606878 - Restore back-forward-dropmarker for non-default themes.

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Theme, defect)

Description

[patrickjdempsey]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.11) Gecko/20101012 Firefox/3.6.11
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.11) Gecko/20101012 Firefox/3.6.11

With bug Bug 582485, the back-forward-dropmarker seems to have been completely removed from Firefox.  While it is not too common, some themes do make use of the dropmarker for design purposes.  Examples of themes that use the dropmarker as part of the design:


https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/11783/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10577/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10843/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8998/

Instead of completely removing the dropmarker, why can't it just be hidden with display:none in the default theme?  This would allow themes that want it to continue using it and users who want it to be able to easily reactivate it.  

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

I'm not big into making the slippery slope arguments, but it does seem like a bad precedent to keep features and their code (testing surface, security surface, etc) around but hidden so that a few themes don't have to make design changes.

I think a better solution would be to find an extension author to add this feature back and then make your themes reference that extension.

Comment 2

[patrickjdempsey]

I'm not a fan of requiring users to install extensions just to get basic features and design elements.  I guess I'm going to start looking into ways to restore it with bindings.  I should be able to call the same function that launches the right-click menu.

Comment 3

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

(In reply to comment #2)
> I'm not a fan of requiring users to install extensions just to get basic
> features and design elements.

Well, this is no longer a basic feature or design element of Firefox. It's been determined by the Mozilla UX team that this feature is not a good experience for our users and it has been removed. If you'd like it returned, an extension or some kind of theme modification is probably your best bet.

Comment 4

[patrickjdempsey]

Thank you Asa, I've figured out how to restore it with a binding so theme authors can restore it without depending on an extension.  For reference:

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=2019371