411677 - Search bar suggestion list length should be user settable

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Search, enhancement)

Description

[syryos]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070725 Firefox/2.0.0.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070725 Firefox/2.0.0.6

Only the width of the search container can currently be set in UserChrome.css 

/* Make the Search box flex wider (in this case 600 pixels wide) */
/* Search Toolbar Width */
#search-container {
width: 600px;
max-width: 600px;
}


It is suggested to enable users also to define the standard length of the container i.e. to customize the number of suggestions sent from an opensearch-standard compliant search engine. (If more items need to be shown, the container window shows a vertical rollbar)

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

You're talking about the suggestion drop down's length, right? I'm not sure what those width rules have to do with this bug, if that's the case. I'm also not sure what you mean by "opensearch standard" in the summary - is the number of suggest results mandated in the OpenSearch spec somehow?

Comment 2

[syryos]

(In reply to comment #1)
> what those width rules have to do with this bug, if that's the case.

To show you the inconsistency: the "width" parameter can be set in the UserChrome.css, why not the "maxrow" parameter ?

> not sure what you mean by "opensearch standard" 
The Opensearch standard is here http://www.opensearch.org

> is the number of suggest results mandated in the OpenSearch spec somehow?
No, the length is not specified.

Currently the length can only be modified by modifying the parameter maxrows=”20” in file /content/browser/search/search.xml:

<xul:textbox class="searchbar-textbox"
             anonid="searchbar-textbox"
             type="autocomplete"
             flex="1"
             autocompletepopup="PopupAutoComplete"
             autocompletesearch="search-autocomplete"
             autocompletesearchparam="searchbar-history"
             timeout="250"
             enablehistory=”true”
             maxrows=”20”
             completeselectedindex=”true”
             showcommentcolumn=”true”
             tabscrolling=”true”
             xbl:inherits=”disabled,disableautocomplete,searchengine,src”>
          </xul:textbox>

I prefer to have this parameter "maxrow" as an entry in about:config so that users can patch it easily.

To summarise:

maxrow (height) and also width of search container should both be user-programmable in about:config

Comment 3

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

You can override this using an extension (and probably even a userchrome.js script). I don't think we're going to add a preference for this.

Comment 4

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+1]]

As I can read it is something we don't wanna implement in the core. There wasn't made any more comment for more then a year. Can we mark it wontfix?