67669 - Sorting should treat bookmarks separated by separators as different groups

Status: NEW

(SeaMonkey :: Bookmarks & History, enhancement)

Description

[Srinivasa Rao Borusu]

From Bugzilla Helper:
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows NT; DigExt)
BuildID:    2001010901

I tried to sort the bookmarks by name , but it merges the bookmarks of two 
groups (which are separated by a separator)

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Launch the browser.
2. Select Bookmarks->Manage Bookmarks
3. Select View-> Sorted by Name

Actual Results:  Its treating bookmarks under two different groups as a single 
group.

Expected Results:  It should treat the bookmarks separated by separators as 
different groups.

Comment 1

[Srinivasa Rao Borusu]

Attachment: Shows the state of bookmarks window before sorting

Comment 2

[Srinivasa Rao Borusu]

Attachment: Shows the state of bookmarks window after sorting

Comment 3

[Keyser Sose]

Confirmed
Platform: PC
OS: Linux 2.2.16
Mozilla Build: 2001020512

marking NEW.

Comment 4

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

Paul Chen is now taking Bookmarks bugs. For your convenience, you can filter 
email notifications caused by this by searching for 'ilikegoats'.

Comment 5

[Paul Chen]

Mass move Ben's bugs dumped on me marked future with p5 to get off my untriaged
radar. You can filter out this email by looking for "ironstomachaussie"

Comment 6

[Peter Trudelle]

mass reassign of pchen bookmark bugs to ben

Comment 7

[Chris Lyon]

Changing severity to enhancement

Comment 8

[Jesse Ruderman]

I agree, sorting should not move separators and should not move
bookmarks/folders past separators.

Comment 9

[Daniel Wang]

bug 205378 is fixed, but tree is now closed, and no patch... :-(

Comment 10

[Jan Varga [:janv]]

reassigning

Comment 11

[Daniel B.]

> #8:

> I agree, sorting should not move separators and should not move
> bookmarks/folders past separators.

No!  Wait!

If that's the only way sorting works, then users won't be able to, say,
sort all bookmarks by URL to see groups of bookmarks related by web site.

Comment 12

[igch]

There has to be a compromise somewhere.  If bookmarks and folders between
seperators aren't treated as different groups, then what's the point of
seperators to begin with?  And in the same vein, what's the point of being able
to sort if you have to move the bookmarks back into their seperated groups?

I don't think users should be forced to use folders when they don't see a need
to while seperators are an option.  I for one use seperators quite extensively
when I don't need to further subdivide a group of bookmarks but do want to make
a visual note that one group is for one purpose while another are for a similar
but slightly different purpose.

As for comment #11 I should like to note that the Bookmark Manager apparently
has a Search function similar to the History Manager; it's not quite what you're
looking for, I guess, but it is something to consider.

Comment 13

[Folke Behrens]

*** Bug 232251 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 14

[desmor]

What if there was a check box in the view menu that allowed the user to switch
between two views?  One of which would respecet the seperators as boundries when
sorting, and the other which hides the boundries when a sorted view is being
used.  If the unsorted view is being used, I would think that the boundries
should be shown regardless.

Comment 15

[R.K.Aa.]

*** Bug 281195 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 16

[Tristan Miller]

Bug 327952, if it is ever fixed, would provide a temporary workaround to this problem.

Comment 17

[David McRitchie]

In Fx2 (2.0.0.14) and in Fx3 groups are sorted separately within each group and require only a single separator to cause this kind of separation for bookmarks.  There is a difference in Fx2 where you selected an item within a folder to sort the folder, and in Fx3 you must select the folder to sort items within a folder.

Separators can be added from menu or from Organize bookmarks, but only deleted from Organize bookmarks.

You cannot sort one group, and not sort another group within a folder, but I don't see that being asked in this bug.  So looks to me like this should be closed.

Comment 18

[Phoenix]

Sorting bookmarks only changes their representation, but not order, why it should take separators into account?
Propose wontfix this

Comment 19

[Tristan Miller]

Phoenix, I don't understand your comment.  How does sorting change a bookmark's representation but not its order?  Changing order is the very definition of sorting.  As for why sorting should take separators into account, I think this is rather self-evident: a separator, like a folder, exists to partition bookmarks into related groups, and the current behaviour of the sort function undoes this grouping.  We have a case here of one feature compromising the functionality of another one.

Comment 20

[Phoenix]

In old times Bookmarks Manager when you sort bookmarks it changes bookmarks order in bookmarks.html file, so taking separators in account was right idea, but now, in Places time, when I sort bookmarks in Bookmarks Manager window it doesn't affect their order, so what the point for taking separators into account now?

Comment 21

[Tristan Miller]

The user doesn't care if the underlying storage of the bookmarks is in a bookmarks.html file or in a MySQL database or on hand-written index cards managed by an army of invisible computer elves, nor does he care how the entries are sorted or encoded in said underlying storage.  All he cares about is what is presented to him in the UI.  When he right-clicks on a folder and selects "Sort By Name", he probably expects the folder to be sorted in a manner which preserves his deliberate manual partitioning.  Is there some technical issue with the code or file format which prevents this?  If so, we should be discussing how to change it, not closing this bug on the backwards notion that the user's needs are subservient to how the program is written.