858922 - about:newtab should include bookmarks (improvement for permanent private browsing mode / new profiles)

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: New Tab Page, defect)

Description

[Christian Ascheberg]

The new tab page is basically emtpy if a users uses the permanent private browsing mode all the time. The same is true for new profiles.
The reason is that about:newtab only lists entries from history.
I suggest to also show bookmarks.
It is possible for users to set bookmarks when using permanent PB mode.
Furthermore, there are some links to Mozilla websites set as bookmarks by default on new profiles.

Comment 1

[Christian Ascheberg]

see also:
bug 704882
bug 767835 comment 10

Comment 2

[Christian Ascheberg]

Attachment: patch v1

What do you think about this?
It has much of the functionality of bug 704822, thumbnails are still missing though.
It might be an improvement for permanent PB mode as well.
I don't know if the implementation is ok, nor if the impacts on performance are too bad.

Comment 3

[Christian Ascheberg]

(In reply to Christian Ascheberg from comment #2)

Oops, I meant to refer to bug 704882.

Comment 4

[Tim Taubert [:ttaubert] (inactive)]

Comment on attachment 736499 [details] [diff] [review]
patch v1

Review of attachment 736499 [details] [diff] [review]:
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I definitely think we could do it this way - that would be two queries (at most) once and the results are at the moment cached until the session ends. I don't think we really can do anything about thumbnails here other than include them for default bookmarks. We're not capturing thumbnails for private windows anyway.

Comment 5

[Christian Ascheberg]

I currently do not know how to proceed here. Sadly, there is not much code in bug 704882 that I could use here. Also, what should happen to that bug?

Comment 6

[Christian Ascheberg]

It seems that about:newtab now generates thumbnails more quickly and then shows them immediately. So is it still necessary to already include any thumbnails?

Comment 7

[Tim Taubert [:ttaubert] (inactive)]

We're using about:privatebrowsing for private windows nowadays so there's no way/need to display bookmarks in those. New profiles do not have any bookmarks so it doesn't really make sense to pull those into about:newtab. If we want to have something to show for new profiles we should probably go with fixing bug 704882 (that's actually a lot easier to fix now) where we can decide on a list of things to pre-populate about:newtab with.

Comment 8

[Christian Ascheberg]

(In reply to Tim Taubert [:ttaubert] from comment #7)
> We're using about:privatebrowsing for private windows nowadays so there's no
> way/need to display bookmarks in those.

But it is still nice to have for permanent private browsing mode.

> New profiles do not have any
> bookmarks so it doesn't really make sense to pull those into about:newtab.

I just checked and I cannot confirm that this is true. There are Firefox related bookmarks in the bookmarks menu and toolbar (i.e. Getting Started, Help and Tutorials, Customize Firefox, Get Involved, About Us).

Comment 9

[Tim Taubert [:ttaubert] (inactive)]

(In reply to Christian Ascheberg from comment #8)
> (In reply to Tim Taubert [:ttaubert] from comment #7)
> > We're using about:privatebrowsing for private windows nowadays so there's no
> > way/need to display bookmarks in those.
> 
> But it is still nice to have for permanent private browsing mode.

Boriss explained in bug 762938 comment #13 why we implemented bug 763468.

> > New profiles do not have any
> > bookmarks so it doesn't really make sense to pull those into about:newtab.
> 
> I just checked and I cannot confirm that this is true. There are Firefox
> related bookmarks in the bookmarks menu and toolbar (i.e. Getting Started,
> Help and Tutorials, Customize Firefox, Get Involved, About Us).

Yes, sorry. I meant that we don't have any user-defined bookmarks in there. We probably want a custom set of thumbnails shown on the page that differs from the default set of bookmarks and that's why I think we should go with bug 704882 that should accomplish your goal of providing a better experience for new users too, right?

Comment 10

[Christian Ascheberg]

(In reply to Tim Taubert [:ttaubert] from comment #9)
> (In reply to Christian Ascheberg from comment #8)
> > But it is still nice to have for permanent private browsing mode.
> 
> Boriss explained in bug 762938 comment #13 why we implemented bug 763468.

Sorry, what I meant: permanent(!) PB mode does not use about:privatebrowsing, it still shows about:newtab, which is always empty because there is no history in that case. But you can add bookmarks in permanent PB mode which could then be shown, so this patch might be nice to have for permanent PB mode. (Although currently the items might not have thumbnails then.)

> Yes, sorry. I meant that we don't have any user-defined bookmarks in there.
> We probably want a custom set of thumbnails shown on the page that differs
> from the default set of bookmarks and that's why I think we should go with
> bug 704882 that should accomplish your goal of providing a better experience
> for new users too, right?

Ok, I was thinking that the items shown on about:newtab should be basically the same as the predefined bookmarks, because they both target new users. In that case using this patch might have been easier.
So if you have differing items for about:newtab and bookmarks, would it still make sense to take the patch for this bug and add remaining items in bug 704882?

Comment 11

[Christian Ascheberg]

See my comment 10, especially the part about permanent private browsing.

Comment 12

[Tim Taubert [:ttaubert] (inactive)]

What we also could do is get about:newtab contents from bookmarks but only if we're in permanent private browsing mode. Otherwise we might have (almost) duplicate entries with bug 704882. I'm still not sure what to do about thumbnails? One could argue that with a static set of bookmarks in the profile folder it shouldn't be too bad to have thumbnails for them? Thumbnails as captured by the background service, i.e. without being logged in etc.

Comment 13

[Matthew N. [:MattN]]

Mass-move to Firefox::New Tab Page.

Filter on new-tab-page-component.

Comment 14

[Jessilyn Davis]

Hello!

This bug has been closed due to inactivity and/or the potential for this bug to no longer be an issue with the new Discovery Stream-powered New Tab experience.

Please help us triage by reopening if this issue still persists and should be addressed.

Thanks!