607234 - Remove "Release Notes" from the Help menu

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: Menus, defect)

Description

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

This bug is to remove the "Release Notes" item in the Help menu on all platforms.

The rationale is that this menu had extremely low usage in our usability metrics coming in through Test Pilot.  The original plan was to relocate this command to the Home tab, however since that isn't landing for Firefox 4, we could consider making the current version in the about window a hyperlink to the release notes.

It is also worth considering that users may be more likely to google the Firefox release notes for their version than attempt to find a UI path in the product itself.

Comment 1

[Reed Loden [:reed]]

The link already got removed from the website, so removing it from the browser is going to leave the release notes link-less... Not sure that's such a good idea.

Comment 2

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

Find a new home in the About window (by hyperlinking the current version number) would work.  Either way release notes has already been removed for Windows 7 users, this bug is just catching the other platforms up (and perhaps at the same time bringing the functionality back to windows 7 users through a different path).

Comment 3

[Alex Limi (:limi) — Firefox UX Team]

I agree, the About window seems like the right place for the release notes, since it's related to what version you're running.

Comment 4

[Reed Loden [:reed]]

This seems to have been already done, as there's no release notes link under "Help" anymore, at least on Linux. Now we have no links whatsoever to the release notes, neither on the website or in the app.

Comment 5

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

Sorry about that, filed the follow up bug 622289

Comment 6

[:Margaret Leibovic]

(In reply to comment #4)
> This seems to have been already done, as there's no release notes link under
> "Help" anymore, at least on Linux. Now we have no links whatsoever to the
> release notes, neither on the website or in the app.

Are you talking about the app menu? It should still be there in the main menubar (http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/base/content/baseMenuOverlay.xul#101).

Comment 7

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

The UX team is very eager to get this bug landed over the next few days in order to make Beta 11.  If anyone can get a patch for this bug posted soon, we will push hard for reviews and approval (even though this isn't blocking).

You can view all of the related bugs to clean up the traditional menu bar here: http://areweprettyyet.com/4/traditionalMenu/

Comment 8

[Brian Carpenter [:geeknik]]

Attachment: Removes Release Notes from Help Menu

Comment 9

[Reed Loden [:reed]]

Comment on attachment 506659 [details] [diff] [review]
Removes Release Notes from Help Menu

You'll need to remove openReleaseNotes() from browser/base/content/utilityOverlay.js.

Comment 10

[Brian Carpenter [:geeknik]]

Attachment: Updated Patch

Same patch as before, just removed openReleaseNotes() from 
browser/base/content/utilityOverlay.js.

Comment 11

[Reed Loden [:reed]]

Comment on attachment 506669 [details] [diff] [review]
Updated Patch

>-  var formatter = Components.classes["@mozilla.org/toolkit/URLFormatterService$
>-                            .getService(Components.interfaces.nsIURLFormatter);

The $ makes me think you copied this from a terminal into a file. Probably need to attach an actual patch.

Comment 12

[Brian Carpenter [:geeknik]]

Attachment: Attempt #3

Didn't notice the copy/paste goof. This is a valid patch now.

Comment 13

[Justin Dolske [:Dolske]]

Comment on attachment 506670 [details] [diff] [review]
Attempt #3

We could probably also remove pref("app.releaseNotesURL", ...) from the 3 (!) firefox-branding.js pref files, along with the one remaining spot this pref is used (/toolkit/content/about.xhtml)... But probably not worth it this close to a release, and I do see some addons referring to the pref.

Comment 14

[Jonathan Watt [:jwatt]]

Pushed http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/332b2da9de82

In future please use 'hg export' for your patch if you're going to use checkin-needed.

Comment 15

[Brian Carpenter [:geeknik]]

Nobody told me about that command, but I will remember it for the next time. Thanks!

Comment 16

[Jonathan Watt [:jwatt]]

Thanks Brian, that would be very helpful. Does this bug need to be closed now?

Comment 17

[Brian Carpenter [:geeknik]]

Per comment #13, I believe it can be marked as resolved. If we need to revisit it after the 4.0 release, we can.

Comment 18

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+1]]

Verified fixes with Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; rv:2.0b11pre) Gecko/20110131 Firefox/4.0b11pre ID:20110131064734

The menu entry has been removed from the litmus test:
https://litmus.mozilla.org/show_test.cgi?id=10031