291534 - Safe Mode: Need indication that user is in Safe Mode

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: General, enhancement)

Description

[Will Budreau]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.7) Gecko/20050414 Firefox/1.0.3
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.7) Gecko/20050414 Firefox/1.0.3

It would be helpful to have some explicit indicator that the user is in safe mode.

Currently: When in safe mode, no extensions are on, and all options int eh
extension manager are greyed out and cannot be configred or enabled/disabled.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:



Expected Results:  
There should be some part of the GUI that makes it clear "Hi, you're in safe mode"
The extension manager window seems like a reasonable yet unobtrusive location as
Extensions are the most affected part of the browser.
"Extensions - Safe Mode"
"Extensions disabled because browser was started in Safe Mode"
etc...
The browser title could also be modified.

Comment 1

[Daniel C]

Bug 294260 suggests loading a local file as the homepage. This could explain
that the user is in safe-mode, what to do about bad extensions, and where to go
for help. It could also explain how to get out of safe-mode and how to get into
it in the future.

This option doesn't mean that continuous safe-mode indication isn't needed too.
I think just replacing "Mozilla Firefox" with "Mozilla Firefox (Safe-Mode)" as
the window title suffix would be fine.

Comment 2

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

This can probably a dupe of or bixed by bug 304403.

Comment 3

[Aaron P]

I would like to see "[Safe Mode]" (or something similar) in the title bar:
Website Title - [Safe Mode] Mozilla Firefox

If that is too much, then it should at least be in the status bar on the right
side, in its own section, right next to the statusbar-progresspanel &
security-button. It should probably have its own bright color, but that is up to
whomever implements it.

Comment 4

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

To make this happen, instead of setting a fixed titlemodifier from a dtd file, dynamically set it from a properties file after checking whether the app is in safemode:

(example at http://lxr.mozilla.org/mozilla/source/browser/components/nsBrowserGlue.js#96)

I don't think anything besides the main window needs to/should change.

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #4)
> I don't think anything besides the main window needs to/should change.
>
perhaps these are additional bug reports:

indication such that talkback (or it's successor) can collect that product is in safe mode.

An indication in "help about" would be convenient for copy+paste in the submission of bugs.

Comment 6

[Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich)]

Attachment: adds "Safe Mode" as titlemodifier

Adds "Safe Mode" as titlemodifier.

A couple of issues:

- Is this the right place to add this code?

- After seeing the text there, it seems a pretty mild visual cue, and could probably go unnoticed by users.

Comment 7

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Is the dialog that appears on startup telling you about safe mode really not good enough here?

It seems way more obvious than adding a bit of text to the titlebar.

Comment 8

[Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich)]

Re: Comment #7

The idea was to have an unobtrusive yet persistent reminder that the user is in safe mode, in the hopes that it remove ambiguity about why certain functionality was not available.

However, if the specific problem we're trying to solve is that the user doesn't know why their extensions are greyed out, I don't think modifying the title bar is the full solution. While it may be helpful as a general reminder, it's not directly visually tied to the EM.

Comment 9

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

fyi: with the work on the EM ui I have added a notification area for this type of status and it already includes safe mode indication for the EM ui.

Comment 10

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #7)
> Is the dialog that appears on startup telling you about safe mode really not
> good enough here?
> 
> It seems way more obvious than adding a bit of text to the titleba

obvious, yes, but an important use is when a someone (eg a developer or help document) asks a user "are you in safe mode", it should be as easy for the user to accurately determine that the system is in safe mode.

Comment 11

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Comment on attachment 217454 [details] [diff] [review]
adds "Safe Mode" as titlemodifier

ok, this would work, kinda, but this is going to be wrong on non-Mac.  

Should be:
Page Title - Mozilla Firefox (Safe Mode) on Windows/Linux 

On Mac, I dunno right now, will think about this tomorrow when I'm in Macville.

Comment 12

[Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich)]

not working on this

Comment 13

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

(In reply to comment #11)
> Should be:
> Page Title - Mozilla Firefox (Safe Mode) on Windows/Linux 
> 
> On Mac, I dunno right now, will think about this tomorrow when I'm in Macville.

Any thoughts on what it should be on mac? 

Comment 14

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Mike, please see previous comment. Did you figure out what the mac version should look like?

Comment 15

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

further thoughts on Mac re: comment 11?

would be nice to have this move forward

Comment 16

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

Moving back to Firefox: private browsing already demonstrated how to do it, anyone who can do this can figure out how to do it from title_privatebrowsing in browser.xul, but modifying an application's main window title isn't a toolkit thing, it's a per-app thing.

Comment 17

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

Sorry about the drive by UI design (wandered in on the path of bug 513419 > bug 295693 > here).

The best way to remove mode errors (not realizing you are in a special mode) is to make the behavior itself non-modal.  So in this case entering safe mode would simply mean flipping all extensions to disabled, and there would be an easy way to re-enable all of them from inside of the add-ons manager.

Comment 18

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

This sounds like a legitimate request, since (at least on Windows XP), there is no visual indication that you're in safe mode.

Comment 19

[Maria Grazia Alastra [:mga]]

I'll work on this bug. I've already talked to Gijs and I'm ready to start!

Comment 20

[Maria Grazia Alastra [:mga]]

Attachment: Add "(Safe Mode)" as titlemodifier when browsing in Safe Mode

Comment 21

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Comment on attachment 751153 [details] [diff] [review]
Add "(Safe Mode)" as titlemodifier when browsing in Safe Mode

This doesn't seem like an effective way to address this bug, as we don't display the window title prominently on Windows (and on OS X going forward).

Comment 22

[:Gijs (he/him)]

Comment on attachment 751153 [details] [diff] [review]
Add "(Safe Mode)" as titlemodifier when browsing in Safe Mode

Maria: thanks for working on this! For what I was aiming for, this patch looks great as far as I'm concerned. However, I'm not the right person to ask for review. There's a list of Firefox reviewers on https://wiki.mozilla.org/Modules/Firefox . Dao is one of them, and he just said he doesn't think the approach is correct. Dao, could you elaborate on what you think ought to be done here? Could we still take this and file a followup bug for cases where we draw in the titlebar and the title isn't sufficient indication of what is going on? I'd argue this is better than nothing, and I don't yet foresee this becoming non-useful on Linux, at the very least, unless I've missed something...

Comment 23

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Comment on attachment 751153 [details] [diff] [review]
Add "(Safe Mode)" as titlemodifier when browsing in Safe Mode

This patch would generate substantial work for the people maintaining our many locales, who might also have a hard time making sense of the string if they're on Windows. Given the limited usefulness of this patch, I wouldn't want to just land it and move on.

A secondary problem with that patch is that Safe Mode and Private Browsing aren't mutually exclusive (although they were in 2006). As written, the Safe Mode modifier would overwrite the Private Browsing one.

I think this bug needs a new plan. The original plan made sense in 2006 doesn't make sense today.

Comment 24

[michael.harte]

Would a notice in the About dialog be appropriate? This would address the concern in Comment #10. In combination with the pop-up dialog that is already implemented I would imagine that would be enough indication.

Comment 25

[Bennat P Jose [:bennatpjose]]

Can I make this my first bug please?

Comment 26

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to Bennat P Jose [:bennatpjose] from comment #25)
> Can I make this my first bug please?

I think this bug needs some UI directions first.

Comment 27

[Bennat P Jose [:bennatpjose]]

A safe mode label on the right side of the tabs near minimize button with safe mode written wouldn't do? I am completely new to this

Comment 28

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to Bennat P Jose [:bennatpjose] from comment #27)
> A safe mode label on the right side of the tabs near minimize button with
> safe mode written wouldn't do?

Not really. We don't even communicate this as "Safe Mode" anymore, the corresponding Help menu item reads "Restart with Add-ons Disabled...".