Closed Bug 404983 Opened 17 years ago Closed 6 years ago

Separators don't have names/descriptions any longer

Categories

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, defect)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
Bookmarks & History
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED INACTIVE

People

(Reporter: gonhidi, Unassigned)

References

(Blocks 1 open bug)

Details

(Whiteboard: [Fx2-parity])

Attachments

(1 file)

Usage separator names in FF2
15.13 KB, image/png
Details 
User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.4; en-US; rv:1.9b1) Gecko/2007110903 Firefox/3.0b1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.4; en-US; rv:1.9b1) Gecko/2007110903 Firefox/3.0b1

It is no longer possible to give each separator a name or description.

I guess such an obvious behaviour is intended and this bug report will be marked as a WONTFIX. If so, please give the rationale for this change, since an unjustified loss of functionality looks like a regression.

Reproducible: Always
This was possibly removed in bug 262329 to enable better sorting?
Component: Bookmarks → Places
QA Contact: bookmarks → places
Version: unspecified → Trunk
(In reply to comment #1)
> This was possibly removed in bug 262329 to enable better sorting?

The way I read that bug is that it suggests using separators as delimiters when sorting by name. As long as the separators are kept in place, I don't see why the solution to that bug should depend on them having or not a label (except for internal architectural issues).
Gonzalo HIGUERA DÍAZ, you're referring to how in the places organizer, the name/description fields are disabled, right?

if so, then yes, I believe this was intentional.

note, I believe there are some firefox 2 extensions (foxymarks) that use the name/description fields of separators for sync.

can you elaborate how you used the name/description as an end user?

confirming, but this may be marked wontfix.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
i'd like to get a final discussion/decision on this.
another popular Firefox 1.x/2.x extension is Sage. using the separators there you're able to group your feeds.

other bugs concerning editable separators in places/library are e.g.: 381767, 208017, 203233.
OS: Mac OS X → All
Hardware: Macintosh → All
Whiteboard: [Fx2-parity]
I guess that this bug is a duplicate of bug 381767, or at least their outcome depends on a common decision, whether or not to enable separator names (both their display and their handling).


(In reply to comment #3)
> can you elaborate how you used the name/description as an end user?

In some places I use named separators as substitutes for folders. The choice depends on whether there are few enough bookmarks that the flat view is not as bothersome as having to dig one level deeper. When accessed through the toolbar the limit is usually lower since the bookmark description is not shown, but the description is beneficial nonetheless because it lays out the structure for a future folder hierarchy if the number of bookmarks becomes too unwieldy.

I also use a specially named folder ("new/unsorted") to mark the point within a folder from which new elements have been placed without much though. A usual case would be when looking for information on a topic. I have a folder on the toolbar for the topic (or I create it), and I dump useful looking items inside. The named separator shows me from where on within the folder I have been careless and lets me to play with the layout of the links (including sub-delimiting them with unnamed separators). It is also handy when cleaning up: on sight I just drag items to the top level folder within which they should go, and d I can leave for later the choice of where to put them within.
I use it in sections of my bookmarks as a place holder for past searches on ebay.  I may have found an item that I had bookmarked, so I don't want to keep the bookmark active, but would still like to know that I don't need to make another bookmark for that item either.  So the separator with a label works great.

I also use it to categorize bookmark folders, where I would like to see a group of them at the same time without having to drill down into tree view, but still want them grouped.

I believe loosing this feature would be a step in the wrong direction for FireFox. 
(In reply to comment #3)
> 
> note, I believe there are some firefox 2 extensions (foxymarks) that use the
> name/description fields of separators for sync.

Seth,

For the record, Foxmarks syncs separator names when they're present but doesn't otherwise depend on or use them. However, to facilitate sync between Firefox 2 and Firefox 3, we'd like to see Firefox 3 continue to support separator names.

I don't use the feature myself, but I'm always surprised and impressed when I hear how people use obscure features of the product and how dependent they become on those features. The two comments above are perfect examples.

> 
> confirming, but this may be marked wontfix.
> 

Pragmatism may require this, but I hope the thoughtfulness of the comments above makes you think twice before yanking a feature that (at least some) people really like. I imagine that supporting this would require an API change, so I sympathize with the challenge it poses.

-Todd

I actually had no idea that users could name separators.  Ideally we would keep this feature for parity with Firefox 2, and since a very small minority of users likely use named separators when manually organizing bookmarks.  However, I don't think we should consider this bug a very high priority.
I can only support the comments above describing usage of this feature.
I am *HEAVILY* making use of separator descriptions for additional structure in 
my bookmarks. It is a kind of light-weight structuring support but keeping 
bookmarks around better visible.

Like Gonzalo who opened a new bug https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=404990 for this,
I really feel very annoyed by the loss of this feature.
It is actually the reason I have not yet started to evaluate Firefox 3 beta, 
hoping for your insight for our trouble and your grace for this feature.
Honestly, I would even assign priority Critical to it, because it's about 
discarding and ignoring users' valuable information, and it's preventing me 
from using Firefox 3.

Please do not release Firefox 3 without this feature!
I totally agree with Thomas Wolff.  One should NEVER take out a feature that has been in the field for a while, especially just because one does not think it important or understand how others use it.

Please put it back into Firefox 3!!!!!
While it's good to see so many people passionate about this, keep in mind that Bugzilla is not the place for advocacy. Commenting on bugs like this sends a lot of mail to people that want to follow the progress of bugs and don't appreciate the noise comments like the above generate. It also makes things harder for developers who want to fix the bug, because there's more comments to wade through to get to useful information. Please read the Bugzilla Etiquette page and consider it in the future before commenting.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html
[Advocacy, please ignore for bug fixing]

Ryan is right in general but please also consider:
* In <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=404983#c3>,
  someone presumably from mozilla explicitly asked for this kind of contribution:
> can you elaborate how you used the name/description as an end user?

* In <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=404983#c8>,
  Alex from mozilla opened a priority discussion which had to be disputed.
  (Especially as it is unfortunately not possible to change the prio of a bug.)

* It is sometimes very uncomforting to see a major bug called minor bug and 
  staying unfixed and uncommented for months over multiple releases and being 
  afraid that it might go unfixed into the major release.
  I really had to try to prevent this.
Recently upgraded to FX3 and have lost separator names. Also for me this is quite a loss because I frequently used that feature for flat bookmark viewing. One example is under Mozilla/Firefox there are separators named Extensions-Various Info, Extensions-Not Used, Extensions-To Try, and Extensions-Using.

With those in place it was very easy to view several categories and take the appropriate action without burrowing in and out another level.
Whiteboard: [Fx2-parity] → [Fx2-parity][wontfix?]
Flags: wanted-firefox3.2?
Would take a low-impact fix for this.

Hm, we don't lose the title IIRC, we just don't display it... If it's possible to do this via an extension, I'd prefer that route.
No longer blocks: 404990
Severity: minor → normal
Depends on: 404990
Flags: wanted-firefox3.2? → wanted-firefox3.2-
Priority: -- → P3
Whiteboard: [Fx2-parity][wontfix?] → [Fx2-parity]
We don't lose separator data in HTML import/export but we do lose it when doing JSON import/export, so blocking on that being resolved.
Remember also that a 'properties' menu entry is needed when right-clicking on a separator in order to enter the text to appear at the separator location.
Personally, I think it's too small a function to be a "plugin". It shouldn't affect performance much nor should it add in too much complexity in code, and it won't really increase the UI complexity for any users neither. Bookmark structure is something I think that should be standard because we want it to "last". Implementing in the way of "extension", unless offically maintained by the Mozilla team in an on-going basis, I personally won't have enough confident in it.

I know many users doesn't use it. But then, it seems to me that it's something that totally "doesn't hurt" in anyway but make the bookmark system more logically complete.

Just my two cents. I can be wrong.
comment #19

please, people - do not advocate "another extension". Surely, extensions are for features that are not accomodated within the base product ??  If you take out ALL basic features, then you could say "add another extension" and all would be well.

comments #8, #22
Another thing is the assumption that "only very few"  use these features - do not judge this by the few end-users (out of How Many downloads??) who manage to find their way here.... from those few, a lerge number want the feature "named seperators" back.

I have used the named seperators for years now (got the idea from Ed Mullen) and find them very useful and inovative.  If they are "to be done with", then there needs to be a GOOD reason.
I just upgraded to Firefox 3.5.3 and found this bug.  I use named separators as well and was surprised that they're gone in FF3.

http://edmullen.net/Mozilla/moz_book_org.php

SeaMonkey 2.0b2 is my primary app and the bookmark separators still work in that.  So, switching to SM may be an option for some users upset about FF losing this functionality.
Bug 451915 - move Firefox/Places bugs to Firefox/Bookmarks and History. Remove all bugspam from this move by filtering for the string "places-to-b-and-h".

In Thunderbird 3.0b, you do that as follows:
Tools | Message Filters
Make sure the correct account is selected. Click "New"
Conditions: Body   contains   places-to-b-and-h
Change the action to "Delete Message".
Select "Manually Run" from the dropdown at the top.
Click OK.

Select the filter in the list, make sure "Inbox" is selected at the bottom, and click "Run Now". This should delete all the bugspam. You can then delete the filter.

Gerv
Component: Places → Bookmarks & History
QA Contact: places → bookmarks
Now that Firefox 4 beta is around, I'd like to suggest that it's about time to revisit this long-standing problem.
A feature important for bookmarks power-users had been dropped in Firefox 3, 
so please let Firefox 3 be the version without this feature,
and give it back to us for Firefox 4, 
so that finally those who are still stuck with Firefox 2 because they need their bookmark structure, can upgrade.
Confirmed on Firefox 4 beta7
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:2.0b7) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0b7
I'm also here to call for comfort: Let's bring back naming to separators!
Anybody digging into the code, be warned:
As stated above, separator names get lost when transporting in JSON format, so a popular troublemaker will be Sync again.

If this action is indeed starting as an addon, i suggest combining it with:
*** Granulation of bookmark Im- and Export to folder hives. ***
(I know, should've opened a wishlist thread for that by long)
Confirmed on Firefox 7.0.1
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:7.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/7.0.1

I think this feature was appreciated by many advanced users that keep organized their bookmarks. Is it a big issue to have it back?
We have major version 8 now - that's 6 full versions without fixing this nuisance - hard to believe that this tiny fix should not be feasible.
Bring us back a highly valuable power feature!
Blocks: 711351
Marco,

Looks like the backend does support (or did support) named separators but there is no UI to display or manage. How difficult would it be to expose this in the UI?
oops CC Marco for real.
I've been complaining for years of the inability to name separators.  A current example of the difficulty it causes is:

Frequently I find need to save several open tabs dealing with a certain subject.  So they are saved to the bookmarks/temporary folder.  Without a spacer to name the subject these temporary bookmarks cannot be distinguished from the other BM's in the temp folder.
See my comment https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=404990#c12 ;
so is this bug (remember, requesting for a valuable feature that's pretty easy to implement) really doomed to be ignored forever just because it's been ignored so long already?
Shame on Mozilla. Bookmarks handling has become ever worse since the times of Netscape and nobody is caring.
Late to the party because I've only just recently been able to update from SM 2.0.

I hope it helps to point out that Bug 121053 was the RFE which introduced the feature (unless I'm mistaken).

As there is a pre-existing accepted RFE, the silent (and arbitrary?) removal of this feature might be regarded as a regression.
Priority: P3 → --
I'm glad to see someone resurrect this.  Yes, arbitrary removal indeed.  I used this "feature" extensively and am still missing it.

<http://edmullen.net/mozilla/moz_book_org.php>
Per policy at https://wiki.mozilla.org/Bug_Triage/Projects/Bug_Handling/Bug_Husbandry#Inactive_Bugs. If this bug is not an enhancement request or a bug not present in a supported release of Firefox, then it may be reopened.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 6 years ago
Resolution: --- → INACTIVE
You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.

Attachment

General

Creator:
Created:
Updated:
Size: