275475 - "Save link as..." misleading to many

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Menus, defect)

Description

[Matt McCollow]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

I suggest changing the "Save link as..." option on the context menu of webpages
to something a little less misleading. I run my own PC service/repair business,
and I've seen this option confuse many users when I show them how to download a
file. The exact words out of all of their mouths were "Doesn't that just save
the link though?". I believe the option used to be called "Save target as..."
which was far less confusing.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Right click on a link on any webpage

Comment 1

[Daniel Schneider]

I agree with this. Except instead of just "save target" it should explicitly say
"link target". So:

"Save Link As..." needs to be "Save Link Target As..."
and
"Copy Link Location" needs to just be "Copy Link".

There is already a "Send Link", which of course just sends the actual link in an
email, not including the target as an attachment. So it's inconsistent. And one
of my extensions added an "Open Link Target in IE" which is clear.

Comment 2

[Grey Nicholson (they/them)]

I just made this mistake and I'm by no means a newbie. It doesn't help that it's
immediately above "Send Link". I suggest this be increased in severity to a
proper bug rather than just an enchancement.

Comment 3

[Jason Daly]

This confuses me also. Sometimes it makes me think that it wants to save a
shortcut too the link or something. Especially confusing for newbies. Could
someone set this as new and add some cc?

Comment 4

[Remi]

I completely agree!!

Is this supposed to act like IE's "Save Target As"?  Half the time when I click
"Save Link As" on some links, I get a popup error:  

"The link could not be saved.  The web page may have been removed or had its
name changed."

But if I do the same thing in IE, it works.  What's going on here??

Comment 5

[Daniel Schneider]

I also think this should be upgraded to a "trivial" bug, not an enhancement.

Comment 6

[Grey Nicholson (they/them)]

The context menu shows:

Bookmark This Link
Save Link As
Send Link
Copy Link Location

Save Link As applies to the target document, whereas the others apply to the
target *address* (and should probably use "Address" instead of "Link" - people
seem to have taken to calling any URL in any context a "link").

"Save Target As" is probably the clearest wording, and it happens to match IE;
its menu item should be either first or last in the section.

This isn't a feature request, so upgrading to Trivial. Please ask support
questions in MozillaZine Forums, and no more "me too" comments - just CC
yourself or vote.

Comment 7

[bikrrr]

As a user experience specialist, I whole heartedly agree with this bug. I just want to add another idea for possible wording. Although I like "Save Target As..." because it is consistent with Internet Explorer, I'm not so sure IE's wording is optimal. 

My suggestion is "Save File As...". We're techy people who understand shortcuts, links and targets. But most novice computer users don't "get" the difference between links and targets, but almost all understand what a file is. 

Even for the technical people, it still reduces cognitive load. For example, if you have a link called "Widget User's Guide (PDF)" then right-clicking it and seeing an option called "Save File As..." makes the association direct葉he link represents the target file, so to the user the link *is* the file. Using the wording "Save Target As..." introduces the concept of links and targets when it is not really necessary; the user just wants to save the file somewhere on their computer.

Comment 8

[Stuart Morgan]

I don't agree with the 'trivial' severity here.  Yes, it's just wording, but it's wording that I have seen prevent people from finding functionality they need even when they know it's there. It's a "minor loss of function", not a "cosmetic problem"

Comment 9

[arancaytar.ilyaran]

I have had to explain this option multiple times. It is indeed very confusing, and while long-time users of Firefox may have become used to it, people who are switching from Opera, IE or even Mozilla are  used to "Save Target as..." (and "Save Link Target as..." in Mozilla's case). It may be a cosmetic change, but it would do wonders for functionality and an intuitive UI.

Comment 10

[Kai Liu]

I agree that it should be changed as well...

1) For the sake of consistency with IE.

2) For the sake of semantic correctness.  As mentioned in comment #6, other uses of "link" refer to the link itself, and not the link target, and thus this wording is semantically incorrect.  I mean, you don't copy a pointer when you are trying to dereference a pointer, and the same should apply here.

Use either "Save Link Target As" for the best clarity and semantic correctness or "Save Target As" for cutting down on words and reducing the width of the menu.

Comment 11

[Roman R.]

I agree with Comment #7. The menu item should be called "Save File as...". But whatever it is made to be, the current name is totally wrong. Even my noob friend just told she knew the difference between a link and file, and because she wanted to save a file, she didn't think the option in question was the right one.

Somebody, please raise importance of this issue!

Comment 12

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+1]]

Alex, what do you think about?

Comment 13

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

>Alex, what do you think about?

Overall I agree with comment #7 and others who note that really it is the file being saved, as opposed to the pointer to that file being saved.  (For people who are reading the text very literally).  I'm also concerned that "Target" or "Link Target" gets us too far into the realm of technical jargon.

One consideration that I think might have gone into the current UI is that the user may have been intending to right click on the page itself, and not realize that they inadvertently clicked on a hyperlink on the page.  So in that situation, using different terms (Link vs. Page) serves as an indication of what is actually being acted on.

So I think the ideal solution here is more complex than a simple string change.  Ideally we would have two things:

1) A more distinct visual indication that a link was clicked on as opposed to the page itself.  There are a variety of ways to do this, here are some ideas:
--a glowing focus ring (which is more elaborate than the current 1 pixel dotted line
--a notch on the context menu pointing to the link
--visually styling the link similar to the find interface in safari (sort of pops out of the page)

2) A fully localized set of strings that map particular common mime type to human readable terms.  This would enable us to write more descriptive contextual actions, like:

"Save Movie As..."
"Copy Image Location"
"Bookmark This PDF"