652487 - Context menu item to search the web for selected text should just use the user's default engine

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: Search, defect)

Description

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

It's really easy for users to encounter mode errors when they have momentarily changed their search engine to do a quick search of another site (wikipedia, amazon.com, etc).

I recommend that we keep the context menu search command stable, with the user's default as the main command, and a split menu exposing the additional search engines.  This would revert the change made in bug 203959.

This way the search behavior will remain predicable.  Also it seems strange for the search bar to control the context menu, since the two controls are otherwise considerably detached.

Comment 1

[Raymond Lee [:raymondlee]]

Do we still want this?

Comment 2

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

We probably don't want to switch this until we revisit bug 738818.

Comment 3

[Frank Yan (:fryn)]

By the letter of the bug title, it seems like we fixed this in bug 738818, but upon closer inspection, we actually made this bug invalid as we — for the purposes relevant to this bug — combined the concepts of current engine & default engine.

(In reply to Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX) from comment #0)
> It's really easy for users to encounter mode errors when they have
> momentarily changed their search engine to do a quick search of another site
> (wikipedia, amazon.com, etc).

We made mode errors much less likely from a visual standpoint, because the current/default engine is always clearly visible to the user.

> I recommend that we keep the context menu search command stable, with the
> user's default as the main command, and a split menu exposing the additional
> search engines.  This would revert the change made in bug 203959.

We didn't do this, though I think the tradeoff is worth it.

> Also it seems strange
> for the search bar to control the context menu,

We didn't change this...

> since the two controls are
> otherwise considerably detached.

but we made every search function linked together, significantly simplifying both the technical and mental model.