451318 - [meta] Unexpected behavior for bookmarks with the same url (duplicate bookmarks)

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, enhancement)

Description

[Rick]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008070208 Firefox/3.0.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008070208 Firefox/3.0.1

First, I think I see that Fx3 is trying to prevent duplicates with a system that actively discourages their initial creation, via Ctrl-D or the Star button which both force you to edit an existing bookmark.  But I don't think they are completely un-useful and are desirable in certain situations.  For example, "Bug 450437 – duplicate URLs dropped when bookmarking all tabs" (sorry, not sure how to insert a link here). There are ways to still create duplicates intentionally, via dragging or copy&paste, but Fx3 is not very accommodating to them.  Here are some request/problems/observations:

1. Request: Re-allow adding bms via Ctrl-D or Star button. Thankfully, someone has already written an extension to do this:
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=795945

2. Problem: Removing a bm (using the star dialog) will REMOVE ALL duplicates too (careful), even if other fields (title, tags, keywords, description) differ.

3. Minor: The awesome bar will NOT match on a bm's "Name" (Title) if its url exists in a more recent bm. So if you are wondering why you are not getting a match, you probably have a duplicate, with a different title, that is more recent.

4. Minor: The star button will always pick the last modified copy of the bm to edit.  Since I think they should be treated uniquely, it should somehow let you choose among the matching candidates.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Jesse Ruderman]

Can you file a separate bug report for each of those issues, so it's easier for us to track patches and see which ones are fixed?  You can mark each bug as "blocking" this bug, and this bug can become a metabug.

Comment 2

[Rick]

Sure, but let me get this straight: I file the new bugs, then enter this bug number in the "Blocks:" field for each.  Do I have to do anything more to this bug to make it a metabug?  I presume no.

Comment 3

[Jesse Ruderman]

Correct.  You can add "[meta] " to the beginning of this bug's summary if you want.

Comment 4

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

> 2. Problem: Removing a bm (using the star dialog) will REMOVE ALL duplicates
> too (careful), even if other fields (title, tags, keywords, description)
> differ.

this is bug 451586

other changes are by design

Comment 5

[Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich)]

(In reply to comment #0)
> 1. Request: Re-allow adding bms via Ctrl-D or Star button. Thankfully, someone
> has already written an extension to do this:
> http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=795945

the common case is a singular bookmark. the workarounds for this are:

1. create them in your own organizational structure in the Library via copy/paste
2. use the extension that you referenced

> 2. Problem: Removing a bm (using the star dialog) will REMOVE ALL duplicates
> too (careful), even if other fields (title, tags, keywords, description)
> differ.

per comment #4, we've updated the button text when this will occur, to give a visual indication of the action to be taken.
 
> 3. Minor: The awesome bar will NOT match on a bm's "Name" (Title) if its url
> exists in a more recent bm. So if you are wondering why you are not getting a
> match, you probably have a duplicate, with a different title, that is more
> recent.

this is bug 451587.
 
> 4. Minor: The star button will always pick the last modified copy of the bm to
> edit.  Since I think they should be treated uniquely, it should somehow let you
> choose among the matching candidates.

see the url below for comments on why this is not desirable. this idea is a good candidate for an extension though.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=451586#c10

marking this bug WONTFIX, since each issue raised is addressed in one way or another.