415562 - Bookmarks menu should be the default location for user saved searches

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1412263

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, enhancement)

Description

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

Actually Smart Bookmarks contains 3 searches created by us:
Most Visited
Recently bookmarks
Recent Tags

if the user creates a new search into the library it will be added into the current position. Then the user should move its search into Smart Bookmarks manually.

what this could cause is:
- after quite some time most users will still have only 3 searches into Smart Bookmarks
- most users will then want to delete that since it takes away space from the toolbar and nothing goes there but the 3 original searches
- finding my previous saved searches is quite difficult if i don't remember their location

I think that Smart Bookmarks is a real fine feature, but it should become the container for user Saved Searches.
In my view the 3 default queries are our "example queries", that we have created for the user, but he can add his personal searches there to add functionality. It's like a media library (see winamp media library for example) where you have your virtual views collected into one place, to access them quickly.

So it should be a special folder that will collect all user saved searches, and on toolbar we should put a shortcut to that (so deleting that will not actually delete the smart bookmarks folder).
It should always be available under All Bookmarks so allowing the user to drag that to menu or toolbar to create a new shortcut to that.

After chat on IRC, Dietrich suggested to create this enh request, to investigate on with UI team.

Comment 1

[dynamis (Tomoya ASAI)]

I agree with Marco.

Smart Bookmarks folder in the bookmark toolbar should be the default folder of new user-defined queries (user-defined smart bookmarks). Or at least we should be able to select where the new user-defined queries (user-defined smart bookmarks) will be saved.

note:
Places folder is the one of the main new feature of Fx3 but with current UI, users will not notice how to create/maintain/use user-defined queries (user-defined smart bookmarks). We should polish UI for user-defined queries I think.

Comment 2

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

So if the Smart Bookmarks folder is used that way, will it be automatically created if it doesn't exist at anytime? I don't think that each user will be happy with this solution. Some of them have deleted the folder from the toolbar because they don't need it. Creating a new saved search will create this folder again and again. The user has to move the saved search away and has to delete the folder again.

Would it be possible to edit the search term afterwards with a help of the wizard? Currently the entries under Smart Bookmarks are editable so you can change their query string or give them a keyword which results in an error message when loading it. I believe this is a bug which should be handled separately? I haven't found an existing one

Comment 3

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

We need to coordinate this with bug 421483, which is actually getting rid of the smart bookmarks folder.  Perhaps make the default save location the bookmarks toolbar, or the bookmarks menu?

Comment 4

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

(In reply to comment #3)
> We need to coordinate this with bug 421483, which is actually getting rid of
> the smart bookmarks folder.  Perhaps make the default save location the
> bookmarks toolbar, or the bookmarks menu?

mmh, the toolbar can be hidden. the menu no, so maybe the menu would be the best choice?

Comment 5

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Now that we've dropped the folder, I think this can be morphed to something like "default to saving in Bookmarks Menu" with some thought about selection UI, and its worth considering persisting that selection in case someone wants to create a number of them in a single location.

Comment 6

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

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