411242 - display all folders first, regardless current sorting

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 467848

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, enhancement)

Description

[Roman R.]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9b3pre) Gecko/2008010705 Minefield/3.0b3pre
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9b3pre) Gecko/2008010705 Minefield/3.0b3pre

I have many bookmarks, and many of them are in the root folder. I also have a few folders. When I open the Bookmarks menu or the bookmark sidebar, it takes me a very long time to find a needed folder. Therefore, I request that folders be displayed first.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

Dupe of bug 400474 ?

Comment 2

[Roman R.]

I am not sure. I can't find a place where I could perform a "Bookmarks Menu 'Sort by Name' " that he is talking about.

Comment 3

[Tracy Walker [:tracy]]

That's in the "Library".  Go to Bookmakrs > Show All Bookmarks...

Comment 4

[Roman R.]

I don't think this bug is a duplicate of the other one. I think folders should ALWAYS be grouped together regardless of the sorting order. This is how it's done in file managers. It's a common behavior.

Comment 5

[Tracy Walker [:tracy]]

In unsorted mode, the order of items is determined by the user.  This allows the user to put commonly used bookmarks ahead of folders if they choose to do so.  Forcing folders to be grouped first takes away user flexibility.  If you want your folders first, put them there. Or use sort to get them grouped together, in which case bug 400474 would be blocking the behavior you seek.

Comment 6

[Roman R.]

(In reply to comment #5)
> If you want your folders first, put them there.

Have you tried to do that yourself? I suggest you do and come back and tell me if you still want to use FF. (Make sure you have a LONG list of folders and bookmarks.)

Having said that, I see a value in being able to have folders and bookmarks mixed. In this case, I suggest that this issue be turned into asking for an option that can be set to display folder first. I guess another view in the library window (what a poorly designed way to control the Bookmarks menu in the main window!)

Comment 7

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

Bug 400447 ask to restore the sort by name behaviout as in firefox 2, and that could be enough to satisfy this request...

Comment 8

[Roman R.]

Marco, that bug deals with something else. Perhaps, you meant bug 400474.

Comment 9

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

no i mean that, if you can sort the bookmark menu like you do in FF2, then you end up with folders followed by bookmarks... 
if that's not related to what you are asking then i've not understood the request :)

Comment 10

[Roman R.]

No, my request is different in that I want to be able to see folders grouped together (and displayed first) regardless of sorting order. See, I have very many bookmarks and just under 20 folders. I remember folders names but not names of bookmarks (I have thousands of them). Even if I add a few more folders, I will still remember their names. If I want to select something in a particular folder, I want to be able to see it fast without lengthy scrolling, which means they should be displayed on top.

Because I don't remember names of bookmarks but remember their approximate position in the list, I want to be able to have the bookmarks sorted by date added (or maybe even by date visited). But in all cases, I've always wanted to have folders displayed on top.

Because I see value in what Tracy said in comment #5, I think being able to have folders displayed on top should be controlled by a settable option.

All these manipulations had better be done right there in the menu. I don't want to launch another window (e.g. the Library) to set something and then return to the main window to open the Bookmarks menu. I suppose switching between windows is better than having to reinstall Firefox every time I want some setting changed, but I'd rather be able to do related things within just one window.

Naturally, results of the sorting should NOT be permanent. I made a mistake to test doing what in FF 2 what bug 400447 talks about, and now, I think, my bookmarks are permanently sorted by name in the Bookmark menu, and I can't restore the order in which they were.

Comment 11

[Paul J. Weiss]

I prefer folders interfiled with bookmarks. Perhaps make this an option?

Comment 12

[Paul J. Weiss]

This seems to be a partial duplicate of bug 323814.

Comment 14

[Florian]

I also would really like to see such an option.

Comment 15

[Rajesh]

abcd

Comment 16

[ehsandotnet]

I'm interested to fix it

Comment 17

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

bug 467848 has more information on a OS based behavior, there is also a wip patch in bug 416555, and a suggested different implementation in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=416555#c8 even though I think it would end up being slower, cause the backend would return things sorted by title and the frontend would have to resort them through the sorting callback. So I still think my original patch (properly updated) would be better, for perf reasons.

Btw, bug 467848 can be used as the tracking bug and I'm duplicating this there even if it's older, since it has design directions.