Closed Bug 342340 Opened 18 years ago Closed 11 years ago

"Home page" pref should not show "about:blank" when it is set to a blank page

Categories

(Firefox :: Settings UI, enhancement)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
Settings UI
Type:
enhancement
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED WORKSFORME

People

(Reporter: tommyjb, Unassigned)

References

Details

(Keywords: ux-implementation-level, Whiteboard: see comment 17) 

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.4) Gecko/20060508 Firefox/1.5.0.4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.4) Gecko/20060508 Firefox/1.5.0.4

In order to set a blank home page, the user can click 'Use Blank Page' in [Tools->Options->General->Home Page].  This causes 'about:blank' to be displayed in the 'Location(s)' field.

I feel that this text, 'about:blank', should not be exposed to the end-user, for it is unnecessarily technical.  Would grandma, new to Firefox, upon seeing her home page location set as 'about:blank', know what her home page was?  Further, would she not feel less confident with Firefox after seeing this?

Reproducible: Always
We should just override about:blank with "(Blank Page)" if a user does this. Dunno how easy that fix would be, though. Anyone?
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
Adding a dependency on the new pref panel.
Depends on: pref-reorg
If the user types "(Blank Page)" into the field, will we correspondingly re-parse to abot:blank internally?
(In reply to comment #3)
> If the user types "(Blank Page)" into the field, will we correspondingly
> re-parse to abot:blank internally?

If we intend to display "(Blank Page)", then the easiest implementation would indeed have that side effect.  Anything which doesn't is going to be unnecessarily complex, I think.
Why not use "" (i.e. an empty string, maybe modulo whitespace) instead of "(Blank Page)"? That would even be half-way consistent with what we already display in the address bar for a blank page.
(In reply to comment #5)
> Why not use "" (i.e. an empty string) instead of "(Blank Page)"?

I'm voting for (Blank Page) --- editing prefs makes people nervous, we should EXPLICITLY tell them what they're selecting even if it's not consistent with the resulting display in the URL bar.
This seems to have been fixed some time ago.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 15 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
(In reply to comment #7)
> This seems to have been fixed some time ago.

Why do you say that? I just checked the latest nightly, and the only way to set a blank home page still is by using ‘about:blank’ manually.
I'm running the latest nightly right now: "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.3a1pre) Gecko/20091009 Minefield/3.7a1pre"

Tools-->Options-->General-->When Minefield starts-->Show a blank page
(In reply to comment #9)
> I'm running the latest nightly right now: "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT
> 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.3a1pre) Gecko/20091009 Minefield/3.7a1pre"
> 
> Tools-->Options-->General-->When Minefield starts-->Show a blank page
Yes, that does say "Show a blank page" but this bug is about the input box under that saying "about:blank".  This bug is not fixed.
Status: RESOLVED → REOPENED
Resolution: FIXED → ---
I don't see "about:blank" at any stage, either in the latest Windows release (3.5.3) or the latest Windows nightly.
(In reply to comment #11)
> I don't see "about:blank" at any stage, either in the latest Windows release
> (3.5.3) or the latest Windows nightly.
Hmm, actually you are correct.  about:blank is just still showing in the input box from the past when we used to actually have to type in about:blank as our homepage.  I'm not sure this is the correct behavior though or if this should be closed as WFM.
To be clear, I removed about:blank from the input box, set the option as show my windows as last time, and then restarted.  Change the option to show blank page and 'about:blank' did not display in the input box.
Whiteboard: worksforme?
Michael, maybe is WFM but the 'about:blank' is still shown to users that have added this before.  Maybe this bug could be morphed into disabling the input field when about:blank and show my tabs and windows from last time are selected.  No point in having anything in the box when they are overridden anyways.
(In reply to comment #14)
> Maybe this bug could be morphed into disabling the input
> field when about:blank and show my tabs and windows from last time are
> selected.  No point in having anything in the box when they are overridden
> anyways.
Sorry for the "spam", filed bug 521687 for this.
Bug 521687 has been marked invalid, because "There's still the Home button and menu item, even if you don't load the home page on start-up."

about:blank isn't displayed anywhere anymore, so this bug is WFM.
Status: REOPENED → RESOLVED
Closed: 15 years ago → 14 years ago
Resolution: --- → WORKSFORME
(In reply to comment #16)
> about:blank isn't displayed anywhere anymore, so this bug is WFM.

As I pointed out in comment 8, it _is_ exposed if you want to have a blank home page. I just checked the latest nightly and this is indeed still the case. Thus:

1. Open a new (blank) tab.
2. Open Preferences and click on ‘Use Current Page’
3. Expected result: Blank ‘Home Page’ field.
   Actual result: ‘about:blank’ in that field––exposed to the user.

On the other hand:
1. Open Preferences and set ‘Home Page’ field to nothing.
2. Click on Home button.
3. Expected result: Blank page is displayed.
   Actual result: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/minefield/ is displayed.

Thus, although blank pages are URL-less in the location bar, the user is expected to know that the URL is really ‘about:blank’ for the Preferences dialogue.
I can reproduce both parts, so reopening.

The second part of comment 17 is definitely a bug.
Status: RESOLVED → REOPENED
Resolution: WORKSFORME → ---
Whiteboard: worksforme? → see comment 17
Keywords: ux-implementation-level
Summary: 'about:blank' should not be exposed to end-user → "Home page" pref should not show "about:blank" when it is set to a blank page
You can't set it to a blank page anymore unless you enter about:blank manually. If you clear the URL, the placeholder text says Firefox Start Page, but sets the URL to about:home (without showing it).

So the second part of comment 17 is now WFM. Resolving again.
Status: REOPENED → RESOLVED
Closed: 14 years ago → 11 years ago
Resolution: --- → WORKSFORME
(In reply to Steffen Wilberg from comment #19)
> You can't set it to a blank page anymore unless you enter about:blank
> manually. If you clear the URL, the placeholder text says Firefox Start
> Page, but sets the URL to about:home (without showing it).
> 
> So the second part of comment 17 is now WFM. Resolving again.

What you described is actually the exact bug that I explained in comment 17, part 2. So, that should not be WFM, since it is not the expected result.
It is expected, because the Firefox Start Page (about:home internally) is the default start page.
See bug 595356.
(In reply to Steffen Wilberg from comment #21)
> It is expected, because the Firefox Start Page (about:home internally) is
> the default start page.
> See bug 595356.

That was my point: if a normal human being (not a Firefox developer) cleared the Home Page field, then that person would be expecting no home page at all (in other words, a blank page). Seeing the default home page breaks that expectation. Rather, a Default Home Page button (or some other form of reset) is what I would expect if wanted the default home page--not manually clearing out the field.

In any case, this bug is actually about the fact that the internal URL of ‘about:blank’ is exposed to any user who wants to a blank home page. Checking Nightly, this bug still exists.
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