490753 - Clarify the "Today" duration in the clear recent history dialog

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Toolkit :: Data Sanitization, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Drew Willcoxon :adw]

Chris, who's working on the clear recent history KB article in bug 481429, told me today at the all-hands that the "Today" choice in the duration dropdown confused him in the following ways:

1. Calendar day or past 24 hours?
2. If I press the Clear Now button for Today, does Firefox not remember any of my subsequent history today as I continue to browse?

I can see 1 and was even unsure about it myself while first working on the dialog.  2 is interesting.  I never would have thought it but I'm not a representative sample of our users, and if it's unclear to someone working on support, maybe we ought to consider clarifying it.  So here's an actionable item that can be fixed or wontfixed.

Some very good alternatives:
"Earlier Today"
"Since Midnight"
"The Span of Time Inclusive Between Midnight In Your Local Time Zone Until This Very Moment Right... Now!"

Comment 1

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

To brainstorm ideas, perhaps: "Tuesday May 5th"

(where the current day for the user is Tuesday May 5th)

Comment 2

[Asif Youssuff]

This is getting some attention here: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/eeq888/psa_if_you_click_clear_all_history_today_just/

FWIW, Chromium doesn't have a "today" option, using "last 24 hours". Safari shows today, but I haven't tested to see if it maps to last 24 hours.

Comment 4

[Harshit Sohaney [:hsohaney]]

We've decided to change the string from "Today" to "Since 12:00 AM". We have to make sure to code the string with localization in mind, Code 12:00 AM to appear in a local format (ie, en-GB = 00:00) using intl.DateTimeFormat. I would get the element this string is connected to, and make the change inside sanitizeDialog.js in the init() function. We would also have to make sure to update sanitize.ftl.
You can submit a patch for me to review once done! Thanks for taking this on

Comment 5

[matthewrowe142]

Attachment: Bug 490753 - Changing clear history selection "Today" to "Since 12:00 AM" r=hsohaney

Comment 6

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

This good-first-bug hasn't had any activity for 2 months, it is automatically unassigned.
For more information, please visit BugBot documentation.

Comment 7

[shubhampharande8]

Attachment: Bug 490753 - Modify clear history 'today' to 'since midnight' r=hsohaney

Comment 8

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/4ea8a9513155
Modify clear history 'today' to 'since midnight' r=hsohaney,fluent-reviewers

Comment 9

[tszentpeteri]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/4ea8a9513155