388090 - limit the url bar results to 6 items

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Address Bar, defect)

Description

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

limit the url bar results to 10 items like the search suggest box

For the URL bar, we appear to show 14 items and then the scrollbar (with up to 100 results, I believe).

Given that we want to add "Show all" to the bottom (see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=387714) and possibly Search for "x"  at the bottom (see
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=373352), perhaps we should limit our results to 10 (for consistency?) and not have a scrollbar.  

Otherwise, it seems that "Show all" or "Search for" are going to hard to discover and painful to get to.

Comment 1

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

note, if we did this, we'd limit the results you get when you click the location bar drop down to the last 10 as well, and the "show all" would take you to the places organizer for all the places you've typed in.

Comment 2

[Jesse Ruderman]

URL autocomplete seems to be limited to 6 items on Mac currently.

Comment 3

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to comment #2)
> URL autocomplete seems to be limited to 6 items on Mac currently.

Same here. (6 visible items.)

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a7pre) Gecko/2007071305 Minefield/3.0a7pre

Comment 4

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

Jesse / Dão:

do you guys see more choices (14) if you first click on the drop down located immediately to the left of the go button?

After doing that, URL autocomplete returns 14 items for me.

Let's keep the results at 6 results max, no scroll bar, followed by "show all" (or "search for", still open for discussion)

updating summary.

Comment 5

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Jesse / Dão:
> 
> do you guys see more choices (14) if you first click on the drop down located
> immediately to the left of the go button?

yes

Btw -- I don't know about Jesse -- but I didn't mean to say that 6 should be the limit here. Intuitively, I would have chosen 10.

Comment 6

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

>> do you guys see more choices (14) if you first click on the drop down located
>> immediately to the left of the go button?
>
>yes

OK, I'll log a spin off bug on that.

> I didn't mean to say that 6 should be the limit here

The limit is open for debate.  I know that faaborg has some ideas on what it should be.  But I'll start with 6.

Comment 7

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

(In reply to comment #6)
> >> do you guys see more choices (14) if you first click on the drop down located
> >> immediately to the left of the go button?
> >
> >yes
> 
> OK, I'll log a spin off bug on that.

See bug 340572 comment 3 - as far as I know this behavior is intentional.

Comment 8

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

It was implemented by the change for bug 179666, but there isn't much rationale there...

Comment 9

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

note, 6 or 10 hasn't been decided, but we do want to:

1)  reduce the number and not show a scroll bar
2)  add a "Show all results" item at the bottom if there is more than 6
3)  improve the url bar autocomplete search algorithm for both results and performance.

Comment 10

[Jesse Ruderman]

Eep, no scrollbar?  I hope the default is much more than 6, then.  I don't want to have to go through complicated UI just because the autocomplete result I want is #9 or #13.

Comment 11

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

beltzner and I talked this through, and we're going to mark this as WONTFIX in this specific case.

The "Show All" and/or "Search for foo" options are secondary interactions if the search doesn't return the match you're looking for.  Limiting the results forces users to use them more often, which feels like backward thinking.  Show All is an interesting concept, but shouldn't come at the expense of making many interactions heavier than they need to be.

Comment 12

[Jesse Ruderman]

I think we should show more than 6.  IE/Win shows 8 (without a scrollbar) and Safari/Mac shows 10 (with a scrollbar).

Comment 13

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

note, I think we should change from what we do now (showing 6 with a scroll bar) to more (8 or 10 with a scroll bar).  

I'll spin up a separate bug about that.

Comment 14

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

> I'll spin up a separate bug about that.

spun off to bug #389584