Official name for the "Awesomebar?"

[Louise Varielle]

Hi,

I was wondering if there was any official way of calling the so called
"Awesomebar" of Firefox 3.

I searched the Firefox 3 documentation and found
http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Firefox_3_for_developers#New_features_for_end_users
which refers to it as just "Location bar and auto-complete."

Awesomebar is a really fantastic improvement and I use it every day, but is
Mozilla going to make this the official name for it?
I can understand people getting so excited with this new feature that they
want to call it "awesome" (and I think so too) but it sounds a bit silly and
not so professional to me.

Since this is one big improvement on the UI, I think it deserves a name of
it's own, something that remains in people's head and that depicts it's
feature well like Apple's "Spotlight" does (or other FIrefox features like
Places, Library).

thanks in advance,
Louise

[Alex Faaborg]

As opposed to giving it an official name (like Spotlight), I think we
should just refer to the functionality as "bookmark and history
search," since that conveys the functionality in the shortest phrase.
-alex

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[Chris Ilias]

On 4/23/08 10:33 PM, _Alex Faaborg_ spoke thusly:

> As opposed to giving it an official name (like Spotlight), I think we
> should just refer to the functionality as "bookmark and history search,"
> since that conveys the functionality in the shortest phrase.

In Firefox Support, the plan is to refer to it as "Location bar
auto-complete". I'd love it, if we had official terminology for it.

[Joe Drew]

On Apr 23, 2008, at 10:19 PM, Louise Varielle wrote:
> Awesomebar is a really fantastic improvement and I use it every day,
> but is
> Mozilla going to make this the official name for it?
> I can understand people getting so excited with this new feature
> that they
> want to call it "awesome" (and I think so too) but it sounds a bit
> silly and
> not so professional to me.

I can't say what the official name is going to be, but I'm not so
convinced that the Mozilla community really needs to have a
"professional-sounding" name. For one, Awesomebar is pretty memorable.
For another, bloggers and others have already started using that name
to refer to the new location bar auto-complete. Trying to rebrand it
now seems like it'd be next to impossible.

Joe

[Tony Mechelynck]

I suppose different terms should be used in different contexts.
"Awesomebar" is OK, I suppose, for hackers' blogs or even Bugzilla
reports, but it would sound silly between a salesman and the CEO of a
prospective client corporation. In official contexts (including
support.mozilla.com and kb.mozillazine.org), I suppose that "Location
bar and autocomplete" or "Bookmarks/history search feature", which refer
to the same feature in two slightly different aspects of its function,
would probably sound better.

Best regards,
Tony.
--
Chicago Transit Authority Rider's Rule #84:
The CTA has complimentary pop-up timers available on request
for overheated passengers. When your timer pops up, the driver will
cheerfully baste you.
-- Chicago Reader 5/28/82

[Justin Dolske]

Tony Mechelynck wrote:

> I suppose different terms should be used in different contexts.
> "Awesomebar" is OK, I suppose, for hackers' blogs or even Bugzilla
> reports, but it would sound silly between a salesman and the CEO of a
> prospective client corporation.

And yet, they're using a software product named after a cute fuzzy
panda, from a company named for a giant red lizard, in an industry with
billion-dollar players named "Google" and "Yahoo!".

Somehow I'm not at all concerned about the name.

Justin

[Alex Faaborg]

When people use the phrase awesome bar it is usually in the context of
"this is an over the top inside joke name for the feature." Even when
mentioned in an official setting like a press briefing I think there
is a general understanding that "awesome bar" is a humorous nickname,
rather than us failing at being professional. So we certainly
shouldn't stop calling it that, but we also shouldn't use that name in
help or documentation since that won't carry the same connotation due
to the tone of writing.

The reason I like "bookmark and history search" for documentation
better than "location bar autocomplete" is that the later feels
implementation centric. What you are searching is more important than
what type of field you are searching in.

-Alex

[Louise Varielle]

On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 11:33 AM, Alex Faaborg <faa...@mozilla.com> wrote:

> As opposed to giving it an official name (like Spotlight), I think we
> should just refer to the functionality as "bookmark and history search,"
> since that conveys the functionality in the shortest phrase.

> -alex
>
>
>
Thanks for the reply.

As much as I would like to call it an awesomebar when explaining to friends
how awesome it is, I thought if Mozilla was going to give the feature a name
it might be a good idea to rethink.

Calling it just "bookmark and history search" is just fine, I guess.

> The reason I like "bookmark and history search" for >documentation
>better than "location bar autocomplete" is that the later feels
>implementation centric. What you are searching is more important >than
>what type of field you are searching

Or maybe "Places search," although it would be more difficult for new users
to understand what it is compared to "bookmark and history search."

Louise

[Mike Beltzner]

In terms of "official" naming:
- the UI element is called the Location Bar
- the feature will be described on our website, and to reveiwers, as
the "Smart Location Bar"

As Alex and others have mentioned, on blogs, when talking with
reviewers or the community, or heck, when talking with friends and
family, pretty much everyone I know uses "Awesomebar". We'll also
refer to this as the popular nickname on the Mozilla.com website. I
expect the nickname will percolate, and will be familiar to the web
literati, but I don't think we should ever expect it to cross over to
an "official" name which we can use on its own when talking to people;
as others have pointed out, it's not very descriptive.

When describing the function, I agree entirely with Alex that
"bookmark and history search" is a much friendlier and expressive way
of describing what the Smart Location Bar does. I can see it being
used in end-user documentation as:

- "use the bookmark and history search in the Smart Location Bar"
- "the Smart Location Bar will search bookmarks and history"
- "Bookmark and History search in the Smart Location Bar"
etc.

For developer documentation, I think we should be sticking with things
like:
- Location Bar (which is the name of the UI element)
- location bar autocomplete (to describe the action)

Also, people have mentioned "Places" in this thread. That's not an end-
user facing term at all. It's an internal name for a new bookmark
infrastructure, to be used only by the denizens of Mozilla Developer
Central and Bugzilla. :)

cheers,
mike

On 23-Apr-08, at 9:20 PM, Alex Faaborg wrote:

> When people use the phrase awesome bar it is usually in the context of
> "this is an over the top inside joke name for the feature." Even when
> mentioned in an official setting like a press briefing I think there
> is a general understanding that "awesome bar" is a humorous nickname,
> rather than us failing at being professional. So we certainly
> shouldn't stop calling it that, but we also shouldn't use that name in
> help or documentation since that won't carry the same connotation due
> to the tone of writing.
>

> The reason I like "bookmark and history search" for documentation
> better than "location bar autocomplete" is that the later feels
> implementation centric. What you are searching is more important than

> what type of field you are searching in.
>
> -Alex
>
>
> On Apr 23, 2008, at 8:34 PM, Tony Mechelynck wrote:
>

[Louise Varielle]

On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 1:48 PM, Mike Beltzner <belt...@mozilla.com> wrote:

> When describing the function, I agree entirely with Alex that
> "bookmark and history search" is a much friendlier and expressive way
> of describing what the Smart Location Bar does. I can see it being
> used in end-user documentation as:
>
> - "use the bookmark and history search in the Smart Location Bar"
> - "the Smart Location Bar will search bookmarks and history"
> - "Bookmark and History search in the Smart Location Bar"
> etc.
>
> For developer documentation, I think we should be sticking with things
> like:
> - Location Bar (which is the name of the UI element)
> - location bar autocomplete (to describe the action)
>

Thanks, that was exactly what I wanted to know.

>
> Also, people have mentioned "Places" in this thread. That's not an end-
> user facing term at all. It's an internal name for a new bookmark
> infrastructure, to be used only by the denizens of Mozilla Developer
> Central and Bugzilla. :)

Sorry, I was misunderstanding it as a new name for the entire database of
bookmarks and history that would be used for end-users.

[Axel Hecht]

> end-user facing term at all. It's an internal name for a new bookmark

> infrastructure, to be used only by the denizens of Mozilla Developer
> Central and Bugzilla. :)
>
> cheers,
> mike
>

I personally look forward to have our 20th anniversary in the
"awesomebar" ;-)

Axel

[Gervase Markham]

Louise Varielle wrote:
> I was wondering if there was any official way of calling the so called
> "Awesomebar" of Firefox 3.

I think AwesomeBar (note the intercaps - I think that helps) is a
perfectly fine official name.

Gerv

[Chris Ilias]

On 4/24/08 12:48 AM, _Mike Beltzner_ spoke thusly:

> In terms of "official" naming:
> - the UI element is called the Location Bar
> - the feature will be described on our website, and to reveiwers, as
> the "Smart Location Bar"

For clarification:
Larry is not part of the Smart Location Bar, but is part of the Location
bar. Correct?

[Mike Beltzner]

"Larry" is another nickname for part of the user interface. The actual
user interface is the "Site Identity Button", and it sits inside the
Smart Location Bar.

cheers,
mike

[Chris Ilias]

On 4/28/08 3:51 PM, _Mike Beltzner_ spoke thusly:

Ok. Just makin' sure for the "Smart Location Bar" support article.
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=430678>