84718 - Add Find button to toolbar

Status: NEW

(SeaMonkey :: UI Design, enhancement)

Description

[Tim Powell]

Way back when, in the glory days of Netscape 3!, there was a find button on the 
toolbar. And it was good. This Find button would find matching text on the 
current page; it would not search the web for anything. It would be really nice 
if Mozilla would support the Find button in the Navigator prefs for "Buttons 
you want to see in the toolbars." The checkbox should be labeled "Find in the 
page". The button would have the binocular icon and be labeled "Find" and have 
a tooltip "Find in this page". It could be nice to allow it to get input from 
the address bar just like the Search Button, but all I'm asking for in this bug 
is for a button that launches the Find dialog.

I suspect the reason this button was removed was because users understandably 
confused Find and Search. I don't think this will be as big a problem now that 
Find has a longer label. Because of potential confusion I would suggest that 
the Find button not be shown by default.

For Nav4, I have a bookmarklet that launches the find dialog. See 
http://www.worldtimzone.com/bookmarklets.html Unfortunately, this won't work 
for Mozilla because window.find() is not yet implemented. See bug 9550. Even 
when that bug is fixed, it'd be nice to have the Find button easily available 
on the regular toolbar. I seem to use Find all the time, especially on long 
pages, and having a button is very convenient.

Missing in Mozilla 0.9.1.

Comment 1

[Henri Sivonen (:hsivonen)]

How about just using "Search"->"Find in This Page" or pressing accel-F?

Since this is an RFE about adding yet another pref rather than a bug in an
existing GUI feature, moving to UI Design for review.

Comment 2

[Henri Sivonen (:hsivonen)]

Forgot to reassign.

Comment 3

[Tim Powell]

I'd assumed that Ctrl+F and Search->Find in this Page would remain as they are. 
Yes, I know about those (note the use of the same terminology for the button 
and the comment that I use Find all the time). A button would be nice, since 
it's faster than picking the menu item and because this is a commonly used 
feature.

Comment 4

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

I agree that Find should be off by default, but should be one of the available 
buttons once we get a customizable toolbar. Marking dependency on that, --> XP 
Apps: GUI.

Comment 5

[Blake Ross]

usability/polish, 0.9.4.

Comment 6

[Peter Trudelle]

Mass moving lower-priority bugs to 0.9.6 (with Blake's pre-consent) to make room
for remaining 0.9.4/eMojo bugs and MachV planning, performance and feature work.
 If anyone disagrees with the new target, please let me know.

Comment 7

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

mass moving open bugs pertaining to find in page/frame to [e-mail] as
qa contact.

to find all bugspam pertaining to this, set your search string to
"AppleSpongeCakeWithCaramelFrosting".

Comment 8

[David Janes]

Although the FF find bar is excellent you still can't add find to the toolbar
(except in Help).

Is this going to be fixed?

Comment 9

[David Janes]

Oops just noticed this is a bug on the trunk.

Comment 10

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

No comments in 3½ years. In the meantime, Mozilla 1.2a (still the current "target") has come and gone, and is no more - retargeting to "---".

Comment 11

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

Filter "spam" on "guifeatures-nobody-20080610".