421785 - Cannot use bookmarks to open multiple tabs / multiple URIs (multiple URLs separated by "|", pipe, newline; list of URLs)

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, enhancement)

Description

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; de; rv:1.8.1.12) Gecko/20080201 Firefox/2.0.0.12
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; de; rv:1.8.1.12) Gecko/20080201 Firefox/2.0.0.12

As has been suggested elsewhere (but I couldn't find a bug for this):

"When setting your homepage in Firefox you can separate multiple URLs with | characters and this allows all of the urls to open in separate tabs. It would be really sweet if I could set URLs of bookmarks in the same way. One click on a bookmark could open multiple tabs."
(from http://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Feature_Brainstorming:Bookmarks)

Bug 221445 is similar and has been marked wanted-firefox3+, but it only looks at browser start page URL. It rightly points out problems when pipe character ("|") is used to separate URLs, and proposes a multi-line field with one URL on each line (like IE 8) to open multiple tabs as browser start page(s).

In this RFE, I am asking that not only the start page URL, but the URL of any bookmark should be enabled to handle multiple URLs in the same way. In other words, I have a list of URLs, each of them on a separate line, and the bookmark's URL text field should accept such a list (e.g. when I paste the list into the address field). I can then open my little list of URLs with just a single click on my "list bookmark", and each URL will open in a separate tab.

Apart from the need to parse multiple URLs (same as for multiple start pages), this would require just a small UI change so that the bookmark's text field for entering the URL is multi-line capable.

Maybe when bug 221445 lands, the same concept can be applied to the URL field of bookmarks?


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. When creating a new bookmark, enter multiple URLs (e.g. separated by | or newline) into address/URL field of the bookmark. 
2. Click on bookmark (expecting that URLs will open in multiple tabs, as is the case when entering multiple URLs for browser start page!)

Actual Results:  
Firefox complains that it can't find the URL (the list of URLs is interpreted as a single URL)

Expected Results:  
Firefox should be able to handle multiple URLs in bookmarks, just like it currently does for the start page URL(s). Ideally, multiple URLs will be a plain list with one URL on each line (like bug 221445 proposes). When I click on the bookmark, each URL should open in a separate tab (as simple as that).

Comment 1

[Jesse Ruderman]

Why don't you just make a folder of bookmarks and middle-click it?

Comment 2

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Why don't you just make a folder of bookmarks and middle-click it?

Unfortunately, middle-click bookmark folder would not really solve my issue, because...
a) I am a convinced keyboard navigator (or perhaps disabled)
b) bookmark folders cannot be accessed via keyword shortcut (which might be another idea to implement...)
c) as a result of b), I cannot pass any parameters to the tabs that are opened by clicking on bookmark folder (whereas with a single multiple URL bookmark, I could pass parameters from location bar by typing "keyword parameters")
d) it's more steps to create a bookmark folder with individual bookmarks than to create a single bookmark and just add a couple of known URLs to it
e) a folder with individual bookmarks is unnecessary clutter compared to a single bookmark with multiple URLs.
f) I cannot add tags to a bookmark folder
g) bookmark folder won't show up in location bar search, bookmark with multiple URLs will

In short: Using a bookmark folder with multiple bookmarks lacks a whole lot of practical features, as compared to a single bookmark with multiple URLs.
And since you are implementing multiple URLs for the browser start page anyway, I believe that concept could be transferred to the bookmark URL field as well - make it multi-line-capable and parse the URLs line by line. From a layout point of view, UI could remain almost untouched (single row text input field for entering URL, but multi-line enabled, mini-scroll buttons will show only if multiple lines are entered; or you might dynamically expand the input field to a certain number of lines if user enters more than one URL).

Usage scenarios: I can think of a lot of cases where combining multiple URLs in a single bookmark would be useful. Here's one for the advanced user:
I would like a single bookmark to search for something in multiple sites (e.g. search engines) at once, and have the results open in multiple tabs. I create a single bookmark, and paste into the bookmark's URL field a new-line-separated list of search engine URLs, in which I have replaced searchword with "%1". I then assign a single Keyword (nickname) to my multi-bookmark, say "ms" like meta search. Now using my multi-bookmark is a snap:

Ctrl+L (location bar), type "ms searchword", hit enter - that's it! Sit back back and watch your favourite sites unfold in multiple tabs, each page with its own search results for my "searchword".

Which to me looks like an ingeniously efficient way to achieve this. I use keywords (bookmark nicks) with and without parameters all the time, and they're among the top reasons to love my Firefox.

Comment 3

[Daniel Veditz [:dveditz]]

Pipe-delimited homepages is a Firefox botch that needs to be fixed, not expanded. Bookmark folders is the way to go. Most of your other objections can be fixed using the folder metaphor.

bug 213402 exists to add keywords to bookmark folders (a+b).

Not sure how parameter-passing makes much sense to a group.

I dispute "d" -- if I'm on an interesting page and want to bookmark it it's a lot easier to file into an existing group than to select-copy-managebookmarks-selectbookmark-paste that you suggest I do.

I dispute "e" -- closed folders are no clutter at all, and far easier to manage (add/delete) than trying to edit in the middle of an extremely long string.

There's no reason we couldn't implement f+g for folders, or perhaps a subset of "folders" that are somehow flagged to behave as a group (I think SeaMonkey supports something like this). Should probably be tied to bug 213402, if we add keywords we can add the rest.

The summary of this enhancement request needs to change. As written it's either going to be "worksforme" (comment 1) or "wontfix" if you insist on stuffing multiple URIs into a single bookmark. perhaps
  'Cannot open bookmark groups from awesome bar'

Comment 4

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

pretty sure this is a dupe of a really really old bug, but we're not going to provide infinite ways to skin the cat, bookmarks UI is complicated enough.

Comment 5

[ivar vasara]

It's nice to see that that this issue has been discussed already, but would it be reasonable to revisit this request now? There is a pretty compelling use case to support multiple tabs per bookmark location field now that the location field accepts parameterization. In particular, I would love to create canned searches across specific sites - see my original help request for a reasonable use case at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1229559