345769 - Move "Ask me before clearing" checkbox from the CPD dialog to the prefwindow

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Settings UI, defect)

Description

[Jeff Walden [:Waldo]]

...as discussed after the last Firefox 2 status meeting.

Comment 1

[Jeff Walden [:Waldo]]

Ben: the current CPD dialog includes specialized handling for the "Ask me before clearing" checkbox with respect to saved passwords; when saved passwords are to be cleared, "Ask me before clearing" is checked and disabled.  I have no idea why this is the way it is, and I'd like to know before moving it from its current location within the dialog to within the preferences window.

Comment 2

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

The reason is that I felt that the user should _always_ be prompted before deleting passwords en masse, since I felt they were a more critical data set than just about anything else that I had stored. 

Comment 3

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

(In reply to comment #2)
> The reason is that I felt that the user should _always_ be prompted before
> deleting passwords en masse, since I felt they were a more critical data set
> than just about anything else that I had stored. 

That's true, but I think we're being overly nervous here. The user will have had to undo the default of "Always ask me ..." and to have checked the by-default-off "Passwords" button to get into this mess, and *then* clicked OK. At a certain point, we might just have to admit that they might want their passwords deleted.

If we think that deleting passwords is an incredibly special case, then I'd question why we're putting the option in the CPD tool at all.

Comment 4

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

Waldo,

This change implies a few other changes for this settings dialog:

 - we don't need the groupboxes anymore
 - we don't need the "Private Data:" header anymore
 - we can clarify that this is a settings dialog, and different from the CPD dialog, and what the user is actually doing
 - we can take this opportunity to re-order the prefs to be somewhat sane

I suggest:

   When I ask Firefox to clear my private data,
   it should erase:

     [x] Browsing History
     [x] Download History
     [x] Saved Form Information
     [x] Cache
     [ ] Cookies
     [ ] Saved Passwords
     [x] Authenticated Sessions

                           ( Cancel ) ( OK )

The astute observers will note that I sneakily re-ordered those ;) We'll want that change in both this dialog and the "Clear Private Data" dialog, which should look like:

   Clear the following items now:

     [x] Browsing History
     [x] Download History
     [x] Saved Form Information
     [x] Cache
     [ ] Cookies
     [ ] Saved Passwords
     [x] Authenticated Sessions

                    ( Cancel ) ( Clear Private Data Now ) 

Comment 5

[Jeff Walden [:Waldo]]

Attachment: Patch

There's some whitespace cleanup in here; let me know if a -w version is desirable.

Comment 6

[Jeff Walden [:Waldo]]

Attachment: diff -w

Comment 7

[Jeff Walden [:Waldo]]

Comment on attachment 232035 [details] [diff] [review]
diff -w

Pay no attention to the security.xul changes behind the curtain...

Comment 8

[Jeff Walden [:Waldo]]

Comment on attachment 232015 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch

This is a nice bit of UI cleanup in both the prefwindow and the clear private data dialogs; it's just moving UI code around, so it should be pretty low-risk.

Comment 9

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

Comment on attachment 232015 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch

a=beltzner on behalf of drivers

Comment 10

[Jeff Walden [:Waldo]]

In on branch/trunk.

Comment 11

[Adam Guthrie]

*** Bug 348743 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***