2046412 - Unwanted search engines are appearing in the drop-down list of the search-mode switcher button.

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Search, defect)

Description

[Alice0775 White]

Unwanted search engines are appearing in the drop-down list of the search switch feature.

Steps to reproduce:

1. update to latest 153.0a1
2. Click search-mode switcher button

Actual results:
Alternative search engines that were previously turned off in the old“Settings” UI will appear in the list.
It just confuses users.
If there are many search engines available, there is a risk that you might mistakenly search using the wrong one due to muscle memory.

Expected results:
Those settings should be inherited.

Regression window:
https://hg-edge.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/pushloghtml?fromchange=21604a05b72c6b95323f401e1df6c5c5ca525fa8&tochange=6f78904aa0b9f1b7e37f47dee3d064da80fec416

Comment 1

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco]]

Set release status flags based on info from the regressing bug 2041913

:standard8, since you are the author of the regressor, bug 2041913, could you take a look? Also, could you set the severity field?

For more information, please visit BugBot documentation.

Comment 2

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

As mentioned in bug 2046421 comment 1 the feature to hide from the menus has been removed.

As discussed in bug 2041913, keeping the setting respecting the previous saved values of the check mark means that a user wouldn't be able to toggle them and wouldn't be able to get back to a good state (i.e. search engine displayed) if they wanted to. Whilst we could remove the search engines based on the old check mark value, that wouldn't necessarily reflect the user's intent, and could be seen as data loss for user added engines.

Hence we decided to re-display the engines, so that users will always be in a state that is consistent with the visible settings. Whilst we do appreciate there may be issues with muscle memory, as there can be with any change, users should fairly quickly notice and they can then go into settings and hide/remove or re-arrange search engines as necessary.

Comment 3

[Marco Bonardo [:mak] (Away 10-21 August)]

Mark, is this a wontfix based on comment 2, or do we need a check with UX?

Comment 4

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Bug 2041913 was fixed, with the remaining sub-issue being bug 2046421, so marking as duplicate of that one.

Comment 5

[Alice0775 White]

No,
This is user experience issue not setting UI.
Bug 2041913 causes this erratic issue.

Comment 6

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

We understand that it would cause selecting the wrong search engine - until it has been realised. We have this issue whenever we make a UI change that we might break muscle memory. As I mentioned in comment 2, as the feature has been removed, there's isn't really any option other than to simply re-show the icons. The only other option would be to cause potential dataloss, which would be even worse.

Comment 7

[Alice0775 White]

(In reply to Mark Banner (:standard8) from comment #6)

We understand that it would cause selecting the wrong search engine - until it has been realised. We have this issue whenever we make a UI change that we might break muscle memory. As I mentioned in comment 2, as the feature has been removed, there's isn't really any option other than to simply re-show the icons. The only other option would be to cause potential dataloss, which would be even worse.

as the feature has been removed.

There must have been a good reason why this feature was maintained for over a decade.
Why and for what reason was it removed?

And the bundled search engines still have this feature, doesn't it? I just don't get it at all.

Comment 8

[Alice0775 White]

And If I delete these alternate search engines, this breaks “Swift Selection Search”"ContextSearch web-ext" add-ons. No alternate search engines selectable in such add-on.

Comment 9

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

(In reply to Alice0775 White from comment #7)

There must have been a good reason why this feature was maintained for over a decade.
Why and for what reason was it removed?

The feature that was removed was originally based around hiding the search engines from the one-offs displays. Those views have now been changed.

We determined that it was a confusing feature that was never properly documented in the UI (no tooltips nor anything) and had significant overlap with simply removing search engines or potentially reordering unused engines to the bottoms of the lists. It was also felt that fitting it into the new settings UI would be confusing to explain as there would be multiple levels of hiding or disabling search engines. It was also only used by a very low number of users.

However, we have heard the feedback from here and reddit and we thinking about possible future changes for the newer menus of search engines which may include options to hide.

And the bundled search engines still have this feature, doesn't it? I just don't get it at all.

They don't. The tick marks would hide the search engine from the one-off buttons, however you could still access it via its keyword or add-ons - it was still enabled.

For the bundled search engines, the toggle turns them off completely - you won't be able to access via the keyword, add-ons or any other way. It is exactly the same as deleting a user engine, except it stays listed in the settings UI, i.e. the toggle is the same as the previous functionality for the "remove" action on bundled search engines, however rather than removing it from the UI completely and requiring the "Restore Default Engines" to restore everything, the toggle now means you can restore a single engine.

The toggle also brings out the distinction between removing a bundled search engine vs a user added search engine - this wasn't obvious previously.

Comment 10

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

We recognise that a few users did use this feature, however as discussed, we have decided not to continue supporting it at the current time. We are currently considering improvements to the various search engine lists on the access points (bug 2052191), and will include consideration for the relevant use cases in that work.