229217 - Default action for bookmarks in bookmark manager should be "open properties"

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, enhancement)

Description

[Petey]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.6b) Gecko/20031216 Firebird/0.7+
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.6b) Gecko/20031216 Firebird/0.7+

In the bookmark manager, double clicking on a bookmark should open that
bookmark's properties. The current behavior is to open the bookmark in the
browser window.

Reason: The main purpose for the bookmark "manager" is managing your bookmarks
(e.g. changing their PROPERTIES) not to access your bookmarked sites. Bearing
that in mind, I think the more appropriate action for double clicking is
property-editing.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open the "Manage Bookmarks" window
2. Double click on any bookmark entry
3. Observe how it isn't doing what I want it to

Comment 1

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

Confirming as enhancement request

Comment 2

[mmortal03]

On the contrary, one can use the bookmark manager to see if they still want that 
bookmark, by double-clicking on the bookmark to view it.  I have done this on 
numerous occasions.  I for one would rather have the functionality left alone, and 
instead have an option implemented to keep the bookmark manager window "Always On
 Top", that way I could more effectively use the current double-clicking 
functionality to manage my bookmarks.  

To put this another way, I don't think people edit their bookmarks as much as they
 re-view their bookmarks when bookmark managing.

Comment 3

[Petey]

Clicking and dragging a bookmark into the browser window will open the page. 
That, I think, is an appropriate way to open the bookmark.  I further propose
that middle-mouse clicking and dragging a bookmark into the browser window will
open that site in a new tab.  I feel strongly that double clicking should be
assigned to property-editing.  I think that your suggestion for making the
manager always on top is a very good one.  Several other ideas include:

-Having an additional pane in the bookmark manager that shows the selected bookmark.

-Having a snapshot of the web page taken when it is bookmarked (at about 200x200
res) and the image appears when, for example, your hover your mouse over the
bookmark.

Comment 4

[Oomingmak]

It should be single-click to open the bookmark in the browser (and then the
double click would be free to be assigned to something like Properties) which I
would find that quite intuitive (provided the options remained on the context
menu as well).

Forcing Double-clicking on single-click users is bad because it breaks
consistency with the way that they have their entire OS set to single-click (and
they have no choice or way around it).

The argument does not hold true for double-clickers. They are already using a
confused mess of double and single-clicking (double-click for icons,
double-click for opening folders, double-click for tray icon, single-click for
exapnding folder tree, single-click on buttons, menus, web links, Start button,
quick launch icons etc.)  

Comment 5

[Petey]

The point of this bug is not to stipulate how many clicks is necessary to
perform an action, but what the default action should be.  The proposal is to
make property-editing the default action, however many clicks that takes.

Comment 6

[Oomingmak]

The amount of clicks required is inextricably bound into what is becomes the
'default' action. You cannnot separate the two. One defines the other. 

If you have single click access, then whatever is assigned to the single-click
is what becomes the default action (not what is assinged to the double click -
as this becomes relegated to a secondary action). If you only have double click
access, then this limits the number of actions that can be used (because single
click must be used for file selection). So, it is possible to accommodate 2
separate actions if using single-click launch, but only one action if using
double click launching.

If users only have ONE choice of action, then I don't think that many people
willing giving up 'opening' of the bookmark in favour of opening its Properties.
I would certainly be opposed to 'Properties' being the default option on single
click (it should 'open' the bookmark file, just as a single click would open it
if you were to click on a bookmark file anywhere else - e.g. in the Bookmark
menu). However, if SINGLE-click is used as a launch action (rather than just for
file selection) then this leaves double-clicking as an unused secondary action
(which could then be assigned to opening the bookmark's Properties). For me,
this would be the ideal solution. 

Ross has already stated that Firefox should standardize in single click, so I
hope that this will be consistently applied throughout the Firefox interface.

Comment 7

[Oomingmak]

P.S. If the amount of clicks is irrelevant to you, then the summary of this bug
should be re-worded, because as it stands it is innacurate and misleading. 

It currently says "Double clicking in bookmark manager should open properties" 

I agree 100% with this statement. But if you had said "single clicking in
bookmark manager should open properties" then I would NOT agree.

If you are solely referring to what is assigned as the default action for
bookmarks in bookmark Manager, then that is what you should have said (and not
mentioned anything to do with "clicking" at all).

Comment 8

[Petey]

My apologies for the poor wording.  I am double-click-centric and was not being
very politically correct.  Noted and changed.

I would argue against your statement that most people want the default action
for bookmarks in the BM (bad acronym) to be "open."  The reason people go to the
bookmark manager is to edit their bookmarks, not access them.  If they want to
open bookmarks, they go to the bookmark menu, toolbar, or sidebar.  If they want
to edit bookmarks, they go to the bookmark manager.  The think the default
action should reflect the intended purpose the component.  In other words, I
think the default action for bookmarks in the bookmark manager should be to open
their properties.

On a side note, how do you assign an action to single clicking and another
action to double clicking?  Wouldn't the first click of the double-click trigger
the single click action?  Once the double click is detected does secondary
action override the primary one?  I'm really curious.

Lastly, perhaps the question about the default action in the bookmark manager
should be taken to the forums to see what folks think.

Comment 9

[Oomingmak]

QUOTE: "how do you assign an action to single clicking and another
action to double clicking?"

Quite easily.

If you are running Windows as your OS, take a look in your system tray (or more
accurately the 'notification area') for the speaker Volume icon. Click on it
just once. What happens? Now double-click on it. What happens? There is your answer.

A more prosaic example is Windows Explorer. You say that you’re double-click
centric, so presumably you double-click to open folders and files. If that is
the case, then how do you SELECT folders and files other than by SINGLE clicking
on them? 

Thus, single clicking 'selects' while double-clicking 'opens'. So there again
you have two different actions defined by single and double-clicking
respectively. They are 2 distinct events in programming code, and so they can
easily be assigned different actions.

This is an entirely standard behaviour in Windows.

I hear your point about the Bookmark Manager being a place for organization
rather than launching, but the fact remains that the items you are organizing
are the exact SAME items that you use to launch sites. They look no different
than anywhere else. Changing the behaviour of persistent objects depending on
"intended purpose" would make the UI a total nightmare if it were followed
through to its natural conclusion. Consistency is the key to maximising
intuitiveness. 

Do your Start Menu icons become unable to open programs if you access them from
the Explorer folder tree rather than the Start menu? No, because they are the
same object just viewed differently. You use the Start Menu to ‘open’ your
programs, but if you wanted to do a major ‘re-organization’ of the Start Menu,
then you would not do it by using drag and drop on the Start Menu itself (it can
be done, but it's not the most efficient way). Instead you'd right-click the
Start button and choose 'Explore' to get the Start Menu folder layout, so that
you could drag and drop more easily. But while you are in this 'organizing
view', the default actions of the icons are no different to when they are on the
Start Menu. That's because they are the very SAME objects. It makes absolutely
no sense to have objects spontaneously changing their behaviour.   

Also, it is entirely possible that users will want to check their bookmarked
sites (to remind themselves of exactly what they contain) before they discard
them or sort them into bookmark groups. This is a fundamental part of bookmark
organization. I don't know about you, but I don't automatically remember the
purpose of every site that I have ever bookmarked. I often need to review them
(as a part of the tidy-up process) to see if the site is still relevant. To
forced users to constantly switch back and forth between checking the sites and
then and arranging and moving the bookmarks, is cumbersome and clumsy. 

You assert that the Bookmark Manager is an entirely separate entity from the
Side bar and Menu, but that is not actually the case. It is just another view
onto exactly the same information. It is no different to viewing the contents of
a folder in single folder view and then viewing the same contents in Explorer
view (with a tree pane down the left hand side). The icon's behaviour should not
change just because the view of it is different. This is inconsistent and (in my
personal opinion) is just bad UI design.

You stated in comment #3 QUOTE: "I feel strongly that double clicking should be
assigned to property-editing". My suggestion for single click 'launch' and
double-click 'property editing' would give you exactly what you requested. In
other words, you could double-click a bookmark and it would indeed open the
property editing page, just like you want. So, I don't really understand what
your objection is.

But then again, I can't understand why anyone in this day and age would still be
double-clicking as a primary action. But that's just me.

Comment 10

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

yeesh.  If you can't make the point in two paragraphs, its a slashdot post, not
a bug comment.  Speculations and assertions based anything other than a
scientific study/documented UI guidelines are useless as well.

Having distinct commands on double vs. single-click in the manner suggested
isn't possible in XUL.  The first click will always fire the onclick event,
regardless of whether there's a second click in the pipe.  Its just the way the
event model works.

Focusing on the actual original bug, expected results of a double-click on any
tree view interface is Open, not Properties.  Name a major app that does it the
other way around, and I'll name you dozens of others that use the convention. 
In that sense, this bug would introduce different behaviour than "standard" apps
use, meaning that we're taking a usability hit for users who aren't making weird
assumptions.

I don't know why I ignored this bug for so long, but in any case, the conclusion
now is the same as it would have been back then.  WONTFIX.

Comment 11

[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