798835 - Synced desktop bookmarks don't appear in Firefox Metro

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox for Metro Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

[Wes Kocher (:KWierso) (Not reading bugmail; email directly if needed)]

I installed the elm-nightly builds of Firefox for Metro on Windows 8, and then connected the Metro Firefox profile to my Sync account.

After the initial sync completed, I don't see the synced bookmarks in the browser anywhere (synced history DOES show up in the "Recent History" section of the browser's start page).

Though, when I use my bookmark keywords in the browser's awesomebar, I get taken to the correct pages, so the actual bookmarks do seem to be synced *somewhere*, they just don't show up in the bookmarks list.

A paragraph in the middle of this Ars review of Firefox for Metro leads me to think it's not just me with this problem: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/10/firefox-metro-hits-windows-8-with-a-very-early-very-buggy-beta/



Not sure if this belongs on the Sync side or the Firefox/Metro side.

Comment 1

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

I don't think Metro has a bug component of their own, but I'd be inclined to call this a Metro omission, unless there's a log that indicates otherwise.

Can you open about:sync-log in Metro?

Comment 2

[Wes Kocher (:KWierso) (Not reading bugmail; email directly if needed)]

Attachment: sync-log

I can indeed access about:sync-log.

Comment 3

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

Thanks for the log.

Well, passwords doesn't seem to exist on Metro. That's new information. Filed Bug 798844.

Apart from that, bookmarks certainly added all of the records you would expect. It doesn't look any different from XUL Fennec. (Filed Bug 798841 to stop Metro appearing to be mobile.)

Without having a Win8 machine to experiment with, I'd have a hard time implicating Sync in this, so over to the Metro folks and another component until further evidence arises.

Comment 4

[Jim Mathies [:jimm]]

This isn't sync. The bookmarks come down but the front end code doesn't display them in the start or bookmarks view. This is by design since ux wants a different methodology behind bookmarks display/storage in metrofx. Specifically there are no folder views.

You can however find your bookmarks through the awesome screen. They should show up in searches.

Comment 5

[Jim Mathies [:jimm]]

(In reply to Richard Newman [:rnewman] from comment #1)
> I don't think Metro has a bug component of their own, but I'd be inclined to
> call this a Metro omission, unless there's a log that indicates otherwise.
> 
> Can you open about:sync-log in Metro?

In the works - bug 797934. For now everything is being filed under firefox with an appropriate component, with the os set to Win8 Metro.

Comment 6

[Gregory Szorc [:gps]]

Comment on attachment 668858 [details]
sync-log

How do Metro add-ons work? From the log, we are ignoring a bunch of incoming add-on records because the app ID is different. If we need to be syncing regular desktop add-ons to Metro, we need to implement that as a Sync feature.

Comment 7

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

(In reply to Gregory Szorc [:gps] from comment #6)

> How do Metro add-ons work? From the log, we are ignoring a bunch of incoming
> add-on records because the app ID is different. If we need to be syncing
> regular desktop add-ons to Metro, we need to implement that as a Sync
> feature.

From what I've read, Metro doesn't yet do add-ons at all.

Comment 8

[Jim Mathies [:jimm]]

(In reply to Richard Newman [:rnewman] from comment #7)
> (In reply to Gregory Szorc [:gps] from comment #6)
> 
> > How do Metro add-ons work? From the log, we are ignoring a bunch of incoming
> > add-on records because the app ID is different. If we need to be syncing
> > regular desktop add-ons to Metro, we need to implement that as a Sync
> > feature.
> 
> From what I've read, Metro doesn't yet do add-ons at all.

Correct. We'll support them through the sdk at some point.

Comment 9

[Jim Mathies [:jimm]]

You bring up a good point though, we should have addon sync disabled for metrofx, currently we don't. Filed bug 798960.

Comment 10

[Chris Charabaruk]

(In reply to Jim Mathies [:jimm] from comment #4)
> This isn't sync. The bookmarks come down but the front end code doesn't
> display them in the start or bookmarks view. This is by design since ux
> wants a different methodology behind bookmarks display/storage in metrofx.
> Specifically there are no folder views.
> 
> You can however find your bookmarks through the awesome screen. They should
> show up in searches.

From a user perspective, bookmarks view should still show the bookmarks, at least, even if not organized into folders. With synced bookmarks not being made visible, there's less of a reason for people to bother syncing them -- might as well ignore bookmarks and just do history sync.

Comment 11

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

We went through various stages in the evolution of Firefox on Android. It ends up with a folder view of some kind; otherwise, desktop bookmarks end up swamping mobile (or Metro) bookmarks.

I'm sure it's on the roadmap… just a question of priorities.

Comment 12

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

This bug reports something which is out of scope for version 1 of Metro Firefox and as described in this bug will not be a part of any upcoming versions. When we address the display of the bookmarks that are synced, it won't match the desired behavior in this report so I'm closing this as wontfix and will file new bugs for the larger Bookmarks view which we intend to accommodate synced bookmarks.