513621 - Location bar auto-bookmarks/history-search needs to consider search shortcuts

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: Address Bar, defect)

Description

[[e-mail]]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.13) Gecko/2009080200 SUSE/3.0.13-0.1.2 Firefox/3.0.13
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.13) Gecko/2009080200 SUSE/3.0.13-0.1.2 Firefox/3.0.13

I've noticed that the auto-search/completion function of the location bar (which was one of Firefox's 3 new features and which automatically checks whether keywords entered in the location bar match websites stored in bookmarks or history) treats search shortcuts as keywords, while it should ignore them instead.

Example:
1. Say I've defined 'g' as a shortcut for google search, and I've also stored Bugzilla in my bookmarks (Title "BUgzilla", Tags "bugs, mozilla, firefox").
2. Because I have a weak memory, I've forgotten about having saved Bugzilla as a bookmark, hence enter 'g firefox bugs' to look for the correct site for filing bugs).
3 Now, the expected behavior would be that firefox would simple display the bookmarked and tagged Bugzilla page at the top of the auto-search results. However, the 'g' among the keywords apparently distorts the location bar's auto-search results, as a result of which the Bugzilla page is moved a couple of notches down.


This is not a major annoyance, but it certainly would be more user-friendly is the distortion was corrected.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Tracy Walker [:tracy]]

are you trying to do a keyword fired search or a history/bookmarks search?  If it's the later, why are you using the keyword mechanism?  keywords have priority in the location bar search. 

hint: you don't need a google search keyword in Firefox. The default search from the location bar is a google search.

Comment 2

[[e-mail]]

Tracy, thanks for the comment.

The point is really that I don't want to have to a make a distinction between the two. As in the example above, I might not be aware that I actually bookmarked the site in question already, so would probably start with a keyword-based search. Now, if I already got the site in question amongst my bookmarks, it would  be more convenient to recognize this right away (by Firefox displaying the relevant site in the location bar, as it would do if I weren't using a search shortcut) and save myself the additional steps of having to go through a search engine.

It's true, if I were only using my default search engine, I wouldn't need the search shortcut, and the problem wouldn't occur; most of the time, however, I use several search engines for different localities / languages (i.e. Google US, Japan, and Germany) ...

Comment 3

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Reporter, are you still seeing this issue with Firefox 3.6.10 or later in safe mode or a fresh profile? If not, please close. These links can help you in your testing.
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Safe+Mode
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles

Comment 4

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

No reply from reporter, INCOMPLETE. Please retest with Firefox 3.6.12 or later and a new profile (http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles). If you continue to see this issue with the newest firefox and a new profile, then please comment on this bug.