Firefox/Feature Brainstorming:Notification Tools

« Firefox/Feature Brainstorming

Page content notification area

• Some sort of unified system for informing users of all the various types of available content on a page, including Web feeds, Microformats, Microsummaries, and what-have-you. How could this information be best communicated to users through the browser?
  • Currently, when a Web feed is detected on a page, a Feed icon is displayed in the Location bar. If a page has multiple content types available, however (web feed, microformat(s), microsummary, etc), putting all those icons in the Location bar may not be feasible. What are the possible alternatives?
  • RSS in the URL bar, that's basically becoming a standard between all browsers so let's keep that. Clicking on it brings you to a built-in RSS reader (a la Safari). Left-hand side of the page will have the URL of the RSS feed so you can copy it into your favorite feed reader and all the other feed icons that are available (microformats and etc.) that you can cilck on. Clicking on one of those brings up the requested feed in the internal reader the same way. Also you should be able to select which you want via the View menu for quicker access, ex: View -> hCard, they will only show up under the view menu if available. All feeds and such should appear in the internal feed reader. I'll start a new section about it.
• API and default UI for taking action on a notification (ie: subscribe to feed, import Microformat)
  • see this proposal for a service for exposing metadata
• Implement a framework for pluggable back-ends for nsIAlertService, to use native desktop notification systems such as Galago, or 3rd party tools such as Growl, Snarl.

New notification types

• tab-modal alerts, more file formats, microformats, microsummaries

References

• bug 59314
• bug 123913
• Tab title flash notification suggestion Title Flash Notification

Omnibus "Status" area

• download status
• popup/cookie/XPI blocker status
• security/trustworthiness status

References

• bug 245567

Modified page warning

• Warn User before closing page with modified form

References

• Form Dirty Bit

Backend changes

• Get nsIAlertService working for Mac.

Error messages

• Improve error messages and the information they convey
• Full language pass on error messages

alert messages

make alert messages limited to one tab. There is no reason why you can't switch tab when one page makes an alert.

Authentication for Protected Webpages

• Currently in Firefox, when you visit a protected page (that would give you a 401 error if you don't login), that tab would be brought to the front as soon as it loads.
• In Opera, those tabs act normally, and you can still view other tabs before dismissing the login box.
• I would like to see Firefox have an option where you can either have those tabs brought to the front, or just act like normal tabs.
• (This is like the one above this..:P)