Firefox user interface improvement suggestions
Darki...@gmail.com
automatically become active if I begin typing instead of having to
first bring the url entry text field into focus. I already know that I
want to go to a given web address before I have even brought the url
entry field into focus, and it is something I think that the web
browser itself should be able to determine without me doing something
that is almost entirely redundant like typing alt+D or ctrl+L when
there are no other text fields in focus in the webpage or in the
browser such as the search bar and the find bar.
I have also noticed that currently it is not possible to to use the
alt+enter shortcut to force a url to open in a new tab if one hides the
navigation toolbar. It makes no sense to force the user to use the
mouse to select open in a new tab from a drop down box or to have them
open the tab first when alt+enter already provides an appropriate way
to handle this. It also does not seem to be possible to set this and
other keybindings by default from the GUI.
The status bar should also have the ability to only show itself when a
page is loading without the need for an extension like
autohide-statusbar. Leaving the status bar active at all times is not
really desireable given that I can view more of a web page without
scrolling with the bar hidden most of the time.
I also think that it would be a good idea to have ctrl+c automatically
copy a url to the clipboard if no other text is selected; in
conjunction with ctrl+v automatically summoning the urlbar with the
pasted contents of the clipboard already filled in, or simply filling
in the urlbar with the copied text if no other text field is active.
[It is also adviseable to even allow the url to be copied even from
within a text field as long as no text is highlighted.] It would also
be nice to have a paste and go feature out of the box. I am aware of
hacks and extensions that do this but it would still be nice to not
need an extension or hack for something like that.
Shadow Skill
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=333572
Myk Melez
> I don't think this is possible. The web page should be able to get these
> events, which some AJAXie web pages use. Gmail, for example has keyboard
> accelerator keys which you can use to do most operations which would be
> broken by your suggestion.
Find-as-you-type has a pref (Preferences > Advanced > General >
Accessibility > Begin finding when you begin typing) for automatically
turning on the feature when you start typing, so there's precedent for a
feature that captures type events.
Whether we'd want it is another matter. It seems like something that
would appeal to a very small segment of even power users and is thus
better implemented in extension land.
-myk
Shadow Skill
alot of people don't use it. What I am actually suggesting can be seen
as an application of the FAYT concept the only real difference is that
it focuses the urlbar instead of the text search bar.
Myk Melez
I understand that the two features are conceptually similar, and I agree
that both are/would be used by a minority of users. But I think the
minority of users who use FAYT is exponentially greater than it would be
for "focus the url bar as you type," and that difference is significant.
-myk
Shadow Skill
you can even argue that there is a significance that would work against
such a feature is beyond me.
Mike:
The usefulness of ctrl+c being able to copy the current url if no text
field is active is simple, you will loose the ability to even copy the
url for the purpose of pasting if you elect not to use the navigation
bar for any reason. There are various text editors which have a
simillar feature where copy and cut are able to take an entire line if
specific text is not highlighted. It is much better than forcing users
to hammer shift end or shift home, which also requires that the cursor
be at the begining or ending of a line which is just not always the
case.
It also doesn't even matter that FAYT even exists because if you
decided to enable what I will refer to as Go As You Type or GAYT you
would not be able to turn on FAYT at the same time. As far as conflict
with websites its a non existant issue because just as FAYT doesn't
work if a text field has focus GAYT wouldn't work either.
The whole point of FAYT and GAYT is to not have to use modifiers like
alt+d or ctrl+l or / or '. Given that users are allowed to hide the
navigation bar how can it be acceptable to create the following
scenario:
User needs to copy url
user does alt+d or ctrl+l
ctrl+c or right click and copy
hit escape
refocus text field
paste
As opposed to the following that would make use of ctrl+c [or even
another set of keys if one is paranoid about things or one wants to
allow entire lines to be copied if no text is selected inside a text
field. (Think of web forum forms where a great deal of text may be
entred into a single field.)]
user uses ctrl+c or specific shortcut to copy url
user focuses appropriate text field if it is not already activated
user pastes url.
Philip Withnall
Firefox feature - there's no case for it (as Brett and Myk have
explained) - so why not focus your energies on writing it as an
extension? I can't foresee it being too hard, and if there are users who
want it, there's nothing stopping you. Both FAYT and "GAYT" used (or
proposed) by a minority of users, so I personally think they should
*both* be extensions.
Mark Pilgrim
> Shadow, this is almost definitely not going to be implemented as a core
> Firefox feature - there's no case for it (as Brett and Myk have
> explained) - so why not focus your energies on writing it as an
> extension? I can't foresee it being too hard, and if there are users who
> want it, there's nothing stopping you. Both FAYT and "GAYT" used (or
> proposed) by a minority of users, so I personally think they should
> *both* be extensions.
FAYT is a major accessibility feature and we have no plans to remove
it from Firefox core.
--
Cheers,
-Mark
Mike Connor
>> Firefox feature - there's no case for it (as Brett and Myk have
>> explained) - so why not focus your energies on writing it as an
>> extension? I can't foresee it being too hard, and if there are users who
>> want it, there's nothing stopping you. Both FAYT and "GAYT" used (or
>> proposed) by a minority of users, so I personally think they should
>> *both* be extensions.
>>
>
> it from Firefox core.
>
the findbar code is built on FAYT. ;)
-- Mike
Shadow Skill
compliment the program. Forcing users to hunt down extensions when a
feature which is exactly the same as one that is already currently
implemented or can otherwise make using the browser for its primary
task is not a good use of the fact that Firefox actually has a public
API unlike Opera. [Apparently Opera doesn't even have a true API
currently.] You may or may not know this but there was a time when
users either had to hack Firefox's config files [which would require a
bit of googling in order to find appropriate code.] or find an
extension to allow Firefox to open links in tabs by simply clicking on
them. Do you honestly think that it was appropriate to not allow such
preferences in the GUI for any length of time unless users hunted down
an extension or had the knowledge to hack the configuration files? I
personally don't use FAYT nor do I know anyone does but I wouldn't
think to suggest that FAYT should be an extension for what boils down
to "I don't use it so I don't think it should even be a preference in
the browser. Anyone who wants it should be forced to search for it."
I happen to not know Javascript nor can I find an appropriate list of
mozilla specific functions that can be used with Firefox. So exactly
how am I supposed to implement this feature? It goes to the reason I
even asked that this feature be included in Firefox here in the first
place, you shouldn't patronize people with statements like that. If I
was able to make an extension I would have just pasted the code here
and asked that my code be integrated into Firefox proper. The case for
GAYT is the same as the case for FAYT to suggest that there is not a
case is just ridiculous. There are numerous programs that implement
the core concept behind FAYT or GAYT that being the act of typing being
an implicit way of calling a command in the case of FAYT this is a
character matching command.
Internet explorer uses this concept in its file manager mode [though it
is not very well developed and isn't actually listed.]
Abcommanderxp also uses simillar behavior [again undocumented]
Konqueror has the same feature in filemanagement mode. Krusader also
allows for this. Nautilus allows for this, and Thunar does as well.
Then there are the file dialogs for both Windows and Linux even if we
decided to exclude the gtk-dialog.
Everything I just mentioned implements the concept in the following
way: Typing text highlights the file or folder that matches the string
entered hitting enter will then launch the file in a specified program
or enter into the directory. Websites can be viewed as either
documents or directories because as far as the server hosting a page
[and the web browser] is concerned a web page IS a file, and the the
domain is the root folder for a webpage. So there is a case for
anything that deals with a file or directory, whether it be a file
manager like the five applications I meantioned as well as the File
choosers of Gnome, KDE, and IE, or a Web browser like Firefox to have
this ability.
Philip Withnall
suggesting FAYT should be an extension, but there's no reason why we
should bloat the browser up with GAYT.
Extensions that are exceedingly popular (such as the various tab browser
improvement extensions for 1.x) are discussed and then sometimes
migrated to the browser proper, since so many people use them.
GAYT would interfere with page keyboard events (although FAYT does this
already), and we've no evidence that many people would like the feature.
If GAYT was implemented as an extension first, and a huge proportion of
Firefox users used it and liked it, then there would be a good case for
including it in the browser, but as it stands you're asking us to
implement a completely new feature in the core browser with no preceding
extension or work, which has an uncertain audience. I don't mean to be
rude, but can't you see how precarious that sounds?
You should focus your time on writing such an extension (learn
Javascript; it's not hard :-P ), or getting somebody else to.