could only adequately handle a very limited number of options: (due to the interface limitation)
    Anything further would have to rely on the Address Bar's keyword completion. (to be effectively utilized)

    My use case is general alteration of saved items.
    The non-"%s" part may also very likely change.

Comment 24

[Master ? [:masterquestionable]]

    Actual functional is "fix-optional"..?
    What is the project primarily going on?

Comment 25

[zesanup]

:jmahon An easy win here is that if you type the first few letters of a bookmarked URL, it should be suggested for auto-complete. This is not currently the case.

In fact, I think I only started using the insert button due to the lack of this functionality.

Comment 26

[Master ? [:masterquestionable]]

    What is "the insert button"?

Comment 27

[zesanup]

Now this bug isn't being tracked for any version. Can this regression please be looked at for an upcoming version?

Comment 28

[Master ? [:masterquestionable]]

    Simply reverting 1831104 seems to have rather low impact.
    Just apply the change before compilation.

Comment 29

[Joe M [:jmahon]]

:zesanup you could use the custom search engines functionality for the reddit example you gave by entering https://reddit.com/r/%s, which would bring you directly to the URL of the subreddit you enter in place of the %s.

:zesanup I definitely agree that bookmarks should be accounted for in auto-complete - would you mind opening a bug for that, as a feature request?

:masterquestionable we try not to make decisions based on "what Chrome does". The data we have and the user testing we completed demonstrated that the majority of users were winding up confused by the behavior of that arrow (many considered it to be a bug that it didn't submit the given search term for them). And unfortunately our team is too small to be able to continuously support user-customizable feature flags for low-discoverability features (since each flag is a different variation we need to continuously maintain), so we can't just put this into a setting option. If you're interested in making a stronger case for this kind of functionality, I'd encourage you to open a request in Mozilla Connect, where other users can see it and vote it up if it's something they feel is valuable, as well. In my personal opinion, I don't think the arrow UI is the correct solution, but I agree that there is likely some larger, more interesting request underlying this bug report that has to do with improving autocomplete behaviors in general - I think entering this in Mozilla Connect might help gather some more context for such an idea.

For the time being, though, I'm going to close this as WONTFIX.

Also, as a reminder, participation in this forum is subject to Bugzilla Etiquette and Community Participation Guidelines.

Comment 30

[Master ? [:masterquestionable]]

    My comments typically avoid targeting people:
    Mostly only stating objective facts, without bias.
    .
    If some people just insist to deem which "personal" and refuse to reckon... I couldn't help.

    Not only what Chrome does.
    Seems what most browsers are doing... (including desktop Firefox?)

    I already suggested 3 possible solutions: 2 of them in particular simple.
    If you ignore, I couldn't help.

    All have been done in good faith at best effort.
    Nothing else I can do.

    Best wishes.

Comment 31

[Master ? [:masterquestionable]]

    Probably the time to reopen this.
    After reevaluation of the subject, I also agree that the arrow shouldn't exist:
    Covering up significant portion of the space used to display URI, without serving much actual purpose. (whether the previous confusion excuses really make sense)

    “Long-click (holding) on an item as the trigger for "Completion".”
<^>    Looks like superior solution.

    User habits may at times indeed... be quite unthinkable:
    https://github.com/WICG/scroll-to-text-fragment#motivating-use-cases
    “Fewer than 1% of clients use the "Find in Page" feature in Chrome on Android.”


    Again, my apologies for the words, shall anyone feel offended:
    Highly stylish and powerfully expressive:
    That may easily turned into acrimonious insult.

    But do note:
    My words are to debug, not to defame.
    They target the problems, not the people.

Comment 32

[Master ? [:masterquestionable]]

    I have a question, out of curiosity:
    The attachment image displayed, as if: just after fresh-installation on some Android VM or test machine:
    Do you really use the browser in its default configuration..?

Comment 33

[Joe M [:jmahon]]

:masterquestionable - it is a test device.

Please refer to my guidance in Comment 29 - if you would like to request new functionality, Mozilla Connect is a great resource to do so.

This, however, for the reasons conveyed in the earlier discussion, is not a defect, so I'm closing it once again. (You could also open a new bug that is categorized as an "enhancement", however, I still recommend Mozilla Connect, which is more effective at gathering interest and data for feature requests than Bugzilla).

Comment 34

[Master ? [:masterquestionable]]

    Need not to "Close for Demonstration":
    "You need permission to comment on this closed bug."
    .
    Many designs of Bugzilla are peculiar.

    "act only in alignment with the interests, cease whenever the misalignment of interests occurs; angry may again be happy, enraged may again be glad."


    Change the Type, if you prefer. (I cannot)