Closed Bug 89350 Opened 24 years ago Closed 23 years ago

Home button should appear on main Toolbar

Categories

(SeaMonkey :: UI Design, enhancement)

Product:
SeaMonkey
Component:
UI Design
Type:
enhancement
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED WONTFIX

People

(Reporter: emmet, Assigned: marlon.bishop)

References

Details

Attachments

(3 files)

patch for the current trunk
5.17 KB, patch
Details | Diff | Splinter Review
Home Button being removed in IE6
32.32 KB, image/png
Details
alternative patch
3.70 KB, patch
Details | Diff | Splinter Review
From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:0.9.1+) Gecko/20010627 BuildID: 2001062704 The home button does not appear on the navigation bar when the personal toolbar is not displayed. Since the sidebar does everything I want for bookmarks/links I have no need to sacrifice the vertical screen realestate to the personal toolbar. However, a home button *is* very useful. I see this as a serious bug! Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce:
You could use Go / Home (shortcut key: Alt+Home). Or you could bookmark your home page!
>>You could use Go / Home (shortcut key: Alt+Home). Taking your hand off the mouse to use the keyboard is hardly good UI design. What's more the key combination is a pain in the **** to use. >>Or you could bookmark your home page! True. However 'Home' should be accessible by a single click and this isn't neccessarily true if you have scrolled the bookmark sidebar or are using 'history' etc. Simply put, 'Home' is a far more useful button than 'Go', why have one and not the other. Best, Emmet
again, this is why I'm pushing for the URL bar to be on a separate section like every previous version of Netscape/IE
Confirming as an RFE to get off unconfirmed radar.
Severity: normal → enhancement
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
OS: Windows NT → All
Hardware: PC → All
Summary: home button does not appear on navigation bar when personal toolbar not displayed → home button should appear on navigation bar when personal toolbar not displayed
i think this will have to wait for customizable toolbars.
URL: http://n/a
Yes, the Home button should be on the main Toolbar. However, that must wait until the main Toolbar and the Address Bar are separated. Marking dependency.
Assignee: mpt → blake
Component: User Interface Design → XP Apps: GUI Features
Depends on: 49543
QA Contact: zach → sairuh
Summary: home button should appear on navigation bar when personal toolbar not displayed → Home button should appear on main Toolbar
*** Bug 93808 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
QA Contact: sairuh → claudius
Marlon is hashing out toolbar issues.
Assignee: blakeross → marlon
the toolbar is as designed. if you need a home button, reopen your personal toolbar. this isn't a bug, unless you can provide some incredibly compelling data. as a sidenote you will have the capability to add buttons/create your own toolbars, etc, when toolbar customization is ready.
Marlon, I don't agree with you, particularly for the Classic skin, which is supposed to emulate the NS 4.X look-and-feel closely and yet, as we all know, NS 4.X has the Home button on the navigation toolbar. In fact, you'd have to look long and hard to find a Web browser out there (even from years ago) that *didn't* have the Home button right next to the Back/Forward/Reload/Stop buttons. This is the "incredibly compelling data" that you were looking for :-) I really don't understand why Mozilla has to put a Navigation button (Home) on the Personal Toolbar, rather than on the Navigation toolbar. It's a clear user interface error and really should be fixed. Besides, some of us don't want the Personal Toolbar (personally, I can't find any use for it at all), but would like a Home button somewhere. For those lurkers out there, please vote for this one (I have) - there's only 6 votes for it...
This patch is basically based on the patch from bug 49543, and it adds a home button on the nav toolbar. To apply this patch, you also need to get the button images from attachment 51214 [details] (bug 49543). The discussions on this bug and bug 49543 are quite inconclusive, so I'm not sure which bug should depend on which (as far as I can see, there are at least four bugs involved: 15144, 48926, 49543, and 89350). Frankly, I don't really care whether the address bar is separated from the nav bar, or whether the toolbars are customizable. But personally I do think a home button on the nav toolbar is really great (especially since I want to get rid of the personal toolbar because of bug 107926). But, of course, I'm not a UI expert, so...
We have an ugly "Select the buttons you want to see in the toolbars" prefs group. Why not add a "Home on main toolbar" checkbox to "Home on Personal Toolbar" (maybe shorter wording)? Default should be off. There is a very compelling reason for not having Home there by default: Because the urlbar will be too short. The current design assumes that there are only 4 or 5 buttons on the main toolbar.
> There is a very compelling reason for not having Home there > by default: Because the urlbar will be too short. The current > design assumes that there are only 4 or 5 buttons on the main > toolbar. Yes, but for most end users, Home is _vital_; whereas, Forward is of minor importance at best (to end users; power users of course need it) and Reload is incomprehensible and superfluous (same caveat). Then there's Stop, which would be redundant if the browser behaved correctly in the first place. Personal Toolbar? There are an astonishing number of users out there who can't figure out what it is or how to use it (unless someone puts links for Yahoo and Google on it for them, in which case it starts to be intuitive), but they know what home means. Home should be present by default; the option to remove it is important, however, because once a user starts customising the personal toolbar an extra link there is better in terms of the space it consumes.
> There is a very compelling reason for not having Home there > by default: Because the urlbar will be too short. I should say that URL bars *should* be short. Nobody I know actually types in more than an occasional directory beyond the domain. FAR more URLs are reached via links. The REAL point of all this is how we use our browsers. I personally have a web site full of links that I use as my home page(s). It is a very extensive structure of links, dictionary forms, search forms, etc. I start every session there, and want to be able to single click back to it to begin the next effort. Now while most people aren't web page designers with their own search/link databases, most people do use either a favorite portal, news site or email center as their home page because they want to check on it so often. And while I don't have proof, I'd be willing to bet most like to check back at it pretty often or bounce there to start a fresh "browse", even in the middle of a session. Having not used links/favorites stored within a browser for many years, I only find the Personal Toolbar an annoying necessity because there is no other way to get Home outside of the amazingly annoying two-handed Alt+Home. As Jonadab alluded above, I'd gladly forego the Forward button for a Home one.
Let's see...Internet Explorer 6 has the home button on the toolbar, Netscape 4 has the home button on the toolbar, Opera has the home button on the toolbar...so what's wrong with this picture? There better be a much reason for breaking a "rule" in browser design other than "the URL bar will be too short". The URL bar is too short because the search button is too big, because the printer icon is larger than the other button icons, unlike any other browser, and the throbber is so large. So we sacrifice a "standard" of browser design so that these three items can hog up sp much space?! If we want to "fix" the problem, we can start with those three items. Then you'll have plenty of room for the home button. I don't know how this design ever got by the UI people in the first place but it's going to be a huge obstacle to user adaption.
I removed the Go, Print and Search buttons because I don't use them. I'd like the Home button there because I want to use it often. Would people use Go, Print and Search more often than Home? Whoever thought of removing the Home button surely has very poor knowledge of UI design. Ben, Home does not make the location bar too short because the user will have the option of choosing which among the Home, Go, S e a r c h, and Print buttons to have. In my case I will actually have a longer location bar than default because Home is much shorter than the other three buttons combined. And by the way, Matthew, you don't need to separate the location bar first just to add the Home. It is clearly not a dependency. If Aaron wishes a separate location bar let him advocate it but it should not be a prerequisite for Home just as it is not a prerequisite for Search, Go, Print and the M. Provide incredibly compelling data? Marlon, The burden of proof lies on you to provide incredibly compelling data why the Home button should *not* be on the toolbar, not on us. Reason: it is Moz that deviated from well-established UI. So it is Moz that needs to explain, not the other way around. Why shouldn't we have it even as an option just because one person strongly believes that it shouldn't be there? Can't it be at least an option for the many more people who equally strongly believe that it should?
*** Bug 130266 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Another good reason for having the home button on the main toolbar is the introduction of the "Full Screen" mode in Windows. Unless you minimize the personal toolbar then maximize it after you've hit F11 you loose the Home button.
I am for the Home button in the navigation bar as well. I remember it's the very first thing that puzzled me when I saw the pre-releases of Netscape 6.
Marlon, we are not asking for the Home to be moved to the navigation bar, we just want it to be made an option there, just like Go, Search and Print. The Home link in the personal toolbar can stay if you want. Thus I propose the name of the bug be changed to "Home button should be an option on the main toolbar". Having said that, it should not be difficult to implement.
This bug is NOT a dependency of 49543 (removable address bar). That's silly! This bug is dependent only on someone deciding to squeeze the existing four (oversized) toolbar buttons together 6px and adding the Home button. Here's a 15 minute example screenshot: http://www.mindspring.com/~digitect/mozilla.png I doubt the code and graphics for this fix take more than 4 man hours total. I'll be glad to do the graphics if somebody else can do the code and convince "management" to implement it.
I totally agree with Comment #20 (Home button should be an option on the main toolbar)
the patch here misses the changes to the classic theme
Furthermore, browsers used in an intranet environement have their home page set to the intranet portal where all the work tools are. People spend their time going to and fro this intranet portal and having this small home link in the personal toolbar will certainly not help Mozilla/Netscape penetrate the business world. I can't believe any UI designer with a minimum of common sense can think that a navigational icon should be put in an optional bookmarks bar. (and yes, since this is called "personal toolbar" and since it disappears when you go full screen, this IS an optional bar). The alt+home "solution" is even more ridiculous. Why don't we suppress all browsing icons and only use keyboard then ? What if there is no keyboard (kiosk mode for instance) ? BTW, I think this bug deserves the 4xp keyword.
I think that a home button should exist. Not in the personal toolbar, because i don't use it, it takes space from the site view. That home button should be optional, that's the only way to satisfy all the users. The home URL is not a vulgar location. A good location where the home button could be displayed, could be, where the Go, Search and Print buttons are, it would interfere less with the main buttons, Back, Forward, etc. How hard is to display a Home button next to those buttons? If you don't like it, you can remove it, just like the other buttons, Go, Search, etc.
I'm totally in favour of a Home button on the Navigation Bar (at least in my configuration of Mozilla) - it would make my browsing life easier. I have two comments: 1. In comment 12 it's mentioned that a "Home on Main Toolbar" should be added to "Home on Personal Toolbar" in the "Select the buttons you want to see in the toolbars" preferences group. I don't see a "Home on Personal Toolbar" checkbox - I only see a "Home" checkbox. (I can't recall seeing the other in earlier builds either.) The pref UI doesn't distinguish between Personal and Navigation toolbars. Changing the checked status of Print and Go adds or removes those buttons from the Navigation toolbar - but neither Bookmark nor Home have any affect on the Navigation toolbar. The opposite is true of the Personal toolbar. Both Home and Bookmarks *DO* have an affect, but the other checkboxes do not. The UI for this preference is inconsistent. Some checkboxes affect only the Personal toolbar, others only the Navigation toolbar. Yet the wording says simply "toolbars". Either the UI for this preference should be changed to reflect the true effect of changing these check boxes, or the corresponding Home (this bug) and Bookmark buttons in the Navigation toolbar (and the others in the Personal toolbar) should be linked into the existing preference UI. 2. I'm not sure why there would be any opposition to having a preference for having a Home button on the Navigation toolbar. Surely giving the user the choice is better than not doing so? Unless the objection is that "yet another" preference should not be added. (Although, see my first comment - the preference is already "sort of" there in the UI.) But if the objection is really about adding another preference this should be stated. Making the reason simply the fact that "it's by design" that there's no Home button, or the option of having one, is not really very reasonable. There needs to be a better argument than one that's solely autocratic.
I've opened related bug 935929 to address the confusion over the UI for the "buttons in toolbar" preference.
Correction: bug 135929.
Keywords: 4xp
Picture shows how settings can fixed in IE 6 to remove the home button. I believe the same could be done with Mozilla.
The important thing being that the user has the choice of removing or adding the Home button as they choose, rather than having its appearance / non-appearance be hardcoded into the program. In terms of this bug, the "buttons in toolbar" preference should be linked into the Navigation toolbar as well as the Personal toolbar.
Hm... it seems we all agree that a Home button is a good thing (OK, some people will disagree here, and even I think I don't need any Home button at all, but that it is wanted by most users). The question merely seems to be _where_ to put it. At first I thought that it makes perfectly sense to put in on the "personal toolbar" because I expect that this holds links to webpages, and 'Home' is just a link to a page, although for most/some the most important page. Then, most people used to other browsers seem to expect this button directly on the navigation bar, I guess, just because it had been there forever. In order to avoid yet another preference*, I think it _could_ make sense to put a Home button on the navigation bar if the personal toolbar is hidden. If the personal toolbar is shown, the Home button could be put on that and not be shown anymore on the navigation bar. The downside of this idea is that switching the personal toolbar on will irritate people because they will think that Mozilla just removed their Home button. What I certainly would not like to have is two Home buttons! (<personal-opinion> And I prefer to have it in the personal toolbar. But that's just me. </personal-opinion>) bye, daniel :) * = Those people willing to change such stuff and adapt the browser exactly to what they want, do edit their chrome nevertheless, don't you? ;)
*raises hand* *jumps in the middle of the controversy* Uh, since this bug doesn't seem to have any target date anyways, why don't we wait for the toolbar customization work to complete? Won't that automatically solve the problem? On a related note, as you can see here <http://www.blakeross.com/images/mb> , not every Netscape employee thinks that a Home button belongs to the personal toolbar (the shot is from the new mozilla/browser project, and made by Blake Ross).
I don't think we want to relocate the button algorithmically, but hopefully, toolbar customization will be flexible enough to allow users to move these buttons to any toolbar.
But when is toolbar customization going to be implemented? Many people have said, and are still saying, "wait for toolbar customization". Well, it's sure not going to happen for 1.0 (which is sad), so when will it? There are numerous patches around for just about every aspect of toolbar customization, but it seems they end up getting ignored/forgotten or there is just too much bickering in the bugs themselves to ever become checked in. For example bug 44943 (Separate Toolbar from Adressbar) has been opened since 8-18-2000 and after several patches has just drifted off into nothingness, bug 15144 (Customize Toolbars) has been open since 1999 and has also (since 2000) just kind of been forgotten, bug 22056 (Toolbars as text/icons/both) had some nice activity and patches but has been sitting at a stand still since March. I know Marlon has put up several comments about a "toolbar customization spec" and hints to this being worked on, so maybe he, or anybody who knows, can post some sort of update on it so we can see just where we are at this point. I know MPT put one up, but Marlon is the one I constantly see popping up with regards to 'his' customization spec. Mozilla is a nice browser indeed, but this would really give it a kick in the butt and make it much better. I really like using it, but will (for now) keep IE or any other browser as my first choice, due to lack of a more configurable UI.
Sorry, (Separate Toolbar from Adressbar) is bug 49543
Maybe the m/b project with provide an alternative: http://lxr.mozilla.org/mozilla/source/browser/ http://www.blakeross.com/images/mb.jpg Unfortunately, most of the interface issues seem to be heading in the wrong direction. This project might be what the rest of us want but can't seem to get out of the UI.
Hmmm another really good addition to this RFE would be the ability to set a group bookmark series (i.e multiple tabbed bookmarks) as the homepage. So my homepage would consist of for example 5 tabs of hardocp, tweak3d, theregister, etc.
Eric, that has _nothing to do whatsoever_ with this RFE, which is only about the placement of the home button! Please file another bug for your wish, unless there is already one.
Sorry everyone I meant to post that comment in bug 134647. Not only that but the comment was totally rhetorical anyway.. *whoops* My apologies.. Cheers!
This will put a home button on the main toolbar. Go here: <http://home.no.net/trihand/> Notes from page: * Only works for Modern * Not removeable
That's great!.. and call me an idiot, but.. how do I make it work ? I clicked on the link to home.xpi on your website, and the status bar briefly flashed a progress bar, and .. then Adid nothing at all. I tried doing a shift-click and downloaded the file to disk.. it appears to be a java archive (jar) file.. tried running the file from my hard drive incase it didn't like the security issues of running it from your site.. no change.. the browser appears to open it, and load it, but doesn't change anything. oh, and I was closing the browser completely each time to no avail. What am I doing wrong ? I'm running this on build 2002050306.. a bit newer than 1.0rc1 - does your button require a specific version ? (Your screenshot shows it running on 2002051006.. 7 days newer than mine) and if mozilla executes/interprets xpi files just by clicking on them.. isn't that a bit of a security issue if the UI can be manipulated by these things ?
actually... if it's a java archive.. that kinda implies that I need java running in order to make this work (and I haven't downloaded it because I've never had a good reason to). Anyone know if there's a bug where mozilla fails to notify the user when it tries to execute java and can't find a plugin to do it with.. something like "%d components could not be displayed on this page as java is disabled / could not be found" ?
Regarding Tobias Tinkerman's fix (adding a home button): http://home.no.net/trihand/ I simply opened the downloaded file from within Mozilla. Worked perfectly. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Only one more bug to fix before I can actually use the lizard (http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=35268 -- bug 35268 "Edit Source using External Editor").
Make sure you have the following enabled: * Javascript * Software installation JAR files are archives like ZIP files. You don't need Java installed to install this feature, AFAIK.
Ahhhh! .. it was the 'software installation' checkbox thanks :) Although I think it would be nice if mozilla said something rather than just act dumb and do nothing if software installation is turned off and a webpage attempts it.
Just wanted to let people know that it's not my fix. Sorry if I didn't make that clear. This was posted on the mozillazine forums a short while ago and I just wanted the people in this bug to know about it who might not have been aware. This is in print at the bottom of the install page: © 2002 Reidar Djupvik So, thank's Reidar.
*** Bug 146920 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 142273 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Blocks: 157199
No longer blocks: 157199
I have wasted an afternoon trying to work out how to get a home button on my navigation bar. It is an issue for me. I couldn't get the patch of comment 43 to work - it reported missing files. If konqueror was as stable as mozilla I wouldn't bother - it has a home button in the right place. Returning to life before I start trying to learn how to roll my own chrome... you just shouldn't have to go to that much trouble for such a basic thing.
*** Bug 158107 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
What's stopping a patch to get accepted here? Why can't someone (with the knowledge, not me) just create a simple patch that adds a Home button next to the Stop button and then someone can review that and check it in? People are arguing about whether or not to add a pref. Can't that wait until the button is there? Clearly, *most* end-users and many developers wants this button in the navigation toolbar, so why not just add the button and discuss whether or not to add a pref later? My personal opinion is that we shouldn't bother to add a pref for it because of several reasons: 1. It's a very important button, almost as important as Stop, Back, etc. If we need a pref for this button, then we can might as well add prefs for the other main buttons. Let's not do that! 2. It adds bloat to the software. "Yet another pref." 3. When bug 15144 (customizable toolbars) is fixed, you will be able to remove the Home button anyway, which will force us to remove the pref again (meaning more work). Anyway, the important thing is to add the Home button, not whether or not it will be removable using a pref. An-Cheng Huang, you created a patch last year, can you create a new one? Or can someone use that one and update it? Or write a new one? Finally, this bug should NOT depend on bug 49543. It doesn't matter if this bug is fixed first. Actually, it might even speed up the process on bug 49543. Please don't let another bug stop us from fixing this one, as this will be an improvement regardless of whether or not the address bar gets a separate toolbar.
the essence of the main navigator bar is in that it has only 4 buttons, which represent only navigation functions (well, 5 including printer, imho totally uneccessary) which by design, leave adequate length for url viewing. You can't expect to add any button to the navbar without receiving equal opposition from the URL is too short camp. i suggest that we try to get out of the mindset of copying and justifying ourselves from a 5- 6 year old piece of software (or, justifying ourselves from others who have copied our 5-6 year old piece of software). The home button is clearly no more than a link, which is not in the league nav control set. If home weren't just a hard coded link - for example, if it took you back to the first URL you typed for that window - then that would be a different kind of home button, one which would perform a 'return to home' operation on your navigation sequence, thus deserve a position on a navigation bar (not advocating that, just describing an example of what would and wouldn't belong on navbar) The loss of home when closing personal toolbar, is not something that has proven to be a common annoyance with our users (with exception of those in this bug), the truth being - not many user customize or closing their personal toolbars. Some however do, lose toolbars by accidentally clicking on the collapse button, but that in my opinion is the reason we should loose individual toolbar collapsing, not for placing the home button on the navbar. Toolbar customization is really where this issue should get addressed.
Then mark this bug WONTFIX and let's stop wasting everybody's time. I get tired of reading the same ridiculous comments from module owners who I'm convinced have no experience with the use of the browser outside of the cube farms at Netscape. I've heard about all of the usablity studies supposedly done to justify these arguments. Whatever. It's not going to convince those of us who would have to support this browser in the real world for real users. But not to worry. If Mozilla isn't going to have a home button on the Nav bar, I won't have to waste my time trying to convince the powers-that-be why we should make it available as an alternative to IE.
Marlon I hope that you do realize that most people including many developpers and UI specialists think that the home button IS a basic navigational button. The whole concept of navigation means nothing whithout a starting point, ever wondered why all web sites have a Home button on all their pages ? I guess that you find it stupid since this page is already in yoiur bookmarks... As for the mysterious usability studies, could you provide us a URL ? I have one for you, please read carefuly the first paragraph, the one titled "Design Mistake 1: Forgetting the User" Principles of Good GUI Design http://www.classicsys.com/classic_site/articles/article_10-95.html
The Home button is absolutely necessary on the Main Toolbar. However, marlon does have a point about the address bar camp; they will scream. By default, the address bar is pretty short, since it is flanked by the navigation controls, the Go button, the Print button, and the throbber. Until bug 49543 is reviewed (I don't know why it hasn't been, and I'm not sure who to scream to about it either) and checked in, adding a home button is most likely going to cramp the main toolbar even moreso than it already is. While this may be fine for those of us with large resolutions, it will make the address bar impossibly small on 640x480 and 800x600 screens. Also, with toolbar customization seemingly happening right now (check Asa & Hyatt's weblogs for more), I can't help but think that this bug will be fixed with customization. In the mean time, if you want to get this bug fixed, let's get bug 49543 taken care of; Scream if you have to, find a reviewer to get the working patches looked at, let Hyatt Super-Review it, and let's get it checked into 1.2A! Once that bug is squashed, this one will be easy to work in with no resistance whatsoever.
> The home button is clearly no more than a link I disagree completely. "Home" is just as valid a navigation tool as "Back". Rather than telling the browser to go "back one site" you're telling it to go "all the way back home". Sure, it can be thought of as a bookmark - but so could "Back" be thought of as a dynamic bookmark to the last site visited. But both "Home" and "Back" are more useful, and in a different class, than are regular bookmarks. Everybody has a home. Only a very few people have the same bookmarks.
> adding a home button is most likely going to cramp the > main toolbar even moreso than it already is > it will make the address bar impossibly small Good! Then people will be forced to pay the attention to bug 49543 that it deserves. The best way of ensuring that that bug is fixed as quickly as possible is to get a patch for THIS bug checked in.
> The best way of ensuring that that bug is fixed as quickly as possible is to get > a patch for THIS bug checked in. While I see where your logic is headed, I don't think this bug fix will get approval while the address bar is not separated from the navigation. I think the best way to handle it is to get them fixed jointly, actually. This way the builds don't become less usable while we wait for check-in of one of the two bugs. In the mean time, I will try to get a working patch up here for the home button, or at least try to update the existing patch.
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=49543 is owned by nobody which means it doesn't have anyone responsible for sheparding it through the review process. That means it is highly unlikely that it will get reviewed or fixed. Plus, Marlon has already stated he thinks both of these issues should be addressed in toolbar customization. He owns this bug so you can make arguments against that position until you are blue in the face and it isn't going to make any difference here. If toolbar customization is the solution, this bug makes no more sense than opening bugs for "Back button should appear on main Toolbar", "Refresh button should appear on main Toolbar", etc. Toolbar customization should address all of those together. That being said, this bug is redundant and should be marked WONTFIX.
>Comment #54 From pascal.chevrel@free.fr > >The whole concept of navigation means nothing whithout a starting point, ever >wondered why all web sites have a Home button on all their pages ? I guess that >you find it stupid since this page is already in yoiur bookmarks... what i am rying to explain is that our home button _isn't_ navigational by any means whatsoever. in contrast to your example, our home button implementation does not take you back to any point of reference, it doesn't have any more significance than getting you back to the same web page over and over no matter where you are. This is _not_ the same behaviour as home on websites -> which take you back to the start page of a the site you are currently navigating, a point of reference. if you'll note my suggestion from above that if home were navigational, by providing a means to return to the first URL or the previous home domain of the current URL, then it would indeed be navigational. Perhaps, if the entire world were Netscape.com, or Mozilla.org, then yes, the home button _happens_ to be a navigational aid by default. but that would be very odd and unfortunate for the world wide web
All the people who use the home button have set for it a special page which is the center of their activities. That's why you can set it in the preferences and that's why you can set it by dragging an URL on the home button. Personnally, my home page is a little page lmade with Composer where I have all the links I need to work. When I was working for Alcatel a few years ago, all the 150,000 employees had their home page set to their respective department intranet where they could have access to the tools and info they needed for their job, most of the users I know have set their home page to their ISP portal or some MyYahoo, MyNetscape, MyWhatever page that they have customized to suit their needs. The fact that _you_ don't use the home page does not mean that _others_ don't use it as a central point.
> our home button implementation does not take you > back to any point of reference I don't understand this comment at all. That's the very *point* of having a home page. It's a central point of navigation - the one from which you always start your browser sessions, and the place from which all of your activities originate. > if the entire world were Netscape.com, or Mozilla.org, then yes, > the home button _happens_ to be a navigational aid by default. For the user who's defined a Home page - that's exactly what it does. It's their "entire world" and "a navigation aid by default". Frankly, I'm astonished that the whole concept is being misunderstood. I'd thought that the argument was based on something else - not on completely missing the point of what a Home page accomplishes...
Marlon, I can't believe that I hear this from you, the bug owner. If you don't want this bug to be fixed, why on earth are you the owner of it? You say that the current toolbar consist of four /navigation/ buttons and that Home is not a navigation button. Although this is true in a way, from a user's point of view this is totally wrong. The user wants this button because they use it all the time. Mozilla is the only web browser I know of that doesn't have the Home button in the main toolbar. IE (all versions) has it, Opera has it, hey even Netscape 4.x had it! Don't you think there's a reason why so many users complain about the lack of the Home button in Mozilla? Have you visited the newsgroups lately? It feels like I read about the lack of the Home button all the time. Also, the noise from most developers in this bug report speak the same clear language. What you are virtually saying is that even if I or someone else created a fully working patch that added the Home button (that this bug is all about), you wouldn't accept it because you still don't think it should be there because it's not a /navigation/ button? With your logic, "Exit" should not be in the File menu, because it has nothing to do with file operations. You should really read the article mentioned in comment 54 (Forgetting The User). In fact, every developer should read it. Some people also say that bug 49543 should be fixed first, but it doesn't even have an owner. Should we wait until "nobody" fixes "another" bug before we fix this one? I strongly disagree. Yes, the address bar will get even smaller, but it's not like bug 49543 will not be fixed. It may even get fixed sooner because of the noise that *may* occur because of the smaller address field. This seems to be the common way of thinking. "We can't fix /this/ because /that/ is not fixed." Yes we can! We fix /this/, then /that/ will really need to be fixed too, which speeds up the process. Comment 59 from amutch@tln.lib.mi.us: > If toolbar customization is the solution, this bug makes > no more sense than opening bugs for "Back button should > appear on main Toolbar", "Refresh button should appear on > main Toolbar", etc. Toolbar customization should address > all of those together. That being said, this bug is redundant > and should be marked WONTFIX. NO! I can't believe you say this. The lack of the Home button is a critical usability problem in Mozilla. We can't wait for such a huge project as customizable toolbars to fix this immediate problem. Comment 58 From Mike Palumbo: > I think the best way to handle it is to get them fixed jointly, > actually. This way the builds don't become less usable while we > wait for check-in of one of the two bugs. I disagree. Getting them (this and bug 49543) fixed jointly will just take even more time. We really need one of these bugs to be fixed first in order to fix the other. Currently, this bug has an owner, bug 49543 hasn't, which makes it natural to fix this one first. > In the mean time, I will try to get a working patch up here for > the home button, or at least try to update the existing patch. Now that's what I wanted to hear! Marlon, the final words goes to you. This bug should not be about whether or not the button should be added or whether or not it's a navigational button. It's about one of the biggest usability problems in Mozilla and it needs to be fixed. Sometimes, GUI isn't completely logical, and that's because the users are not completely logical either. Please don't reject a working patch if a developer contributes with one just because another bug is not fixed or because you don't like the Home button in the first place. People (that is, users /and/ developers) want this bug fixed now, even though customizable toolbars may be implemented in the future. Just look at the vote count. For anyone who's capable of writing a patch for this bug, I wish you the best of luck!
I have to reiterate what Jason is saying in Comment #62 above. If you do not use your Home page as a navigational start page, this bug appears to be quite unimportant. But for intranets the world around (as well as those of us who use web pages to store our bookmarks) this is an astonishingly huge oversight/bug in the current Mozilla. This thread (not that Bugzilla should be that!) has well established: 1. The home navigation button existed in Netscape 4.0. 2. A home navigation button exists in all other major browsers. 3. A home button could graphically be incorporated in the same space as the current four buttons. 4. The length of the URL bar is really no consequence to the issue. 5. The print and search buttons are far less important than a Home Button and yet occupy the same realestate. 6. Support for leaving the Home button off as a UI issue in Mozilla is undocumented (and appears to be politically motivated). 7. The presence of a Home link in the Personal Toolbar does not address the problem being posed by the bug. 8. Patches to fix the problem are quite simple. 9. There is obviously no one with any ability to change the situation who appears to advocate the position. As someone has already said, the ability to advocate the use of Mozilla (not just gecko) in commercial situations is severely hampered by this bug. I am truly surprised that it is not made at least an option given the amount of support for it expressed above. Steve Hall [ digitect@mindspring.com ]
Give it up people, the Mozilla developers just don't care. Plain and simple. If they did, this bug wouldn't still be open for more than a year. Shouting and yelling is just futile. If they really cared about actually fixing this bug, it would have been fixed a LONG time ago. Save yourselves some trouble and forget about this, it wont get fixed anyway....
i don't think how you or i personally prefer to use the home button should influence the design of shipping products. that's the antithesis of design. What is fact is that the home button in it's current incarnation is just a link, and not a reference point for navigation. it may work accidentally for some percentage of time when surfing corporate intranets or in other situations like you mentioned, but those should be cases that toolbar customization and the IS dept handles by configuring things right. if there were some alternate universe where the home button didn't mean what it means today, we might be able to consider a feature which users can bonk on to take them back to the original URL, or to the first page visited in the current domain. As it stands today, home *might* be your most important or frequently visited link of all - or, it might not - many may not ever use it or redefine it at all (the latter being true for most of our users). So the second question is why should it use up nav toolbar space for everybody? It is simply not crucial to the immediate task of navigating a site, to the same degree that back, forward, stop and reload are.
Marlon: If you truly believe this then take responsibility for the issue, and step up to the plate and mark this bug as WONTFIX as a declaration of mozilla.org's intentions. Otherwise, you're just expressing your *personal* opinion and what you're saying really has no influence on the vast majority of people here who don't share your viewpoint.
Exactly. No one should misinterpret my comments as saying that the absence of the Home button isn't a huge UI mistake. It is one and it is probably the most glaring and noticed of many. I wouldn't have voted for this bug if I thought otherwise. But the way the process works, Marlon alone has say-so over whether this feature will be incorporated in Mozilla. As he has made it quite clear that he thinks this feature is superfluous and better implemented through toolbar customization, any efforts to create a patch, seek reviews, etc. are going to end in frustration because Marlon has no intention of allowing this to move forward. Instead of pointlessly responding to various comments from various people, Marlon should mark the bug WONTFIX so that all of us can move onto other bugs which might address the problem from another angle. That doesn't mean that the problem shouldn't be addressed, it should. But why keep running your collective heads into the brick wall present here?
>Additional Comment #63 From David Tenser > >NO! I can't believe you say this. The lack of the Home button is a critical >usability problem in Mozilla. We can't wait for such a huge project as >customizable toolbars to fix this immediate problem. i do seem to have a home button. it's the first button in the personal toolbar. i haven't seen any usability problems with that. >Additional Comments From jasonb@dante.com >Marlon: If you truly believe this then take responsibility for the issue, and >step up to the plate and mark this bug as WONTFIX as a declaration of >mozilla.org's intentions. ok. >Otherwise, you're just expressing your *personal* >opinion and what you're saying really has no influence on the vast majority of >people here who don't share your viewpoint. I really don't see it as my 'personal opinion', more than it is simply an expression of logic: the home button is a personal favorite link. it is not a reference point to navigation (even if that is the value that engineers - ours, or anyone's who's copied ours - have attributed to it) i haven't seen much to counter that logic, other than, "my grandmother usually does this or that..." with the exception of: >With your logic, "Exit" should not be in the File menu, because it has nothing to do with >file operations. You should really read the article mentioned in comment 54 (Forgetting >The User). In fact, every developer should read it. which is a good argument, and the article, though no substitute for the practice of user interface design, is a fine article purely from a 'do's and dont's' article standpoint. however, commercial airline pilots don't get you from point a to point b by reading the owner's manual along the way. The mere mention of an article, though valid it may be on it's own, does not directly offer any useful counterpoint to the argument in this bug. Unless you'd care to draw out some reference which you feel you can prove runs parallel or would add some credence, perhaps combined with human reasoning, to illustrate a specific point you're making, then it stands that we should all observe that the article in comment #54 is simply a good read for those casually interested in software design. i'Il admit in general the rule "Forgetting the User" does apply to most everything, but i would add that in your example the file menu can accept any number of features by nature of being a menu, and that toolbars, by their nature, should only accept the very most important subset to the task that they're required for.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 23 years ago
Resolution: --- → WONTFIX
Marlon, can you confirm that Mozilla.org position is that there is no point for a Home button since this is just an ordinary link ? If it is, it would be logical now to suppress the possibility to set a home page in the preferences since the home button is now officially an ordinary bookmark you can define from the bookmark manager.
this bug is closed, please take your trolls and flames to the newsgroups where they belong. (for some obnoxious reason, though i removed myself from the cc list early today because i got sick of the bitching, i'm still receiving all your spam.)
I'm sorry, but this is absolutely pathetic. I will take this to the newsgroups, but Marlon, you should be ashamed at hindering Mozilla's acceptance, progress, and UI. This is EXACTLY why so many people fork the Gecko engine and come up with their own UI. Every other browser, including every other *Netscape* browser, had home in the main toolbar. So does Chimera, Opera, IE, iCab, Galeon, K-Meleon, Konqueror, etc. Mozilla is the only one I can think of that doesn't. The home button does not belong in the Personal Toolbar, it belongs on the main toolbar. And even if you could prove that it doesn't belong there, you will never gain acceptance since it is set in everyone's mind where the Home button should be...
For a bug with a similar problem of "misterious usability tests" =) , check bug 137901 .
I used a build with URLbar customization - the home button could be put to the main toolbar. Just wait till the feature will be included in Mozilla's nightly builds.
*** Bug 164515 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 165092 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Interesting discussion in bug 164868 about the buttons in the navigation toolbar. Marlon, are you still so sure about the navigation-only buttons in the "Navigation Toolbar"?
I am appalled. 38 votes, 77 comments. Wontfix because I don't want to. Bug 137901 shows the beginning echos of this gross ignorance of user preference. My humble apologies for the spam.
If so many users want it we need to reopen this bug?
> Interesting discussion in bug 164868 about the buttons in the navigation > toolbar. Also see bug 164908 (another logical conclusion of this bug's resolution) as well as bug 170067 (I'm tired of this inconsistency - I want one consistent, defendable, position in place and for everybody to stick to it - no matter what it is).
*** Bug 176912 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 181522 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Actually the Home Button SHOULD be in the _Navigation Toolbar_ instead of the _Personal Toolbar_! The guy who is responsible for that mess wrote: "...it is not a reference point to navigation." Incredible nonsense! OF COURSE it is "a" reference point to navigation. In fact it is THE reference point for me when "accessing the internet". (And I am quite sure the same is true for MANY others. Actually, many commentators have already try to point that out!) To rate it just "WONTFIX" is a incredible ignorance of USER WISHES and NEEDS! So this affair will definitely diminish my enthusiasm for the whole Mozilla project. I fear you have lost "another one". The blunt ignorance of JUSTIFIED USER WISHES (clearly expressed in MANY comments) really does harm to the whole project imho.
Actually, marking this WONTFIX is probably the best thing that could have happened. Instead of wasting time running heads into brick walls, two things happened: 1) A user developed a way to add the home button to the main toolbar 2) Phoenix, a stripped down version of Mozilla, included the home button on the toolbar So, there are Mozilla-based alternatives that address this concern. I believe that due to these steps, in the long run, the home button will be added to the main toolbar in Mozilla. Sometimes you lose the battles but win the war.
OK, the only (good) point I've seen argued against this is that the "Home" button is not a reference point of navigation. Assuming that you want every reference point of navigation on the Navigation toolbar, doesn't the Home button refer the user to an point of navigation, namely the very beginning? Unlike personal favorite links, this is actually of importance. Doesn't the very beginning qualify as being important? Not only that, but using the Personal Toolbar actually takes up more space that the "Home" button for those who don't use the Personal Toolbar, or use the Sidebar instead. Also, if so many people want this: 1. Why are you letting so little people getting in the way of actually implementing this? This is really a popular topic. The People Have The Power! 2. Why are there only 39 votes? Surely there's got to be more people who support this. 3. Doesn't anyone have the power to open this bug again? 4. Would it hurt you just to put a simple "Home" button on the Navigation toolbar even though you are firmly (and wrongly in my opinion) against this? As for waiting for customizable toolbars, this is an perfect example of procrastination. Why don't all you people against this wait for customizable toolbars so you can remove the "Home" button and let all the people for this actually implement this? So there.
* Customizable toolbars already exist in Phoenix 0.4 (as well as many Gecko- based browsers like K-Meleon and Galeon). http://mozilla.org/projects/phoenix/phoenix-release-notes.html#install * The home button already exists in Phoenix 0.4. * You can add a home button to Mozilla here: http://home.no.net/trihand/mozilla/home/en/ Unless someone from the top of Mozilla dictates that this bug be reopened, it's not going to be reopened. Having said that, I'm am convinced that it is just a matter of time before the "home" button has a place on the Navigation bar. Marlon's decision on this was wrong but there are alternatives. Make use of them as that sends a louder message than anything anyone posting here will make.
"Unless someone from the top of Mozilla dictates that this bug be reopened, it's not going to be reopened. Having said that, I'm am convinced that it is just a matter of time before the "home" button has a place on the Navigation bar. Marlon's decision on this was wrong but there are alternatives. (...)" Well, actually this just underlines the words of a Phoenix developer: "We also believe Mozilla, in general, is going in the wrong direction in terms of bloat and UI, and see no reason for our releases to carry those connotations." -------------- I mean the SOLUTION would be THAT easy: The preferences would just have to contain TWO separated fields: Select the buttons you want to see - in the Navigation Toolbar [ ] Home [ ] Go [ ] Search [ ] Print - in the Personal Toolbar [ ] Home [ ] Bookmarks Instead of ONLY "Select the buttons you want to see in the toolbars" with: [ ] Bookmarks [ ] Search [ ] Go [ ] Print [ ] Home ...actually this is just a big MESS, as you can see. ("Go" is placed on the Navigation Toolbar, while "Home" is placed on the Personal Toolbar. ?!? Actually the 'logic' behind the UI here in no way is "transparent".) --------------------------------- (o) Reopen bug
"...the SOLUTION would be THAT easy [...]" I mean, this solution would not depend on the (final clarification of the probably rather "philosophical") question if "Home" is a "reference point" of navigation or not, etc. etc. It would just OFFER _the u s e r_ the possibility to have the Home-Button in the toolbar HE thinks is right. (And imho the user should not have to wait for "Toolbar-Customization" for that "feature".) Marlon certainly will choose the following settings: Select the buttons you want to see in the Navigation Toolbar: [ ] Home [ ] Go [ ] Search [ ] Print in the Personal Toolbar: [x] Home [ ] Bookmarks while the default, clearly should be: Select the buttons you want to see in the Navigation Toolbar: [x] Home [ ] Go [ ] Search [ ] Print in the Personal Toolbar: [ ] Home [ ] Bookmarks At least imho this is what MOST people would appreciate (IF they have the choice). Well... look, Marlon..., if you click at the menu "Go" you will see that there are the commands: "Back Forward Home | ..." Obviously "Home" is of a certain importance for the "surfing experience". But please offer the user the possibility to _decide_. Thanx. (The effort to implement that feature, obviously would be quite minimal, but the effect rather notable.) --------------------------------- (o) Reopen bug
Opened: 2001-07-05 01:00 ...and it's still not back! Is this project just driven by idiots, or what?!!
Flames like that won't get anything happening. However, the sad truth seems to be that the guy this 'bug' is assigned to doesn't believe it is either a bug, or a necessary feature, and has said that a home button has no place on the navigation bar at all, so he has marked this bug as WONTFIX accordingly. Despite a number of people disagreeing with him, I don't think he's going to change his opinion on this. Whatever you believe, the fact remains that you can always work around this 'bug' yourself by installing home.xpi (and reinstalling it every time you reinstall mozilla freshly)
Since this apparently is not going to get "fixed", here's a workaround which turns the Mozilla button (AKA the "throbber")(or the Netscape button, if you’re using NS 7.02) on your navigation toolbar into the equivalent of a “Home” button by adding a line to the prefs.js file that includes your home page URL (the following shows my "My Netscape" home page URL): user_pref("browser.throbber.url","http://my.netscape.com/index2.psp"); Then bookmark Mozilla.org to get there rather than using the Mozilla button. Works fine, doesn't add anything new to the toolbar, doesn't take up any additional space, and has no programming baggage attached as some other "Home Button" programs do. Try it, you'll like it!
just in case someone is interested, here's an alternative patch which removes home from personal toolbar and inserts it in the main toolbar, still respecting the preference in edit/preferences/navigator whether to show it.
Being that this is commonly implemented in Phoenix, and in light of the recent reorganization of Mozilla around Phoenix, does this mean that the bug is (a) FIXED, or (b) REOPENED? -bZj
hahaha good call !
*** Bug 203702 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Please reopen this bug. There is no good reason not give an option to put it on there. Even if you don't like it, you could disable it and put it on the personal toolbar. There is plenty of room on the navigation toolbar for a home button - most URL's I go to don't take up half the URL bar and it's not like you can't scroll to it. I think keeping this WONTFIX is a blantant disregard for the wishes of the users (remember, Mozilla is a USER agent), and this is a terrible mistake for the user interface. There are too many people who want this on there to ignore this. So please, just reconsider this.
As per comment 93, I believe this bug was closed because Mozilla Firebird was slotted to replace the current Application Suite (seamonkey?) in the near future (as per the roadmap change of April 2, 2003). In light of the recent change in policy, with the assurance of the continued existance of the Mozilla application suite (see Mozillazine.org article from January 16, 2004), perhaps this bug should be reopened. Other things to consider: 1. Every other major browser currently in use still has the ability to have a home button, including Firebird, IE, Apple Safari, and Konqueror. 2. It can be made to be deactivated via Edit -> Preferences -> Navigator, just like the Bookmarks, Search button, etc, for people that don't want to lose screen real estate. 3. The icons are already created for Classic and Modern themes. 4. In addition to just sending the browser to the home URL, it can be used to set the home URL via drag-n-drop (just like the home icon in the personal toolbar).
Karthik wrote "I believe this bug was closed because Mozilla Firebird was slotted to replace the current Application Suite". No - this bug was marked WONTFIX some 8 months before comment 93, and the reasons had nothing to do with Firebird.
It was marked as WONTFIX because: 1) The module owner did not see the need for it. 2) Mozilla's management team didn't require it. 3) There are numerous alternatives to get around this roadblock within Mozilla by using user supplied patches to add the home button to Mozilla. 4) There are Mozilla-derived browsers that have the home button on the toolbar by default. In short, almost everyone on this bug knows that the #1 is wrong. But that doesn't change the fact that #1 is the only controlling point unless #2 states otherwise. So constantly spamming this bug with "this is stupid, add the home button" is pointless and counterproductive. We already know it's a stupid decision. Put your energy to something more productive like encouraging people to use Firebird, K-Meleon, Galeon, etc. or point them to the patches that will add the home button back to Mozilla.
*** Bug 247175 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Product: Core → Mozilla Application Suite
See also Bug 404109
Component: XP Apps: GUI Features → UI Design
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