206192 - preferences gui should default to 'general' section

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Settings UI, enhancement)

Description

[Az]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.4b) Gecko/20030426 Mozilla Firebird/0.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.4b) Gecko/20030426 Mozilla Firebird/0.6

The preferences gui remembers which section was last accessed and when it is
opened, it defaults to that section.  It should IMHO default to the first
(general) section.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Tools > Options...
2. Click on one of the nav buttons down the left hand side. ie 'Themes'.
3. Close preferences window.
4. Tools > Options...

Actual Results:  
Preferences window remembers 'themes' section as last accessed and defaults to that.

Expected Results:  
Preferences window should default to 'general' section.

Comment 1

[Erik]

This is not a bug but an enhancement request!

=> reducing severity to RFE


btw: As SeaMonkey behaves differently than Moz. Firebird I suppose this
behaviour to be "intended" => suggesting WONTFIX.

Comment 2

[David P James]

What's the rationale for your request to have it default to General rather than
last accessed? That is, why would it be better?

Comment 3

[Az]

I confess I dont have anything concrete to support it other than to say that it 
just seems like it should.  Whenever you go into the preferences menu in any 
app i can think of it always starts with the first tab.

Examples of the top of my head:
IE - Tools > Options
Windows Desktop - Right Click > Properties

I have discusses it with a couple of non contributing FB users and several of 
them presumed it was just an issue that would be fixed as FB is still 0.6.  All 
of them agreed it should start at the first tab.

Comment 4

[Erik]

Ok, but from the usability point of view it's also not bad if the dialog opens
with the last used option - for example think about folks who need to change a
special item everytime after each session or before each session. Or the guys
who change their themes all the time... I believe it's ok for them to always
open with the themes Tab. I doesn't care about the tab that gets opened since I
only use the Options 1 or 2 times per month, but I'm sure the current logic has
also some advantages... :)

Comment 5

[David P James]

I agree with Erik; I don't use it much either but when I do it's often the
Connection pane that I use to set a proxy for a particular site and then when
I'm done I open up Options again and uncheck it.

That said I'm sending this to the forums for sounding out:
http://www.mozillazine.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=93952

Comment 6

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

This was an explicit design decision made (an intentional behavior which differs
from SeaMonkey.) 

Comment 7

[noririty]

v.