206651 - Make Preferences (Options) a nonmodal dialog window

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Settings UI, defect, P3)

Description

[Paul Baker]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.4b) Gecko/20030521 Mozilla Firebird/0.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.4b) Gecko/20030521 Mozilla Firebird/0.6

Preferences should be rendered as a separate dialog box instead of a sheet.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Choose Preferences from the Mozilla Firebird menu.
Actual Results:  
Preferences slides down from title bar as a sheet.

Expected Results:  
Preferences should open as a separate dialog window.

Comment 1

[Paul Baker]

Attachment: snapshot of firebird incorrectly displaying preferences as a sheet

Comment 2

[Paul Baker]

Attachment: snapshot of camino correctly displaying preferences as a dialog window

Comment 3

[Greg K.]

Confirmed using Firebird/Mac/2003-05-16 (0.6).

Comment 4

[Greg K.]

Really marking NEW.

Comment 5

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Is this OSX-specific?  On Linux, preferences should also be a nonmodal window...
I could file a new bug or mutate this one, as you prefer.

Comment 6

[Andy Lyttle]

Sheets are OSX-specific, but if making it nonmodal is a cross-platform fix, I suggest mutating this 
bug.

Comment 7

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

I have no idea how #ifdefed or not the relevant code in firebird is....

Comment 8

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

--> enhancement
--> tweak summary

Comment 9

[Karl Guertin]

The Prefs window is also modal in Windows. I'd like to have it non modal to
allow copying/pasting from the browser into the window. Is there any technical
reason to have it as a modal dialog?

Comment 10

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

taking QA contact, sorry about the bugspam

Comment 11

[Paul Baker]

I dunno if I would classify this as an enhancement, as having the preference
dialog modal/sheet is against the AHIG, which in the Mac world is considered to
be a flaw.

Comment 12

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

This is not, in fact an enhancement request -- those are requests to add
features.  We're not talking about a feature here.  This is a straight-out bug,
and arguably a regression (though I'm not sure whether things that work in
SeaMonkey but not in Firebird should be considered regressions).

Comment 13

[Blake Ross]

reassigning mac bugs, sorry for the spam.

Comment 14

[Michael Lefevre]

I don't see the need for a new bug, and given that nobody has objected, I'm
morphing this one a little. AIUI, what's wanted on all platforms in a nonmodal
dialog (and not a "sheet")

Platform -> All, reassigning back to a real person.

Comment 15

[Jens Bannmann]

Re: Comment #9
From my understanding there is no technical reason for the window to be modal.
In fact, you can easily open another browser window before opening the prefs and
still access it - so the "modality" cannot be a safety precaution to avoid
conflicts with "parallel" browsing.

Comment 16

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

*** Bug 216494 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 17

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

*** Bug 222366 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 18

[Kevin Gerich]

It would be great for this to be addressed by 0.8, especially for the Mac.

Comment 19

[Jon Henry]

Attachment: Proposed patch

I took the added code more or less wholesale from Thunderbird's mailCore.js,
although the actual call to open the window is the same minus "modal" in the
argument list. Thunderbird's options dialog is nonmodal on all platforms, so I
saw no reason to #ifdef this for mac and linux only. Tested and working on my
WinXP box.

Comment 20

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Comment on attachment 137519 [details] [diff] [review]
Proposed patch

ben, this is sort of a late addition, but this is a really common complaint
from Macolytes among others, can you decide this one once and for all?

Comment 21

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

If this gets in, fine. But this is not blocking the release.

Comment 22

[Wayne Woods]

*** Bug 235033 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 23

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Comment on attachment 137519 [details] [diff] [review]
Proposed patch

this will cause bustage in the prefwindow since some functions depend on the
opener relationship.

Comment 24

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

not a blocker for 0.9 either

post-prefwindow rewrite, we'll have to look at this and determine what this
would break in terms of functionality (use current page(s) for homepage is a
biggie that I know will break in the current prefwindow.).

maybe make it dependent, but not modal?  taking to make sure this stays on radar
for 1.0beta/final

Comment 25

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

should block 1.0 for Mac, if nothing else.

Comment 26

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

The pref window should be modal on Windows, not so on GNOME or MacOS X.
Non-modality requires some extensive changes to the pref window system -
instant-apply of preference changes etc. Pierre was going to look at some of
this but he's not been around lately. 

Comment 27

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

there isn't time to do this before 1.0, since it basically involves creating a
new type of prefwindow interface.  I have some ideas on implementing
instant-apply, but reimplementing the prefwindow code just isn't going to happen
in a short enough timeframe to get the testing it needs.

Comment 28

[Manfred Schubert]

Then can you make this an application modal dialog for 1.0? This is very wrong
that it is a sheet.

Comment 29

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

how much of a different would it really make if it was application-modal?  you
could move it around, I suppose, but it would still have the same problem

Comment 30

[Manfred Schubert]

It would be correct usage. Sheets are for window modal dialogs. Application
preferences however apply to the whole application not only a single window.
Ideally they should be in a modeless window, but an application modal dialog is
correct usage as well.

Maybe this is nitpicking from a practical point of view, but I think it would be
good to demonstrate that usage of sheets is understood by the Firefox
developers. It looks so silly when the preferences show up as sheet on the
downloads window. I was under the impression that it could be changed to a
modeless dialog by simply changing a flag where it is created, so it would be a
very easy preliminary fix for 1.0. If it requires rewriting of code it's not
worth it though I concur.

Comment 31

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

Sorry for bug-spam. I am removing my request for blocking, I didn't see that
Mike change the Taget-Milestone.

Comment 32

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

going to try to get this done before 1.0 beta as part of my newfound desire to
integrate better on GNOME

Comment 33

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

*** Bug 269425 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 34

[Prognathous]

This is now an OS:All bug. Changing summary accordingly.

Prog.

Comment 35

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

(In reply to comment #34)
> This is now an OS:All bug. Changing summary accordingly.

Mac / Gnome only.

Comment 36

[Prognathous]

(In reply to Karl "grayrest" Guertin, comment #9)
> The Prefs window is also modal in Windows. I'd like to have it non modal to
> allow copying/pasting from the browser into the window. Is there any technical
> reason to have it as a modal dialog?

I too prefer it to be non-modal on Windows, for the very same reason. Comment
#26 hints that this is not trivial (though it's worth noting that Seamonkey does
it already).

As a workaround, open a new window before opening Options.

Prog.

Comment 37

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Most of the new prefwindow bits will be pref-controlled, including modality etc.
 There's issues with the current impl, but the new impl may be better with
non-modality.

Comment 38

[Justin Kerk]

The new options window is still modal in Windows, so depending on whether that
was in the scope of this bug or not it isn't fixed.

I'm using Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8b2) Gecko/20050305 

Comment 39

[Michael Lefevre]

True, but this was originally a Mac bug, and it's fixed there. It's fixable by
setting the pref on Windows. I would imagine that it's either outside the scope
of this bug, or it's a WONTFIX issue (or both).

Comment 40

[Jens Bannmann]

(In reply to comment #38)
> I'm using Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8b2)
Gecko/20050305 

This is a Firefox bug, nothing changed for the Mozilla Suite.

Comment 41

[Justin Kerk]

Whoops, it is Firefox/1.0+ but that part of the build string is hidden in the
About dialog.

Comment 42

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

sorry for bugspam, long-overdue mass reassign of ancient QA contact bugs,
filter on "beltznerLovesGoats" to get rid of this mass change