Closed Bug 208399 Opened 21 years ago Closed 21 years ago

Confirm deletion of a bookmark

Categories

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, defect)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
Bookmarks & History
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

()

Status:
VERIFIED WONTFIX

People

(Reporter: hakon_, Assigned: p_ch)

References

Details

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.4b) Gecko/20030522 Mozilla Firebird/0.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.4b) Gecko/20030522 Mozilla Firebird/0.6

I think that there should be a confirmation dialog before a bookmark is deleted,
both in the manager and with the context menu.
Isn't that a standard convention nowadays?

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
Not a good idea.

Take a look at the GNOME User Interface Guidelines for example 
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/1.0/usabilityprinciples.html#forgive-the-user

I quote:

| "If an action is very dangerous, and there is no way to undo the result, 
| warn the user and ask for confirmation. Only do this in extreme cases, 
| though; if frequently faced with such confirmation messages, users begin 
| to ignore them, making them worse than useless."

1. The action is not very dangerous.
2. This is absolutely no extreme case.
3. The action can be easily undone.

I recommend WONTFIX. CC'ing a few experienced people for their opinion.
I agree with Simon. Moreover, in the Bookmarks Manager there is "Undo Delete
Bookmark" under the Edit menu. That to me is enough to WONTFIX (or more
accurately won't do) this.

-->WONTFIX
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 21 years ago
Resolution: --- → WONTFIX
I second Simon's opinion on that and also the experience in the "guideline"
quoted by Simon: too many security checks a la "Do you really want..." tempt the
user to always click the button which allows to perform the action - without
really _thinking_ about what he's doing - he just wants to get rid off this
message box.
I think anyone of us knows the typical reaction when such a message pops up: "OF
COURSE I want to do this and that - don't ask such stupid questions..." :) ... 
Furthermore IIRC there is the chance to undo a action somewhere in the bookmark
manager, hence there's no risk at all and no need for an additional confirmation
box!
Verifying. There is absolutely no need for a confirmation dialog when there's an
Undo feature already built in.
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
*** Bug 221221 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 221635 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 242236 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 252588 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 254679 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 267844 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
not everyone knows there is an undo feature if they are just deleting directly
from the menu bar.  I'm sure it is quite possible for some users to add/remove
hundreds of bookmarks over a period of time and never use the manage dialogue.

At the moment the current behaviour feels a little odd leaving the user unsure
as to whether it has been deleted or not.  While the gnome guidelines may
suggest aginst it, it is certainly expected behaviour in a Windows environment
(based on experience not windows guidelines).
*** Bug 268632 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
My RFE (bug 268632) has been marked as a duplicate of this one, and i'm not
happy about it, bacause i've submitted my RFE asking for an OPTIONAL
confirmation dialog and i've submitted it as a WINDOWS specific issue.

So now i'll try to change summary string to iclude "option" and switch "OS" to
"All".

As expected, i've got a message that i don't have a right to change an OS
parameter or Summary string...

Anyway, i'm asking this bug to be switched back to open because of this reason:

"Delete" command is way too close to the "Sort By Name" command in Bookmarks
contex menu. And due to the sorting problem (bug 250787) i'm using Sort By Name
feature frequently (after every new bookmark addition). 

Who can give me guarantees that beeing sleepy or smth. i haven't clicked
"Delete" by mistake instead of clicking "Sort By Name"? That's why i insist on
delete confirmation dialog option - for an idication that i've clicked the
dangerous thing rather than the innocent Sort By Name. In other words: Undo
feature of the Bookmarks Manager will be useless if i won't even notice that
i've actually Deleted something by mistake. And that can easily happen because
both those commands act identically - the Bookmarks drop down menu simply closes
and that's it.

*** Bug 254601 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Reopen and fix this ASAP. And inform GNOME User Interface Guidelines folks that
reality is not a simple as they imagine.

Alt+d is used to focus on an address bar in IE as well as Firefox. Now, imagine
me hitting alt+d in attempt to focus on Search bar while i'm in Bookmarks Manager...

In combination with the problem i've described in comment #13 it becomes a big
[CENSORED] problem.

*** Bug 279990 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 283556 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 287190 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 291699 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 304079 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
1) i don't know why, but undo didn't work for me in the bookmark manager. i
didn't go there at once but i didn't close Firefox. When i decicded to go there
there was no undo. Should I file it as a separate bug?

2) Could you at least add a confirmation box to big deletions? I deleted a
folder with ~70 bookmarks across 2 subfolders and folder root. i dunno where the
margin lies (non-empty folder?), but this kind of action should be confirmed.

*** Bug 306836 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 320044 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 352650 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
You marked Bug 402381 as a duplicate of this one.  Not quite, although I can see that my request has also been discussed here.  Although I think it would be a good idea to confirm deleting a bookmark, it is MUCH more important to confirm deleting an entire folder of bookmarks.  In contrast to Simon's reply of 2003-06-05, when deleting a Folder from the Sidebar, which is too easily done inadvertently, there is no obvious Undo.  And with the Sidebar there is little reason to use the Bookmark Manager at all and to even know there is an Undo.  Indeed, it is easier to manage Bookmarks in the Sidebar than in the Bookmark Manager.  

So, rather than Simon's assertions, it is clear that many users over the years have felt that:
1. The action is very dangerous.
2. This can be an extreme case (scores of bookmarks can be deleted by deleting one folder).
3. The action can not be easily undone - by most users.

I don't recall if the Bookmark Sidebar was even available back when htat reply was written in 2003.

I hope this will be reconsidered.  


After eight years, the core issue of this bug should be reexamined.  In Firefox 4, it remains much easier to delete than to undo.  There is no visible indication to the user that undo is even possible, unless the user thinks to open the Edit submenu of the Firefox menu to check.  It remains easy to delete bookmarks via the Delete key, which can happen by accident when using the bookmarks sidebar.

In Firefox 4, the current behavior is more disruptive than previously, as the undo feature is broken when used from the sidebar, leaving no way for users to undo an accidental folder deletion.  (bug 636280)

This could be improved by requiring a confirmation for large deletions, by making accidental deletions harder, or by making undo easier.
I've got another idea. After first deletion a notification can be shown. Either window with automatically selected "Do not show in the future" or download-completed-like notification without any checkboxes.

 _________________________________________________
|                                                 |
| ( i ) Did you know, that if you've just deleted |
|       an important bookmarks, you can easily    |
|       have it back using "Undo" in "Manage      |
|       bookmarks?".                              |
|                                                 |
| [ x ] Do not show in the future          [ OK ] |
|_________________________________________________|
Severity: enhancement → normal
OS: Linux → All
Hardware: x86 → All
Version: unspecified → Trunk
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