332498 - modifier-clicking url proxy icon (favicon) should duplicate tab, copy tab to new window, save tab, etc. (using middle/ctrl/shift/alt clicks)

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Address Bar, enhancement)

Description

[John Mellor (Jomel)]

Currently clicking on the back, forward or home buttons with certain modifiers opens the relevant URL in a different way (new tab, window, save, etc.). These special ways of opening URLs would be useful if applied to the current page too, and would provide a means of performing several frequently requested functionalities.

Currently:
  * Clicking the url proxy icon selects all text in the location bar (whether or not any modifiers are used or the middle mouse button was used)
  * Hovering over the url proxy icon causes the cursor to become a grab hand.

I propose the following changes:
  * Middle/Ctrl-clicking it opens the current page in a new selected tab
  * Shift-clicking it opens the current page in a new window
  * Shift+Middle/Ctrl-clicking it opens the current page in a new background tab
  * Alt-clicking it saves the current page
  * When hovered it just looks like a bookmarks toolbar item, so it is clear that it can be clicked but also reasonably intuitive that it can be dragged. The cursor would be unchanged, which would actually be more consistent with other UI elements and programs.

The code and reasoning for choosing which action (already used by the back, forward and home buttons) is here:
http://lxr.mozilla.org/mozilla/source/browser/base/content/utilityOverlay.js#127

This is a split of bug 263942, after discussing that one with timeless on IRC he suggested that it would make much more sense for the functionality to be added to the url proxy icon instead of the reload button.

Comment 1

[Tuukka Tolvanen (sp3000)]

> Currently:
>   * Clicking the url proxy icon selects all text in the location bar (whether
> or not any modifiers are used or the middle mouse button was used)
>   * Hovering over the url proxy icon causes the cursor to become a grab hand.
    * Middle clicking loads url in selection or clipboard (bug 111337)

Comment 2

[Tuukka Tolvanen (sp3000)]

...that is, in firefox, only if middlemouse.paste is set, which it is by default for linux, see bug 291768

Comment 3

[John Mellor (Jomel)]

Sure, the middle-mouse behaviour would only be if middlemouse.paste was disabled.

(it would also follow browser.tabs.loadBookmarksInBackground as do the other buttons)

Comment 4

[John Mellor (Jomel)]

Attachment: Simple patch

Adds the basic functionality and ui.

History, scroll position and any post data are simply ignored for now, I'll see what happens on bug 298571...

I am undecided as to whether the tooltip text should be changed from the current "Drag and drop this icon to create a link to this page", so I've left that alone.

I've made the url proxy icon into a toolbarbutton to make the functionality slightly more obvious. This does however have the side-effect of making the location bar 3 pixels taller due to its (native?) padding, and I'm not sure whether this can be remedied. For consistency I have made the search bar equally tall (on winstripe only, pinstripe needs tweaking); though for best consistency/logic the search bar dropmarker ought to be a toolbarbutton too.

I wasn't able to test the style changes for pinstripe so they may need tweaking by a few pixels.

Comment 5

[Mike Beltzner [:beltzner, not reading bugmail]]

You don't want uiwanted, you want to ask for ui-r on this patch. Please do so, request from me :)

Comment 6

[John Mellor (Jomel)]

Comment on attachment 217103 [details] [diff] [review]
Simple patch

Yes, ui-review is really what I'm looking for. None of the recent changes to browser.js affect this patch, so as I understand it should apply fine even though line numbers have changed; let me know if not.

Comment 7

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

(In winstipe, -moz-margin-start should be used instead of margin-left.)

Comment 8

[Mike Beltzner [:beltzner, not reading bugmail]]

Comment on attachment 217103 [details] [diff] [review]
Simple patch

Comments on the idea and approach follow, but this implementation of it doesn't work well. We shouldn't be futzing with the location bar height, for instance.

Comment 9

[Mike Beltzner [:beltzner, not reading bugmail]]

(In reply to comment #0)
> I propose the following changes:
>   * Middle/Ctrl-clicking it opens the current page in a new selected tab
>   * Shift-clicking it opens the current page in a new window
>   * Shift+Middle/Ctrl-clicking it opens the current page in a new background
> tab
>   * Alt-clicking it saves the current page

These all make sense to me, and they should not only act on the URL proxies in the location bar, but also on URL proxies on the tabs in the tabstrip.

>   * When hovered it just looks like a bookmarks toolbar item, so it is clear
> that it can be clicked but also reasonably intuitive that it can be dragged.
> The cursor would be unchanged, which would actually be more consistent with
> other UI elements and programs.

I think we can probably get a better hover treatment, perhaps a subtle outline or something that makes them look more clickable and button like.

Comment 10

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Comment on attachment 217103 [details] [diff] [review]
Simple patch

would like to see us revisit this idea once the location bar rethink runs its course

Comment 11

[John Mellor (Jomel)]

I just noticed that the Firefox 3 location bar now has an explicit button for the URL proxy (favicon). These enhancements might fit in better now. Though clicking on the button (rather unintuitively) tells you about whether the page has been verified, which I suppose isn't very related. A right-click menu with these kind of options could work potentially...