285108 - Bookmark toggle UI inconsistency

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Camino Graveyard :: Bookmarks, defect)

Description

[Armen Abrahamian]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8b2) Gecko/20050306 Camino/0.8+
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8b2) Gecko/20050306 Camino/0.8+

The new bookmarks in tabs feature has brought along with it an apparent
inconsistency in the interface of Camino.

When using a plain Camino window without multiple tabs open, the Cmd-B shortcut,
the Bookmarks->Show All Bookmarks command, and bookmarks toolbar button are all
a toggle for showing and hiding the bookmark manager.

When there are multiple tabs open in a window, if the bookmark manager is
toggled ON in a blank tab, it takes over that tab. That is, it is impossible to
hide the bookmark manager any longer.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Browse to a page in a new Camino window.
2. Create a new tab in that same window and show the bookmark manager in it.
3. Try to toggle off or close out the bookmark manager.

Actual Results:  
You cannot toggle the bookmarks off in this case. No way to get rid of it short
of closing the tab.

Expected Results:  
There's no reason to prevent the bookmarks from being toggled off in this case.
It only causes added confusion in terms of the user's expected behavior of Camino.

Comment 1

[Jasper]

This was done on purpose because when you open a blank tab there is nothing to
toggle back to accept a blank page. If you want to go someher either type a url
in the url bar or click a bookmark. This is very consistent in my opinion.

Simon could you decide what to do here.

Comment 2

[Mike Pinkerton (not reading bugmail)]

josh and i talked about this, we ended up emulating what safari does. what's the
point of toggling back to a blank tab? just load a url and the manager will go
away. 

i'm willing to be swayed, let's discuss this some more.

Comment 3

[Simon Fraser [no longer active]]

I agree that it is a little weird. I'm starting to think that perhaps loading an
URL to get bookmarks to display is wrong. It causes this inconsistency, and some
others;
* When you toggle BM off, we have to reload the previous page (slow) (Safari
  does too).
* If you Add Bookmark when the BM manager is showing, we should actually use the
  title/url of the previous page in session history.

If we just swapped in the BM view in the tab, we could always toggle, but it
wouldn't show up in the session history.

Comment 4

[Armen Abrahamian]

RE: #2 by Mike

Well I think the point of allowing the toggle functionality, even back to a
blank tab, is key in maintaining consistency in the way the browser and bookmark
manager behave for the user.

I personally might realize that the bookmarks manager is just about:bookmarks
but the average user doesn't know what the bookmark manager "is" or how it works
or is loaded and displayed. Say they:

1) Opened a new tab to load a page
2) Accidentally load the bookmark manager, or load it on purpose to check
something but not to load a site
3) Want to go back to "browsing" mode to load a page they originally intended to
load

This inability to now get rid of what they may have inadvertedly opened up, or
perhaps on purpose to check something only, is going to cause confusion and
frustration.

I think the problem here is that there is a blurring of the "modes" of
interaction Camino. There is the obvious "browsing mode" and the "bookmark
managing mode". While technically these have been implemented into the same
window, I'm not sure the user is going to follow these inconsistencies of
behavior in special cases (i.e. the blank tab, or also another one I intend to
bring up, the inability to untoggle the history)

RE: #3 and Simon's comments

I think you make some very good points Simon. Ones that I intended to bring up
as well. There is a marked delay when unloading the bookmark manager that we
didnt have before. This is an unfortunate side effect of the new change. I never
liked this when it occurred in Safari and now we have it too.

What are the possible cons of doing what you're suggesting is possible. That is,
load the bookmark manager in the tab but not make it a URL that's part of
session history?

Conversely, what are the advantages of putting the BM manager in the session
history?

Comment 5

[Aulia Masna]

As a side effect of this reported bug, on 2005032408 (v0.8+), when opening the
bookmarks panel in a new empty tab, and subsequently closing the tab, you won't
be able to open the panel anymore until you close the window or open a new one.

steps to reproduce:
1. open new blank tab
2. toggle bookmarks panel with Cmd+B in new tab
3. close the tab
4. hit Cmd+B

Actual Results:  
You cannot toggle the bookmarks ON until you either close the active window or
open a new window. Bookmarks menu will show a grayed out item titled "Hide All
Bookmarks"

Expected Results:  
You should be able to open the bookmarks panel regardless.

Further effects:
While keeping the window open with the bug still active, open a new window and
close it immediately. Strangely the original window will now accept Cmd+B and
open the bookmarks panel.

If you keep the new window open and try to open the bookmarks panel, it will
also allow you to.

I hope it's not too confusing.

Comment 6

[Simon Fraser [no longer active]]

Aulia: the issue you described has been fixed (incorrect enabling of the items
on the Bookmarks menu). Please try a more recent build.

Comment 7

[Josh Aas]

Talked to Armen about this, and we're not changing the behavior