384956 - Provide access to extension options from app options.

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: Settings UI, defect, P2)

Description

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

Bug for PRD items ADD-002a and ADD-002b

Comment 1

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

Attachment: work in progress screenshot

beltzner and Madhava, need some advice on how you'd like to access the options of extensions within the prefpanels. In the screenshot selecting the extension from the dropdown will open its options. Since extension names can be quite long I've limited the width of the drop down and cropped the extension name. I'd also like to add a "Manage Add-ons..." button on this tab. Thoughts?

Comment 2

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

notes

1. to keep the state in sync with the add-ons mgr. we need to use an RDF template. Bug 285076 makes this difficult and even with workarounds it is impossible to display a list though we can display a menulist and use AddDataSource in an onpopupshowing handler and RemoveDataSource in an onpopuphiding handler to avoid the nastiness such as the datasource not being torn down properly which is probably also Bug 285076. Another option that regretfully wouldn't keep the two in sync would be to create the list of extensions with options without using an RDF template when the prefpane is loaded.

2. there are no accesskeys available that are appropriate in the advanced pane. After bug 393003 is fixed only "j", "q", "z" will be available. Bug 143065 is the fix for this and getting that fixed for 3.0 is highly unlikely. I believe that a hackish workaround could be written for the advanced tab by removing accesskeys for tabs that are not selected and adding them for the selected tab. No, I'm not volunteering. :P Another option would be to add this to another prefpane but there isn't much real estate anywhere else and this doesn't IMO warrant its own prefpane.

Comment 3

[Steffen Wilberg]

Instead of a menulist, which is hard to use, you could provide a richlistbox with the extensions, and an Options button on the selected extension. Oh wait, I've seen that somewhere already...

How about this:
If you want to manage add-ons, open the f***ing add-ons manager?
Seriously, please stop adding needless stuff to the options window - bug 384125 makes me still choke. This is not the Mozilla Suite. Please remove this from the PRD and WONTFIX this bug.

Comment 4

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

The rationale for adding the ability to manage extension prefs has to do with some subset of users going into the app preferences expecting to find extension preferences there which I believe is a valid concern. The initial design as requested by the User Experience people was to have an extension's prefs displayed within preferences itself but that would require severe restrictions on how extensions provide preferences. The addition of this to preferences was discussed during the PRD planning phase and no one besides myself was against adding it... so, I of course was assigned to add this. :P

btw: though I know your comment regarding using a richlistbox was meant sarcastically it is important to note that we wouldn't be able to use the richlistbox with an RDF datasource inside a prefpane due to Bug 285076... why is it important? Because I wouldn't be surprised if a request was made to add one and doing so would be a major PITA.

Comment 5

[Madhava Enros [:madhava]]

I agree that a number of users will go to the Prefs panel looking for ways to change an add-on's preferences, and may get confused and frustrated if there's nothing there.  This discoverability problem is a real one.

It seems odd though, to have two completely mirrored places in the UI to make these changes.  Theoretically, one way to get around this would be to have all of the Add-ons Manager in the Prefs/Options panel, but, given how user-facing we want to make the Add-ons Manager in general (i.e. the Add-ons Manager redesign), I don't think it belongs there.  Really, nothing that we want to encourage the user to interact with belongs in Preferences/Options.

How about, rather than a full-on prefs panel with add-on picker, we provide a button titled something like "Configure Add-on Preferences..." that brings up the Add-ons Manager?  Users who look in Preferences have a sign-post that leads them to where the prefs really are, and get introduced to the Add-ons Manager in the process, and we don't have to replicate functionality (which, aside from being a pain for us, is also going to be odd for users).

As to where in the prefs panel to put this, sticking it in "Advanced" seems like the wrong course of action -- the advanced section really ought to be where we bury those options that we expect hardly anyone to go looking for but that we have to surface for some reason.  Really nitpicky things, like turning off auto-spellchecking or being all "custom" about what updates to check for (both are in there).  The whole argument behind putting Add-ons prefs in here somewhere, though, is that we expect that people will be looking for them.  If these prefs belong anywhere in the main Preferences/Options dialog, they belong somewhere more prominent.  Maybe on "Main"?

Comment 6

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

I'm fine with just providing a button to open the add-ons manager and actually recommended we do exactly that but got pushback to have them available directly from preferences/options.

I agree that Main would be the place to put it but there currently isn't room for it and I am loathe to just increase the height of the pref window... suggestions?

Comment 7

[Steffen Wilberg]

A button to open the Add-ons manager is much better indeed. The Add-ons manager is the central place to install new add-ons, restart Firefox, configure add-ons, and uninstall them again.

Main is indeed stuffed already. I'd go for a new tab on Advanced and a label telling users that they can access extension options in the Add-ons manager.

Comment 8

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

Attachment: screenshot

Comment 9

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

Attachment: screenshot of security view bug the patch also fixes

Comment 10

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

Attachment: patch - adds Manage Add-ons and fixes security view groupbox cutoff

Comment 11

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

Comment on attachment 278491 [details]
screenshot

I implemented this per the email you sent me. Thanks!

Comment 12

[mcdavis941 (sporadically reading bugmail)]

Since you're already this section of code ... shouldn't "Startup" be "Start-up" for the same reason that "Add-ons" is hyphenated?

http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?sourceid=Mozilla-search&va=startup

Comment 13

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

(In reply to comment #12)
I leave the terminology to the UI / UX team which approved the use of startup. Not going to do that in this bug.

Comment 14

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

-        <description control="warningSettings" flex="1">&chooseWarnings.label;</description>
+        <label control="warningSettings" flex="1">&chooseWarnings.label;</label>

hrm?

Comment 15

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

(In reply to comment #14)
> -        <description control="warningSettings"
> flex="1">&chooseWarnings.label;</description>
> +        <label control="warningSettings"
> flex="1">&chooseWarnings.label;</label>
> 
> hrm?
See attachment #278493 [details] as to why I changed this. I can just file a followup bug on this if you prefer though I doubt I'll have time to take it.

Comment 16

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

Filed Bug 393945 for the security prefpane's last groupbox being partially cutoff

Comment 17

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

Attachment: patch w/o security pref pane fix

Comment 18

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

Comment on attachment 278507 [details] [diff] [review]
patch w/o security pref pane fix

r=mano.

Comment 19

[Madhava Enros [:madhava]]

One last string change.

The button text makes sense given that what it launches the Add-ons Manager, but in the left-justified string where we can offer an explanation suited to the current context, I think I'd use a more specific word than "Manage."  If they're opening the Options/Preferences panel to do something, it's most like because they're trying to change options/preferences, rather than general "management."  Also, rather than introducing the new term "settings" where we otherwise talk about "Options" on Windows and "Preferences" on Mac, I think I'd rather use the same terminology.  How about something like this?

[mac] "Change preferences for your add-ons."
[win]  "Change options for your add-ons"

Comment 20

[Madhava Enros [:madhava]]

Comment on attachment 278491 [details]
screenshot

with the string changes in comment 19

Comment 21

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

Attachment: patch - updated to comments

mano, had to change the xul due to the strings asked for by Madhava... could you please review this again?

Comment 22

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

Comment on attachment 278834 [details] [diff] [review]
patch - updated to comments

r=mano.

Comment 23

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

Checked in to trunk

Checking in mozilla/browser/components/preferences/main.xul;
/cvsroot/mozilla/browser/components/preferences/main.xul,v  <--  main.xul
new revision: 1.14; previous revision: 1.13
done
Checking in mozilla/browser/components/preferences/main.js;
/cvsroot/mozilla/browser/components/preferences/main.js,v  <--  main.js
new revision: 1.13; previous revision: 1.12
done
Checking in mozilla/browser/locales/en-US/chrome/browser/preferences/main.dtd;
/cvsroot/mozilla/browser/locales/en-US/chrome/browser/preferences/main.dtd,v  <--  main.dtd
new revision: 1.7; previous revision: 1.6
done

Comment 24

[Steve England [:stevee]]

Filed bug 394299 on the UI being cut off at the bottom of the options pane.

Comment 25

[Tony Chung [:tchung]]

Verified fix on Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.4; es-ES; rv:1.9b2pre) Gecko/2007112804 Minefield/3.0b2pre