522040 - no way to open "Manage search engine" window (to edit search keywords) when search bar is removed

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Search, defect)

Description

[eyal gruss]

i removed the search bar, and use search keywords to search from the address bar.
however now i cannot access the "Manage search engines" window, which is accessible only via the search bar. thus it is not possible to edit the search keywords. i suggest adding "Manage search engines" to the tools menu.

Comment 1

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+1]]

That would need an UX decision because there are plans to rework the whole menu structure.

Comment 2

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

We are planning on using the applications prefpane (probably new name Applications and Services) to serve as one stop shopping for all forms of choices.  So selecting a different default search provider, a different malware and phishing provider, a different sync provider, etc.

If the question is "how do I change the provider for X" we want the answer to always be that prefpane.

Comment 3

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+1]]

Thanks Alex. Is there already a tracking bug for this work?

Comment 4

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

Not yet, with 3.7 spinning up there are really a lot of bugs to file.

Comment 5

[eyal gruss]

alex: the issue is changing search keywords

Comment 6

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

>alex: the issue is changing search keywords

Ah, my comment doesn't help at all then.  Let's keep the uiwanted flag up and see how this plays out with potentially combining the bars: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/4.0_Windows_Theme_Mockups#Version_B_-_Tabs-on-Top

Comment 7

[matthias koplenig [:metasieben]]

sadly this still is an issue.

afaik search-engines should be editable via the new add-on manager, at least i remember seeing mockups showcasing this behaviour. in its current iteration however this feature is still missing.

any word if this will make it into Fx4?

Comment 8

[Stephan Sokolow]

Seems to be being actively worked on in bug 335781

Comment 9

[eyal gruss]

the new tab page has a search bar, and clicking the search provider give the option "manage search engines"

Comment 10

[Stephan Sokolow]

(In reply to eyal gruss (eyaler) from comment #9)
> the new tab page has a search bar, and clicking the search provider give the
> option "manage search engines"


I can't find it. There's nothing about managing search providers in the context menu, the only left-clickable things I can see are the text field (focus it) and the search button (perform a search).

Also, if, like me, you clicked the "hide 'speed dial' grid" toggle button many versions ago, you won't even know that search field exists and, even if you do, it looks like unprivileged HTML, which means that, intuitively, there's no reason to think it might provide access to privileged configuration controls.

To be acceptably intuitive, the setting has to be accessible either from the preferences dialog, the addon preferences page, or a context menu on the thing that's actually being edited.

(Especially when, like the search bar, the 'speed dial' new tab page stuff has a mechanism to allow the average end user to easily hide it and forget it exists... and that's not even considering advanced people like me who switch the new tab page to about:blank in the belief that it speeds up the opening of new tabs)

I do not consider this RESO FIXED so please either reopen it or respond promptly so I can file a new bug.

Comment 11

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+1]]

Looks like this is not very obvious to reach. So when you open a new tab, a search bar is shown. Left click on the Google image, which you might see if it is your default search engine. Then at the very end a "Manage Search Engines" entry is listed. I think that clearly solves the problem as stated here. But given that we do not know which patch it actually fixed -> WFM.

Comment 12

[Stephan Sokolow]

So you're saying that I should open another bug since I don't have permission to rename this one to "No intuitive, easily accessible way to 'Manage search engines' when search box is removed via Customize."?

Comment 13

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+1]]

If its not intuitive enough it should become a new bug, where UX has to take a look at, yes.

Comment 14

[Matthew N. [:MattN]]

Note that there is also bug 335781.

Comment 15

[Stephan Sokolow]

Attachment: What I see in the New Tab page

Here's what I see in my new tab page when I un-hide the speed dial. Neither this nor the Aurora start page (which I never see because I preserve tabs across restarts and operate in one window because opening a new window is VERY heavy compared to opening a new tab) appears to have what you describe.

Comment 16

[Matthew N. [:MattN]]

(In reply to Stephan Sokolow from comment #15)
> Here's what I see in my new tab page when I un-hide the speed dial.

It seems you are encountering bug 1032324 which is being worked on.

Comment 17

[Stephan Sokolow]

That does make things a bit better, but it still doesn't change the fact that this is a horrendously un-intuitive.

1. Users may not know that the speed dial contains a search box (eg. I hit the "hide speed dial" toggle back before it was added and left it that way)

2. It's quite a leap to expect users to just guess that the AwesomeBar and the search box in the speed dial are controlled by the same preferences (especially given Firefox's shaky history on preference deduplication)

3. If a user wants to alter the behaviour of a search field, they're more likely to check the context menu for the search field, not a logo next to it.

4. Users are likely to expect either an unprivileged <IMG> context menu from the logo or, as in an average desktop UI, no context menu at all.

It makes much more sense to just RESO FIXED bug 335781 so those preferences are in the standard, expected location and then add a Chrome-style "Edit search engines..." context menu entry to the AwesomeBar as a shortcut for customizing the keywords.

As is, even if bug 1032324 *were* fixed, the best case scenario for a user who hid the search box and *does* know about this is still:

1. Open a new tab
2. Click the speed dial toggle
3. Pick the customize option from the logo's context menu
<do stuff>
4. Click the speed dial toggle again to put things back the way they were
5. Close the tab

Steps 1,2,4, and 5 are wasteful, unintuitive, and unnecessary.