395645 - group types into categories and let users change handler for entire category in Applications prefpane

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: File Handling, defect)

Description

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

faaborg's review in bug 377784, comment 45 says that we should group types by category and let users change the handler for entire categories of types in the Applications prefpane.

Comment 1

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

And groups should have a "Details" link that expands the group to show individual members for finer-grained control.

Comment 2

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

Note: mconnor followed up in bug 377784, comment 46 that this request is "probably true, but hard to do without some sort of list of equivalent types, and that's likely to be incomplete in a lot of places.  But worth trying."

Comment 3

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

>but hard to do without some sort of list of equivalent types

Without the list, I think it would be flat out impossible.  We also might want to take into consideration which applications can handle different types inside a group, and proactively set those types to "ask" so we don't fail on them.  For instance "calendar" consists of

webcal
.ics
hCalendar

If application A handles .ics and hCalendar, but not webcal:
-we show that application A is set for the group "calendar"
-clicking details shows "ask" for webcal
-click on a webcal link displays the content handling dialog

So in addition to grouping all of the content types, we need to generate a list of the most common applications that match up against those types, and their capabilities.

Comment 4

[Dan Mosedale (:dmosedale, :dmose)]

beltzner was wanting this today; nominating for blocking.  This is going to be a non-trivial amount of work, I think, so it would be helpful to know how badly this is wanted.  

Comment 5

[Dan Mosedale (:dmosedale, :dmose)]

The uiwanted flag is about me wondering whether this affects the new dialog in any way...

Comment 6

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

This doesn't effect the new dialog, but actions taken in the new dialog will effect these groups.  For instance, if you select a different app for a type of content in a group, and choose "always use this app," the group is going to have to change to display "multiple applications.

Comment 7

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

A nice to have, but not wanted as badly as some other things.

Comment 8

[James Darpinian]

Anecdotal evidence here: I personally want this pretty badly, for example to change all video formats to "Save File".  I never want to watch a video in a **** browser plugin when I can download it, and I'm sure I'm not alone on that (witness every site that has ever had to explain "to actually download this video, right click and choose "save as").  

In fact, the first thing I do after I install Firefox is always go into this pane and change every single option I can to "Save File", except for swf and rss.  Actually the easier thing would be to change the default to what people actually want.  If that's not feasible, I will settle for a UI that allows me to do it manually in less than 50 clicks (not hyperbole, I counted).

Comment 9

[Dan Mosedale (:dmosedale, :dmose)]

With a few exceptions, I'm mostly focused on MailCo-related hacking now.  Reassigning a bunch of bugs to default component owners.  I'm happy to help with brainstorming/advice as needed, however.  

Search for the string MAILMONKEY to delete any bugmail generated by this change.