956861 - 'Show search suggestions' preference label is misleading for non-supported engines

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

[Aaron Train [:aaronmt]]

Currently only Google and Bing are supported (01/2014). 

The preference is misleading because we by default (on en-US), ship 4 other engines that currently do not offer the same support.

Suggestion: In the CheckBoxPreference [1], add an android:summary string that mentions something along the lines with "Shows search suggestions for search engines that support it". Word-smith to this by all means.

[1] http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/mobile/android/base/resources/xml/preferences_search.xml#11

Comment 1

[Brad Lassey [:blassey] (use needinfo?)]

Ian, what do you want to do here?

Comment 2

[Shashank VRSN Sabniveesu]

Rather we can have 'Show Search Suggestions' as a pop-up option when a Search Engine is chosen (along with the current 'Set as Default' and 'Remove'). That way it can be made a disabled choice for unsupported engines.

This would also remove the currently lone 'Show Search Suggestions' altogether

Additional Note: DuckDuckGo is testing 'Search Suggestions' at next.duckduckgo.com. It will be the default in coming days.

As Fennec allows user to add Search Engines dynamically, the user may add some search provider which is already allowing 'search suggestions' (eg: Quora, Stack Overflow etc.)

Comment 3

[Ian Barlow (:ibarlow)]

I don't think changing the copy is the best solution here. What if we uncheck and grey out the "show suggestions" item if a user selects a default engine that doesn't offer suggestions?

Comment 4

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

(In reply to Ian Barlow (:ibarlow) from comment #3)
> I don't think changing the copy is the best solution here. What if we
> uncheck and grey out the "show suggestions" item if a user selects a default
> engine that doesn't offer suggestions?

Does that mean we need to remember to "check" it again if the user picks a search engine that does support suggestions?

I don't like changing settings like that. I'd rather leave it alone and wait for people to tell us it's confusing. We could also add info to the engines themselves, letting people know if the engine supports suggestions.

Comment 5

[Ian Barlow (:ibarlow)]

(In reply to Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) from comment #4)

> I don't like changing settings like that. I'd rather leave it alone and wait
> for people to tell us it's confusing. 

Works for me. To be honest I'm not convinced that this is a real problem.

Comment 6

[Shashank VRSN Sabniveesu]

(In reply to Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) from comment #4)
> (In reply to Ian Barlow (:ibarlow) from comment #3)
>
> We could also add info to the engines
> themselves, letting people know if the engine supports suggestions.

This sounds simple and useful. This just needs a description-like string after each 'search-engine name'. Does it work that way?

Comment 7

[Brian Nicholson (:bnicholson)]

(In reply to Ian Barlow (:ibarlow) from comment #5)
> (In reply to Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) from comment #4)
> 
> > I don't like changing settings like that. I'd rather leave it alone and wait
> > for people to tell us it's confusing. 
> 
> Works for me. To be honest I'm not convinced that this is a real problem.

Sounds like there's nothing to do here.