395636 - don't include ability to remove entries from Applications prefpane

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: File Handling, defect, P2)

Description

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

The Applications prefpane currently lets you remove entries for most types by selecting "Remove this Entry..." from the actions dropdown menu, but faaborg's UX review in bug 377784, comment 45 determined that this capability is unnecessary and should be removed.

mconnor followed up in bug 377784, comment 46 with "I'm not sure why, but I'm ok with this for now."

Comment 1

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

I don't see the advantage of letting user's micro mange the list of possible applications.  Ideally we would be populating this with every relevant app.

Comment 2

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

(In reply to comment #1)
> I don't see the advantage of letting user's micro mange the list of possible
> applications. Ideally we would be populating this with every relevant app.

Just to be clear: the "Remove this entry" dropdown entry doesn't remove applications from the dropdown, it remove types from the list of types handled.

Comment 3

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

>Just to be clear: the "Remove this entry" dropdown entry doesn't remove
>applications from the dropdown, it remove types from the list of types handled.

Sorry, didn't realize that.  Either way, what is the user's goal for pruning their list of content types?  If a small subset of users really want this, I guess we could provide a none discoverable way of doing it (like how shift-delete removes items from the location bar auto-complete)

Comment 4

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

It sounds like both mconnor and Alex are either ok with or in favor of removing the option to remove entries from the list, so I'm going to go ahead and do it.

I'll also note that if we ever decide to bring this back, we should probably device a better UI for it, f.e. an "X" button in the entry that removes it.

Comment 5

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

Attachment: patch v1: removes "Remove Entry..." option

Comment 6

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

Comment on attachment 280823 [details] [diff] [review]
patch v1: removes "Remove Entry..." option

Requesting approval for M9 for this low-risk, well-understood change to the functionality of the Applications prefpane.

If anything, the risk in this patch is that users protest the removal of this functionality and we decide to put it back.  But faaborg and mconnor have both reviewed the change and want it (or are ok with it, in mconnor's case), and it seems reasonable, so I think we're on good grounds.

And if it turns out we made a mistake, readding the functionality is straightforward, so there's little cost to removing it.

Comment 7

[Jesper Kristensen]

In my mind "Remove this entry" and "always ask" is the same thing. It removes a content type from Firefox's list of content types that are handled automatically without asking.

This bug and bug 395143 seems to me like a renaming issue.

Comment 8

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

(In reply to comment #7)
> In my mind "Remove this entry" and "always ask" is the same thing. It removes a
> content type from Firefox's list of content types that are handled
> automatically without asking.
> 
> This bug and bug 395143 seems to me like a renaming issue.

The difference is that if you remove an entry from the list you can't add it back again, whereas if you set a type to "always ask" you can change it later (provided we show such types in the list).

Comment 9

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

Checking in browser/components/preferences/applications.js;
/cvsroot/mozilla/browser/components/preferences/applications.js,v  <--  applications.js
new revision: 1.4; previous revision: 1.3
done
Checking in browser/locales/en-US/chrome/browser/preferences/preferences.properties;
/cvsroot/mozilla/browser/locales/en-US/chrome/browser/preferences/preferences.properties,v  <--  preferences.properties
new revision: 1.15; previous revision: 1.14
done