428829 - Which keyword search bookmark will be used when pressing Enter with a shared keyword entered? (multiple, many, few, several)

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Address Bar, defect)

Description

[[:Aleksej]]

When bug 392143 is fixed, having multiple keyword search bookmarks with the same keyword will become useful, thanks to autocompletion.

But the keyword can still be used directly by pressing Enter. Which of the bookmarks will be used then?

In the build at https://build.mozilla.org/tryserver-builds/2008-04-12_01:[e-mail]-keywords/ (and probably the normal nightlies) , the one that has been created first (not assigned the keyword) is used.

That’s OK until you want to change the bookmark used, or to add the keyword to an older bookmark you have to get autocompletion. The latter can be achieved by removing the bookmark and creating a new one, but switching from an old bookmark to a new one as “the” keyword search is not that easy. Also, using the most recently modified bookmark won’t work when you do *not* want to change it. 

Using the most popular one may be a good solution, but might lead an unsuspecting user to the wrong site, especially if several of the bookmarks have approximately the same frecency.



Steps to reproduce (preferably with a new profile):

* creating a search means using “Add a Keyword for this Search” in the context menu of a site’s search field
1. Go to <http://en.wikipedia.org/> and create a search bookmark with the “w” keyword.
2. Do the same with <http://ru.wikipedia.org/>, or optionally for one or more other sites, using the same keyword.
3. Now you can enter “w test” and choose one of the searches from the dropdown list.

4  Press Enter instead of selecting a suggestion.

5. Change the order of the suggestions by affecting their frecency.
6. Press Enter instead of selecting a suggestion.
Repeat steps 5 and 6 and see that adaptive matching does not affect step 6.

7. Edit a bookmark with that keyword.
8. Press Enter instead of selecting a suggestion.
Repeat steps 7 and 8 and see that a bookmark’s modification time does not affect step 8.

Comment 1

[Jesse Ruderman]

Keywords are supposed to be unique.  You should use tags for what you're trying to accomplish.  Firefox should prevent you from having two bookmarks with the same keyword (as it does for search engines in the search engine list).

Comment 2

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+1]]

Jesse, that's not true. Even Firefox 2 supports the same keyword multiple times but isn't able to choose the right one. At any time the first one is used. We already had this discussion in bug 421180. It's still a fantastic feature!

Comment 3

[Jesse Ruderman]

The fact that it was mentioned in bug 421180 doesn't change the fact that it's a bug.

Comment 4

[Jesse Ruderman]

Mardak explained to me why this might be useful, and pointed me at some screenshots in bug 392143.  I'm skeptical, but I no longer think it's just a bug.

<Mardak> i can search mxr id/file/text with a single keyword :)
<Mardak> before i had to load mxr.m.o/seamonkey and type in the the correct textbox.. or have 3 separate keywords named something like mxr, mxrf, mxrf but that breaks the history searching functionality (because "mxr" is the keyword, it maches mxr.mozilla.org history pages)

How about making a little "/!\ You already have a bookmark with this keyword." appear below the keyword field when you try to assign an existing keyword to a new bookmark?  Just a warning that it might not do what you want, rather than preventing you from assigning the keyword.

Comment 5

[Marco Bonardo [:mak] (Away Apr 25 - May 5)]

keywords are probably mutating and we'll not support this use-case.