192768 - default for popup blocking sound (beep) pref should be off

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(SeaMonkey :: UI Design, defect)

Description

[David Baron :dbaron: (⌚️UTC-4, no longer working on Mozilla)]

As I mentioned in email a few days ago...

A pref was recently (during 1.3beta development, I think) added to "Privacy &
Security" / "Popup Windows" to determine whether to "Play a sound" "When a popup
window has been suppressed".  The default value for this preference is on.

While this default value may not be unreasonable for new users, since they will
(mostly, although probably not always) see the sound preference when choosing to
suppress popups, it poses a problem for users who are upgrading from a previous
version (such as Mozilla 1.2, which I believe had the previous version of the
popup blocking).  Users who upgrade from previous releases are unlikely to know
*why* Mozilla is beeping when they visit certain web pages.  I certainly didn't
realize until I asked on IRC, and I've seen a bunch of other people ask the same
question.  (Even for new users, I question whether a majority of users would
really want this preference to default to on.)

I think the default value of this preference should be off so that users aren't
faced with a browser that beeps for reasons they don't understand.

(FWIW, the pref panel in question seems to live in extensions/cookie/resources/.)

Comment 1

[jag (Peter Annema)]

dbaron has a point here. Can we come up with a default sound (some .wav file?)
we can distribute with the browser that ''clearly'' suggests "popup blocked"?
That way we could keep sounds on by default. This problem might "go away" if we
do show a dialog the first time around asking the user whether or not she wants
popups blocked (see Phoenix). That should associate the beep with popup
blocking. If neither of these are going to happen for 1.4, I recommend turning
the sound off by default.

Comment 2

[[e-mail]]

Hmm, why exactly do we have the beep at all?

Seems like a superfluous UI "feature" to me... I can't personally imagine who'd
use it; although I'm not familiar with these circumstances...

But it definitely needs to be switched off by default. Even I've been wondering
why Mozilla has been beeping randomly at me recently, and I had no clue until
dbaron kindly cc'ed me on this bug...

Comment 3

[[e-mail]]

er, s/dbaron/timeless/.

sorry timeless :)

Comment 4

[Aaron Leventhal]

*** Bug 193074 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 5

[hugo van woerkom]

I just went back to 1.3a just for this reason. Of course stupid me, I should
have investigated the beeper problem BEFORE going back. Sorry. But sound
preferences should be very carefully left alone unless very clearly documented
for those ignoramuses like myself.
H.

Comment 6

[Justin Watt]

holy ****, i'm glad i found this bug, i thought i was going crazy. since i'm
already programmed to check email after hearing said beep, it has been a wee bit
disturbing since upgrading to 1.3b to constantly hear beeps while surfing only
to find my inbox empty. thank god i can turn it off!

but my own pavlovian response is not the issue. I agree with comment #5. from a
UI persepective, the browser should not start squawking (by default) when it
never squawked before without a damn good reason. "pop-up blocked" is not a damn
good reason.

Comment 7

[Donovan Warren]

I can appreciate how hard it is to decide what the default behavior of this setting should be. For new users of Mozilla, and all those who aren't running popup blocking now because they don't know or don't think it's an issue yet ... should it be checked by default when the turn blocking on?I think the answer is "no." First, I agree with Dan Witte's <A HREF="http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=192768#c2">comment (2)</A> ... is there any case where this might be useful? I can think of one, but it's an admittedly contrived case: the curious blocker ("How many times would I have had to click 'close' to an annoying pop-up or pop-under ad?") ... someone who doesn't want the hassle of actually dealing with the windows, but is curious to record for personal or journalistic reasons the number of pop-ups that would have been displayed. I think this is the "way out-there" case.Second, There is the (seemingly obvious) question of current users, and upgraders. If the pref is checked by default, then users who already block pop-ups will have this truly mystifying (at least, for a while) system beep from time to time. I installed the version that had blocking specifically for that reason (I don't even remember now which version it was ... I want to believe that it was 1.2, but for all I know it could have been M19), and I feel fairly confident that a large percentage of users of 1.2 and/or 1.3a installed it for that reason, as well. My eight-ball ... er, sources ... tell me that this probably means users of "slightly- to much-better-than-average intelligence" ... people who might be smart enough to parse the buglist first, but many who are just barely smart enough to find bugzilla and may be just as likely to file additional dupes as to decide "This is a PITA, but I'm sure they've heard of it already."Even in the first case, I think that leaving the pref unselected by default when pop-up blocking is selected leaves the casual clueless user scratching his proverbial head, and saying "huh? What the heck does this do?" ... which, while it might cause a bit of distress to said user for a while, at least forces them to make a decision ... to click, or not to click ... leaving them with the ultimate responsibility for ...oh, who am I kidding. Users feel no sense of responsibility.It doesn't seem to make any sense to keep it on by default, in any particular case.

Comment 8

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

Enough with the advocacy comments (take it to the newsgroups). This isn't a
debate. This is a bug to turn off the beep for 1.3 final and it has both the
blessing of the Mozilla XPFE module owner and [e-mail]. We don't need
advocacy comments of any kind here. 

Comment 9

[shliang]

Attachment: change default to off

Comment 10

[Dan M]

Comment on attachment 114933 [details] [diff] [review]
change default to off 

dan-advocacy: Personally I'd have thought the beep was rightfully on by
default. You don't get the beep unless you go to Preferences and turn on
whitelisting. See the beep checkbox? But by the same token, off by default is
equally fine. r=danm.

Comment 11

[[e-mail]]

danm: if you install 1.3b over an earlier version, popup blocking can be carried
over without opening prefs, and thus without seeing the new beep pref...

Comment 12

[jag (Peter Annema)]

Comment on attachment 114933 [details] [diff] [review]
change default to off 

sr=jag

Comment 13

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

checked into trunk at 16:01, marking fixed.

Comment 14

[R.K.Aa.]

*** Bug 194395 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 15

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

vrfy'd fixed with 2003.02.24 comm trunk.