540350 - extensions.getAddons.showPane does not update instantly

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Nick]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.7) Gecko/20091221 Firefox/3.5.7
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.7) Gecko/20091221 Firefox/3.5.7

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Extensions.getAddons.showPane

Firefox 3’s Add-ons dialog integrates with addons.mozilla.org to allow users to search and install extensions and themes. The functionality is available in the “Get Add-ons” pane. This preference allows the user to hide that pane. 

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Open tools - addons window
2.open URL about:config
3.change the value of preference "extensions.getAddons.showPane"

Actual Results:  
The addons window is not changed 
- if the "Get Add-ons" pane was there, it remained, and 
- if it wasn't there, it didn't appear.

The changes took effect only after I closed the addons window (not Firefox) and opened it again.

Expected Results:  
The addons window should have changed: 
- if the "Get Add-ons" pane was there, it should have disappeared, and 
- if it wasn't there, it should have appeared.

Comment 1

[Dave Garrett]

I see no reason why you'd need instant apply for something like this.

Comment 2

[Nick]

I had that addons' window open (just by accident), 
went to about:config, 
(I was searching for something with "show" keyword), 
saw that strange preference extensions.getAddons.showPane there, 

was very glad to think that it could help me to get rid of the 
"An error occurred during a connection to services.addons.mozilla.org:443." error which pops out a dialog about itself every time I open addons window
(temporary problem, problem of addons.mozilla.org server, solved already),

changed it (while the addons window was still open), 
saw that it had no effect at the addons' window,

and it took me quite a time (about 5 minutes) and Google searching 
to find that my understanding of the meaning of the preference was correct 
and that the problem was in that addons' window needed restart.

I just do not see why restart? 
Just to hide one thing (pane) and show another ("get extensions" link)? 
Can't JavaScript do it nicely on the fly?

Comment 3

[Dave Garrett]

It is of course possible to make something listen to prefs and update automatically, but that's something you do for user exposed prefs that will probably be changed frequently. This is not that. It's not reasonable to expect everything to listen to pref changes and add an extra level of complexity that's essentially useless. There is no benefit to having this obscure pref apply instantly. I vote wontfix.

Comment 4

[Nick]

OK, wontfix