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Places:Bookmarks:Rethinking: Difference between revisions
→Enhancing the "Places" window
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''Please comment in the discussion section rather than changing this page.'' | ''Please comment in the discussion section rather than changing this page.'' | ||
= Rethinking Firefox Bookmarking = | == Rethinking Firefox Bookmarking == | ||
[[Places]] brings many new capabilities to the bookmarks and history system. However, the UI for accessing and managing bookmarks has not really changed that much. In this document, we describe some potential future directions. | [[Places]] brings many new capabilities to the bookmarks and history system. However, the UI for accessing and managing bookmarks has not really changed that much. In this document, we describe some potential future directions. | ||
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* Don't significantly change the UI for people that have learned to use the current system. Most people will not want to learn something new, and will be upset if their bookmarks have moved. It should be possible to slowly transition to the new features. | * Don't significantly change the UI for people that have learned to use the current system. Most people will not want to learn something new, and will be upset if their bookmarks have moved. It should be possible to slowly transition to the new features. | ||
== Autolinks in the toolbar == | |||
Many seasoned Firefox users can probably recall seeing a novice user's browser and noticed that the bookmarks toolbar has only the default bookmarks on it. Many inexperienced users don't even realize that the toolbar can be customized or removed. Even when they have commonly visited sites, they probably rely on other, less efficient methods of navigating to the page. | |||
The autolink proposal would populate the unused right portion of the toolbar with the user's favorite non-bookmarked pages. If the user has populated their entire toolbar to the width of the window, no autolinks would be displayed. | |||
The problem with many "automatic" proposals is that the spacial memory of the bookmark is lost when the links move around. Making the user comfortable with always knowing where to expect their bookmarks to be is an important requirement. | |||
We should therefore seldom change the links around. Populating on startup is probably sufficient; the user should never see the links being moved around, even if they visit a site many times (making it their "favorite" site). | |||
We should also try to keep bookmarks in the same location. When the toolbar is initially populated, we can use their N favorite non-bookmarked pages. We can then track clicks to these toolbar buttons. Some will probably be clicked on, while others will not. For those that are clicked on, we should "lock" those buttons and always use that index. For those buttons that are not clicked on, we will replace them with the user's new favorite unbookmarked pages. | |||
It would also be possible to force eviction of a given item or to lock the item in place: | |||
http://maxradi.us/post/moz_wiki/bookmarks_revisited/places_autolinks.png | |||
''Open question:'' Should we also populate the autolinks with bookmarks that are not in the toolbar? Some sites may be frequently visited through buried bookmarks. We might be helping some users if we also include these. | |||
== Enhancing the "Places" window == | == Enhancing the "Places" window == | ||
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http://maxradi.us/post/moz_wiki/bookmarks_revisited/tagging_ui.png | http://maxradi.us/post/moz_wiki/bookmarks_revisited/tagging_ui.png | ||
Clicking on the down-arrow next to the star brings up the most recent items in the bookmarks inbox. When a bookmark is added, it is marked as "unread" (even though the user is currently on the page) and appears bold. When they visit the page again, it becomes "read" and is no longer bold. This is to support the "to-do list" metaphor: bookmarked pages that have not been visited are more prominent to allow easier finding. | Clicking on the down-arrow next to the star brings up the most recent items in the bookmarks inbox. When a bookmark is added, it is marked as "unread" (even though the user is currently on the page) and appears bold. When they visit the page again, it becomes "read" and is no longer bold. This is to support the "to-do list" metaphor: bookmarked pages that have not been visited are more prominent to allow easier finding. We should also support "Mark as unread" in the context menu for the menu. | ||
As more items are added, older items fall off the bottom of the menu. They would still be accessable though the Places UI by clicking "View all bookmarks and tags" at the bottom. The full UI would also allow tagging and filing into bookmarks folders: | As more items are added, older items fall off the bottom of the menu. They would still be accessable though the Places UI by clicking "View all bookmarks and tags" at the bottom. The full UI would also allow tagging and filing into bookmarks folders: | ||
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The second item sets the "default tag" which is applied to all pages when the star button is clicked. This allows the user to go into "research mode" where all bookmarked pages should be filed as a certain category. They would set the default tag to "wine" and then research wine tasting, clicking the star button for each interesting page. | The second item sets the "default tag" which is applied to all pages when the star button is clicked. This allows the user to go into "research mode" where all bookmarked pages should be filed as a certain category. They would set the default tag to "wine" and then research wine tasting, clicking the star button for each interesting page. | ||
We might want to have a "tags" toolbar control. Obsessive-compulsive taggers could add it to their toolbar and just type in tags for any web pages without having a dialog box appear. | |||
''Open question:'' how does this get cleared? It also needs to be made a little easier; as-described it's a little obscure. Perhaps a checkbox in the add tag window that says "use as default." It seems likely that this entire concept is too obscure, and the second item should be "Tag as XXX" where XXX is the list of the last tags used. | ''Open question:'' how does this get cleared? It also needs to be made a little easier; as-described it's a little obscure. Perhaps a checkbox in the add tag window that says "use as default." It seems likely that this entire concept is too obscure, and the second item should be "Tag as XXX" where XXX is the list of the last tags used. | ||
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http://maxradi.us/post/moz_wiki/bookmarks_revisited/tagging_notes.png | http://maxradi.us/post/moz_wiki/bookmarks_revisited/tagging_notes.png | ||
We should also put any notes in tooltips where it makes sense, such as in the bookmarks menu and in the places view. | |||
This provides all the information that they have noted for all pages in one convenient view. For example, the use would tag their airline pages with the same tag, and would be able to call all of them up at once to compare. | This provides all the information that they have noted for all pages in one convenient view. For example, the use would tag their airline pages with the same tag, and would be able to call all of them up at once to compare. | ||
''Open question:'' What happens if a note is added to a page that is not bookmarked? Perhaps we want to add it to the bookmark inbox. | ''Open question:'' What happens if a note is added to a page that is not bookmarked? Perhaps we want to add it to the bookmark inbox. | ||