463343 - Should Clear Private Data disable passwords/offline when timespan != "everything"

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Settings UI, defect)

Description

[Johnathan Nightingale [:johnath]]

Bug 453440 added time-span support for clearing history items.  A discussion came up about whether picking a time span other than "everything" should disable things like passwords and offline data which are non-temporal.

After some discussion, we decided to handle the question in a follow up instead of that bug.

Beltzner argued WONTFIX - that the different groupings (History/Data) preclude any need for one group to respect a combo box that lives in another.

Comment 1

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

Yeah, the grouping beltzner suggested solves the issue for now.  Later, when we add the timeline view the data options will only be visible when you select "everything"
http://people.mozilla.com/~faaborg/files/shiretoko/privacy_i2.png

Comment 2

[Tan Wei Lin Jason [:Ryuji]]

I suggest that clearing passwords and offline data should also observe the Timespan rule. If only passwords and data do not observe the timespan rule, it may cause confusion in the interface and usage of the function.

Comment 3

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

Yeah, or only appears in the dialog when you select everything.

Comment 4

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

Suggesting blocking since this could lead to accidental data loss (even though the visual grouping sort of works).

Comment 5

[Dave Garrett]

Honestly, it didn't even really click in my head that the timeframe is grouped separately from the passwords and offline data and thus isn't supposed to apply. The grouping is logical but not necessarily implying an obvious effect. It's a window labeled "Clear Recent History" with a dropdown to define "recent", checkboxes to define "history", and a big button to "clear". I would suspect most users wouldn't notice the subtlety here.

I personally think the best way to deal with the passwords part of this is to just remove it from this dialog. See bug 472226.

Comment 6

[(no longer active)]

The same problem applies to web cache and active logins, right?

I understand that the web cache and login cases are less severe, but if we're going to disable passwords and offline data, then maybe we should do the same for web cache and active logins as well?

Comment 7

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

Since those are both underlying implementation details of the Web, I think it is ok if the interface slightly misrepresents what is actually going on behind the scenes.  Ideally we would be able to clear both of those items by time as well, but in the meantime erring on the side of privacy, and not making the interface overly complicated are probably more important than accurately portraying what is going to happen.

Comment 8

[Mike Beltzner [:beltzner, not reading bugmail]]

Doesn't block; the correct fix is to actually timestamp when we're saving passwords and obey the time range correctly. I'd take any fix that makes the grouping more evident, but this on its own doesn't really block.

The other potential fix I can see (if we're really worried about dataloss) is that as soon as either of passwords or web content are selected, the drop down can only be set to "My entire history".

Comment 9

[Dave Garrett]

These options were removed from the dialog altogether in bug 480169. (bug 472226)