395637 - sort alphabetically, but with common types on top, in Applications prefpane

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: File Handling, defect, P3)

Description

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

faaborg's review in bug 377784, comment 45 says we should sort the Applications prefpane so that the Web Feed item is on top followed by the rest of the entries in alphabetical order by type name.

In bug 377784, comment 46, mconnor asks, "Why not mailto and others?  Kinda hard for me to justify feeds getting prime placement except to aid transitioning users...".

In bug 377784, comment 48, faaborg responds, "All of the groups will be on top, once we have them implemented (like calendar = .ics, webcal://, hCalendar).  Feeds may eventually become a group if we start to tell the difference between a blog, podcast and video cast.  I agree that we should move mailto: into the top section of commonly used applications."

Comment 1

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

We want to include the "always ask" items, so the only way to avoid them getting in the way is to create an artificial order, with the most relevant items on top.  The top section should also include items like PDF, and mailto.  Ideally the content types under the predetermined top section would be sorted by how often the user encounters them.  But since this is out of scope, we are falling back to alphabetical.  Note that I think alphabetical order of the applications much more useful than alphabetical order of the content types.  This is because at least then related types will be listed together, and users probably think about applications more than they think about (or know of) content types.

Comment 2

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

> Note that I think alphabetical order of the
> applications much more useful than alphabetical order of the content types. 
> This is because at least then related types will be listed together, and users
> probably think about applications more than they think about (or know of)
> content types.

If we sort by application name rather than type name, then, when a user selects a new application from the dropdown menu, the selected entry will jump to a different place in the list, which seems like an unexpected and disturbing behavior.

Comment 3

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

>the selected entry will jump to a
>different place in the list, which seems like an unexpected and disturbing
>behavior.

Yeah, I was imagining that the sort would only occur when the UI was being generated, so the recently changed items would remain in place until you opened the prefpane again.

Comment 4

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

mconnor, any additional thoughts on this?

Comment 5

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

Requesting wanted-1.9 for this Applications prefpane polish fix.

Comment 6

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Why are the groups on top?  I don't know if that makes any sense to me.  I thought the point of groups was to coalesce multiple similar items for simpler management.  That doesn't argue for elevating them higher than other items, they're just an item with special properties, but I don't think it'll make sense if Web Feeds is first, and the rest are in alphabetical order...

Comment 7

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

>Why are the groups on top?  I don't know if that makes any sense to me.

I proposed that before we also considered using groups to reduce the complexity of plugins.  Just being a group isn't enough, we should only promote common types.  (Changed summary from "Web feed" to "common types.")  We should push PDF, email and other common types up in the list as well.  The overall goal is to let the user find the type of content they want to edit without having to scroll through a long list of unrecognizable mime types.

Comment 8

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

This bug needs someone to make a decision.

Comment 9

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

Rerequesting blocking-firefox3 and uiwanted because principals are disagreeing in comments on the bug, and we need a decision on this issue to be able to move forward to fixing (or wontfixing) it.

Comment 10

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

Blocking for ui decision, will circle back by tomorrow, if I haven't, please do yell at me.

Comment 11

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Not a blocker, might still do this (undecided).

Comment 12

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

Attachment: Default list on Windows, OS X and Linux

Here is what this prefpane looks like by default on Windows, OS X and Linux.  Currently we only include two items "Web Feed" and "webcal" (we are also going to include mailto: right?).  OS X picks up PNG and TIFF through Quicktime, and Windows has a few Windows Media Player items.  If you add flash, you pick up an additional 2 items.

Comment 13

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

Attachment: Exposing the user to a MIME type mess

While the default view (in the previous attachment) is fine, this is what I am worried about, a very long list of MIME types that aren't really human readable, and all appear to be mostly the same (in this case application/x-java-applet*) takes over the first view.  If the user is looking for "Web Feed" they may give up before touching the scroll bar, scared off by the initial onslaught of technobabble.

Comment 14

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

Without knowing whether or not we're going to do this, it's hard to target the doing of it.

Comment 15

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

If it helps to move the decision making process along at all, I'm still totally in favor of us doing this.

Comment 16

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

If I put together a list of types we would like sorted to the top, could someone prepare a patch?

Comment 17

[Alex Limi (:limi) — Firefox UX Team]

Removing uiwanted since it's unlikely that this bug is a priority until we look at how we handle application mappings again. No activity since 2008. :)

Comment 18

[Sylvestre Ledru [:Sylvestre]]

Moving to p3 because no activity for at least 1 year(s).
See https://github.com/mozilla/bug-handling/blob/master/policy/triage-bugzilla.md#how-do-you-triage for more information