417965 - about: URLs do not appear in the location bar history dropdown

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Address Bar, defect)

Description

[Tony Chung [:tchung]]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.4; en-US; rv:1.9b4pre) Gecko/2008021504 Minefield/3.0b4pre
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.4; en-US; rv:1.9b4pre) Gecko/2008021504 Minefield/3.0b4pre

the about: protocol does not seem to be supported in the location bar history dropdown.   about:license, about:config, etc...

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. load nightly build
2. in location bar, type in a about: site.  (eg. about:config, about:plugins)
3. Open a new tab, and verify typing in "about:" does not appear in the location bar history
Actual Results:  
about: supported in location bar?

Expected Results:  
about: not shown in location bar

Comment 1

[Jo Hermans]

That's done on purpose, in nsNavHistory::CanAddURI()

Comment 2

[Stephen Donner [:stephend] Not actively reading bugmail]

Yeah, this was by design; it's in one of Seth's comments, deeply nested in some bug which I can't find right now.

Comment 3

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

Indeed. It's been this way since forever: http://bonsai.mozilla.org/cvsblame.cgi?file=mozilla/docshell/base/nsDocShell.cpp&rev=1.104#2742

Perhaps we should reconsider? Might need to special-case about:blank.

Comment 4

[Andrew]

Perhaps a setting to change this behavior? Maybe only triggered if about: (i.e not "ab" or "abou") is typed?

Comment 6

[Alex Limi (:limi) — Firefox UX Team]

Actually, I think Bug 462674 is the proper way to fix this, if you type about:, you should get a dropdown of the available about: pages. Let me know if there are good reasons to not do it this way.

(And, I'm still a Bugzilla etiquette newbie, so let me know if it's inappropriate to mark this as a dupe of the other one. :)

Comment 7

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

Not the same bug - this bug is about us not remembering any history for about: URIs, and that one is about auto-completing them automatically based on knowledge of available pages. We could fix both or either.

Comment 8

[Alex Limi (:limi) — Firefox UX Team]

I would argue that "history of about: pages" isn't that useful, since there is a limited set of them. Additionally, they are under-the-hood settings, and as such should remain somewhat hidden (ie. not show up until you've typed "about:")

Comment 9

[Dave Garrett]

I agree that bug 462674 sounds like the best way to go. This one could probably be closed as WFM if that's done. Nonetheless, these are different bugs for now.

(In reply to comment #8)
> Additionally, they are under-the-hood settings, and as such should
> remain somewhat hidden (ie. not show up until you've typed "about:")

Sounds like an argument for a wontfix for this bug, however if the user has already been to the page then there's not much point in hiding it further.

Comment 10

[Alex Limi (:limi) — Firefox UX Team]

Right, maybe I should have done a wontfix (still learning :), I just thought it would be better to point to the other bug, since it'll essentially solve the same problem (in a slightly different way). 

So if I can make a case from the UX side of things, I'd prefer it to not enter into regular history, since it would pollute an external namespace (web sites) with an internal one (configuration and setting). It's not a good experience when about:config shows up in a list together with the links to about.com, for instance.

Just trying to clean up related bugs, so we can focus on solving the root issue, which is part discoverability and part convenience (in the context of a strictly defined namespace).

Comment 11

[Alex Limi (:limi) — Firefox UX Team]

(In reply to comment #9)
> Sounds like an argument for a wontfix for this bug, however if the user has
> already been to the page then there's not much point in hiding it further.

Multiple people often use the same computer, and might end up somewhere they absolutely didn't expect. :)

Comment 12

[Dave Garrett]

(In reply to comment #11)
> Multiple people often use the same computer, and might end up somewhere they
> absolutely didn't expect. :)

Interesting point, but generally with autocomplete that's not something taken into account.

(In reply to comment #10)
> Right, maybe I should have done a wontfix (still learning :), I just thought it
> would be better to point to the other bug, since it'll essentially solve the
> same problem (in a slightly different way).

Duping to a similar bug that fixes the general issue is actually fine in many instances, but usually after the other bug is in-progress or committed. (and this is usually done by the person implementing the bug in question)
 
> So if I can make a case from the UX side of things, I'd prefer it to not enter
> into regular history, since it would pollute an external namespace (web sites)
> with an internal one (configuration and setting). It's not a good experience
> when about:config shows up in a list together with the links to about.com, for
> instance.

Then a WONTFIX in favor of bug 462674 is probably appropriate here.