Closed Bug 409895 Opened 17 years ago Closed 15 years ago

Favor pages that match the start of domain over other parts of the title and url

Categories

(Firefox :: Address Bar, defect)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
Address Bar
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 413211

People

(Reporter: Mardak, Unassigned)

References

Details

(Whiteboard: [Fx2-parity])

Attachments

(4 files)

screenshot of "m" on trunk
108.40 KB, image/png
Details
screenshot of "m" on stack
100.72 KB, image/png
Details
screenshot of "m" on v1
132.35 KB, image/png
Details
v1
3.09 KB, patch
Details | Diff | Splinter Review
Firefox 2 users probably expect similar functionality when initially using the new location bar, and that behavior is to match the beginning of the domains.
Here's a screenshot of some other location bar ranking tweaks. These results are ignoring visit count and visit date and adaptive, so it's just properties of the url/title/input.
Attached image screenshot of "m" on v1 —
This is after the v1 patch.
Attached patch v1 — — Splinter Review
Note that the patch matches any dot boundary (and beginning) of the domain.
Whiteboard: [Fx2-parity]
Will probably also help fix bug 404261.
See also bug 422610, "Add an option to restore the URL autocompletion in FF3".
I logged Bug 469282 as I was not able to see an existing bug for this problem. In Bug 469282 I gave as an example that visiting http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ more times than http://www.google.co.uk/ means that entering 'g' in the Location Bar means that http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ appears as the top result. When Bug 469282 was closed as a duplicate of this one a comment was attached that says: <quote> The new location bar is able to learn from what you type and what page you select in the list. If you type "g", and select the google entry, the next time you type "g", it should be the first selected entry (or after a few times depending on your visits count). </quote> This is very unhelpful as it is simply untrue. In my example I made it clear that the Telegraph site was more visited than the Google site. Also even if I did switch my usage so that I visited the Google site more than the Telegraph site, all this would do is to move the problem to another site. For example it would mean that when I entered 'o', http://www.google.co.uk/ would appear before http://observer.guardian.co.uk/.
Firefox knows the difference between you typing 'g' and 'o'. If you select google.co.uk from the list when you type 'g', it'll know to show that first when you type 'g'. Similarly, it'll know to put observer.guardian.co.uk first instead of google if you choose it when typing 'o'.
(And does it /really/ show google.co.uk over observer.guardian.co.uk when typing 'o'? Firefox will show things that start with 'o' before showing things that just have 'o' somewhere. That should be the default behavior unless you've twiddled with the urlbar preferences.)
Okay, I see that the problem is different from what I thought but still, IMO, serious. I thought the learning algorithm was giving equal weight to all characters in the URL (etc) but it appears that it is biased in favour of the leading characters. On the assumption that the algorithm gave equal weight, I simply picked observer.guardian.co.uk as the first site that I could think of that started with an 'o'. Now entering an 'o' observer.guardian.co.uk is ahead of google.co.uk but it is well behind bugzilla.mozilla.org, uk.f860.mail.yahoo.com, www.cricinfo.com, en.wikipedia.org, etc. So much so that it does not appear on the first set in the drop down. I can see three parts to the problem: 1. Clutter With the FF2 algorithm I got fewer options and so it was easier to pick out the one I wanted. I think that is a good example of 'Less is More'. Also the higher volume of options makes it more likely that the entry I want is not in the group initially displayed. 1.1 Volume of URLs returned Lots of URLs where the input letters are not meaningful are returned, e.g. 'o' returning www.cricinfo.com, en.wikipedia.org. Also data that is technically part of the URL but not in a very meaningful sense is included. For example when I enter a 'q' I get bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?query_format=advanced& ... returned 1.2 Other data included Page titles are included in the algorithm so that when I enter a 'q' one of my top entries is www.ryman.co.uk, because the page title is 'Ryman the stationer - quality office stationery'. It would never have occurred to me to include the page title in the algorithm as so much of the time it not meaningful. Maybe some people will want that but I am positive that it should not be included by default. 1.3 Presentation The way that the data is displayed by default is ghastly. It takes up far too much space, using two lines per entry and larger font for the page title. Also the page title is given greater prominence when, IMO, that is the less important of the two pieces of data. I have oldbar installed and that makes the Location Bar usable. Without that I would find this unusable and might well have reverted to FF2. 2. Getting user acceptance of change (or lack thereof) As a software developer myself I would say that there are some key points to bear in mind when making a change (as opposed to an addition) to a system) a. Users often use systems in ways different to that expected by the developer b. After an upgrade users expect to be able to do what they did before in as similar a fashion as possible c. The users want to spend as little time as possible get to grips with anything new IMO, the way that this change was introduced ignored all three of these points. a. Looking on the Web it seem that a lot of people, myself included, use the Location Bar as a sort of short term bookmark and that the FF3 Location Bar does not really support this. b. In the 'Firefox Features' piece that I read when I installed FF3 there is a piece under 'Smart Location Bar' that talks about the changes but I did not find it very clear. I took it to mean that as well as the FF2 function I could optionally use tags to include extra data. Yes I know it does say 'bookmarked & tagged' but I was reading it assuming that the basic function was unchanged. Nothing in that paragraph made the change clear to me. Also it starts off by saying '...to get to the sites you love...'; I think the FF3 Location Bar will be pretty good for the sites that I visit a lot but they are not a problem as I remember the URL (or have them bookmarked), however I don't think it will be particularly good for the sites that are important to me but that I only visit occasionally. c. The FF2 algorithm seemed to select all URLs that started with the input letters and sorted them in descending order of frequency of usage. When I first installed FF3 I got some very odd seeming results, presumably because page title (and other data?) was now included in the frequency of usage calculation. I'm sorry but I don't have any details on this, I did not think to record them at the time I simple went to the documentation to try and understand what was happening. I did that assuming that such a significant change would be documented to enable me to get to grips with it quickly. I looked in 'Firefox Help' but there is nothing there, at least that I could see. Under 'Release Notes' there is a section 'What’s New in Firefox 3.0.4' but not a section 'What’s New in Firefox 3'. Also as there is a learning period for the FF3 algorithm it may be quite a time before it stops returning unexpected results in a high location, if it ever does. The longer this period is the less happy users will be. 3. It rather treats the users as idiots If I want to look in my Bookmarks I will look in my Bookmarks. If I can't remember a URL that I have not bookmarked I will search my History or, probably more likely, google for it. I don't need (and certainly don't want) all of these crammed into the Location Bar and *forced* on me. If other people want these functions included in their Location Bar then that is fine but this processing should be optional.
Bugzilla isn't really suited for essays but rather for tracking focused issues; find/file bugs/rfes for specific things (but please give the feature a week first); if you want to discuss the wider topic, http://www.mozilla.org/support/ has pointers to various channels for that. Personally, (and well off-topic,) I'm happy to find this bug among hundreds of others in my history with "match domain" from the url bar, rather than the more memory/choice/action-intensive fx2 alternatives. Long live the awesomebar! :)
> Bugzilla isn't really suited for essays A bug report / comment takes as long as it takes. > but rather for tracking focused issues; This is a focused issue. A core piece of function *changed* between FF2 & FF3 and is not switchable. A lot of people want the FF2 function to be available in FF3. > (but please give the feature a week first); What makes you think I haven't? The product does not work the way that I work. It does not matter how long I give it, in the current form that will still be true. > I'm happy to find this bug among hundreds of others in my history with "match > domain" from the url bar, I don't know what you mean. > rather than the more memory/choice/action-intensive fx2 alternatives. If the FF2 function used a bit more memory I never noticed it. What I do notice is that it takes me longer to find some URLs using FF3.
> This is a focused issue. A core piece of function *changed* between FF2 & FF3 > and is not switchable. A lot of people want the FF2 function to be available Switchability is bug 422610 as noted in comment 8, this one is about maybe sorting similar-to-fx2 results on top, presentation is again a rather distinct issue, as is promotional documentation, ... > I don't know what you mean. I get to type what I remember from a wider scope, I don't need to choose and invoke a different ui depending on what parts I remember and what parts happen to be useful for that search.
Hi, I agree with Stephen regarding this "awesomebar" and decided to revert back to FF2 until I can get something usefull from FF3. I'm also trying Chrome which as the same kind of URL bar than FF3 but without some "painful" features. So I'm really looking for an option to have the URL bar working like an URL bar and not like a "search everywhere even where I don't want" bar... As you can see in defect 407836, we are many looking for something useful (at least, more useful than what we have today in FF3) JM
FYI, there are preferences in Firefox 3.1 to make it match only at the beginning of a title/url and another pref to only match urls. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.urlbar.matchBehavior
> Switchability is bug 422610 as noted in comment 8, I logged Bug 469282 as I was not able to see an existing bug for this problem but that was signed off as a duplicate of this bug as noted in comment 11 & comment 12. That is why I have been adding my comments here. > this one is about maybe sorting similar-to-fx2 results on top And so is related as a core piece of function *changed* between FF2 & FF3. > presentation is again a rather distinct issue, as is promotional > documentation, ... No, they are related because part of the reason that people are upset is that the appearance changed (radically) as well as the function and there is no useful help. They are all part of the same _bug_. In order to _fix_ the bug it may well be best to break it down into a number of parts. Thus several people can work on it in parallel and each can work on a relatively small area that can more easily be designed, coded, tested, run through regression tests, etc. Breaking it down like that however is a job for whoever is assigning work and *not* a job for the person who is logging the bug. > I get to type what I remember from a wider scope, I don't need to choose and > invoke a different ui depending on what parts I remember and what parts happen > to be useful for that search. Thanks, I see what you mean. The other side of that coin is that, currently, _everyone_ is forced to always select from a longer list and has less control of what is returned. Good for those who like it and bad for those who don't.
> FYI, there are preferences in Firefox 3.1 to make it match only at the > beginning of a title/url Thanks for that. The MozillaZine article you linked to says this change was first checked in 2008-04-23 so I assume that it is in 3.1b2 but it is not mentioned in the, very brief, release notes. > and another pref to only match urls Is there any documentation on that? Also is there a projected times for 3.1 to be fully out (i.e. post beta)? I have had a look but cannot see anything about that.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 15 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
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