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Places: Difference between revisions
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''Please comment in the Talk page (use the Discussion tab above)''
Places is a system for storing bookmarks, history, and other user information about the Web, intended to improve developer access to this data and make it easier for people to Bookmark pages. Places is currently enabled for Firefox 3 and greater, powering History and Bookmarks, as well as providing plumbing for Livemarks, Annotations and Microsummaries and the Awesomebar.


Places is a new system for storing bookmarks, history, and other information about pages. It is currently scheduled to go into Firefox 3. This document covers much of the design and user-interface of Places. Developers looking into using places should see the [http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Places developer documentation].
= Quick Links =


Bug list: [http://tinyurl.com/8xgkf Places bugs by milestone, owner]
Documentation
* [http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Places Developer documentation] on MDN
* [http://people.mozilla.org/~dietrich/places/ Doxygen-generated API documentation]
* [http://people.mozilla.org/~dietrich/places-erd.png Database schema ERD]
* [[Places/Places_SQL_queries_best_practices]] for code contributors and internal developers
* [[Places/Places_Branch]] Places branch annotations
* [[Places/Coding_Style]] Places coding style


Note: This feature has been disabled on the Gecko 1.8 branch. [http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.planning/browse_thread/thread/4b8e7bafecccbc10/ Newsgroup post]
Communication:
* [news://news.mozilla.org/mozilla.dev.apps.firefox mozilla.dev.apps.firefox newsgroup]
* [irc://irc.mozilla.org/#places #places] on irc.mozilla.org
* Weekly meetings on Monday at '''9'''am PST in [irc://irc.mozilla.org/#places #places]. See [[Places/Status_Meetings]] for meeting notes.


= Goals & Objectives =
Source:
The primary objectives of this project are to:  
* Firefox front-end code: [http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/components/places/ mozilla/browser/components/places/]
* Toolkit backend code: [http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/components/places/ mozilla/toolkit/components/places/]


* Improve access to History and Bookmarks
Current work:
* Make it easier for people to Bookmark pages
* See the [[Places:Plan]] for current work.


Secondary objectives include:
Active module peers:
* [http://autonome.wordpress.com/ Dietrich Ayala] (MO)
* [http://shawnwilsher.com/ Shawn Wilsher]
* [http://www.bonardo.net/ Marco Bonardo]


* Consolidating user data formats
= Design =
* Provide a platform for using interesting per-URL metadata
* Improving the capabilities of Live Bookmarks


== Builds ==
* Contemporary design information is on the [http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Places Places developer wiki].
* [[Places:Design Overview]] contains much of the original design documentation from Firefox 2 and 3 work on Places.
* [[Places:Performance]]
* [[Places:SecurityReview|Places Security Review]]


Places is enabled in the "trunk" build of Firefox. This build is unstable and is recommended only for developers. You can download nightly trunk builds from the Mozilla FTP site. See [[Firefox:Home_Page]] for information on schedules, etc.
= Compatibility =


=== Previous builds ===
As of Firefox 3, the APIs for accessing Bookmarks and History have been replaced. Some history APIs remain the same. See the [http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Places Places developer wiki] for more information.


Milestone 2 (1/30/2006):
= Extensions =


What's new in this build:
The APIs for accessing and manipulating Bookmarks and History have been replaced entirely in Firefox 3, and are incompatible. Almost all Bookmarks and History user interface components have been replaced or updated significantly. Any extension that does anything with History or Bookmarks will almost certainly have to be rewritten, at the very least to use the new APIs.


* Your existing history is now preserved and imported into Places.
= Timeline and History =
* You can search from the Places view
* You can construct queries over your history/bookmarks and save them
* If you are migrating to Firefox from another browser, your history and bookmarks are imported into Places.
* Stability, performance, and bug fixes


Known issues:
* Initial Places implementation slated for Firefox 2. Landed for early alphas and then backed out and eventually cut from the release. [TODO: proper links and dates needed]
* Project re-initialized in fall 2007, slated for Firefox 3.
* History-on-Places was enabled on the trunk in January 2007, first released in Gran Paradiso Alpha 2.
* Bookmarks-on-Places was enabled in May 2007, first released in Gran Paradiso Alpha 5.


* It is recommended that you delete the file "storage.sdb" in your profile directory if you have previously run a Places build.
= Credits =
* This build is based on the Firefox 2.0 branch.  It still claims to be 1.5, so 1.5-compatible extensions will continue to function.  Extensions that utilize the old bookmarks and history interfaces will not work correctly.
* If you use the installer, you have to do a custom install and disable Quality Feedback Agent.  Otherwise, the installation will error out.
* Bookmark keywords do not work yet.
* If your profile directory is on NFS, you will see slower performance.


Milestone 1 (12/15/2005):
Past core contributors:


This is our first public milestone build. It has a working Places view, history, and bookmarks (with import). There are a few known issues:
* Asaf Romano
* [http://www.xulplanet.com/ndeakin/ Neil Deakin]
* [http://blog.mozilla.com/thunder/ Dan Mills]
* [http://blog.mozilla.com/sspitzer/ Seth Spitzer]


* These builds are based on the Firefox trunk.  As a result, any extensions which claim only 1.5.0.* compatibility will be disabled.
Help and guidance from:
* If you use the installer, you have to do a custom install and disable Quality Feedback Agent.  Otherwise, the installation will error out.
* Existing bookmarks are imported, but history is not yet imported.
* Bookmark keywords do not work yet.
* If your profile directory is on NFS, you will see slower performance.


Please file bugs in bugzilla. You can use this link:  
* [http://maxradi.us/ Brett Wilson] (former back-end contributor)
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Firefox&component=Places
* [http://www.melez.com/mykzilla/ Myk Melez] (microsummaries)
* [http://www.franklinmint.fm/ Robert Sayre] (feeds)
* [http://steelgryphon.com/blog/ Mike Connor]
* [http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg Alex Faaborg]


= Overview =
= Discussion & Research =


Implement new back ends for Bookmarks and History using the mozStorage system. Develop newer, more usable front end components to display results, emphasizing simple search and categorization.  
In-depth discussion is in the original design documents, linked from [[Places:Design Overview]].


== Background ==
* [http://robert.accettura.com/archives/2005/08/01/intelligent-bookmarking-draft/ Intelligent Bookmarking (Draft) - Robert Accettura]
* [http://pubnotes.wordpress.com/2007/10/14/evolution-of-bookmarking/ The Evolution of Bookmarking -- Bookmarks, Firefox, del.icio.us, Tagging, and Information Management]
* [http://www.ra.ethz.ch/CDstore/www5/www185/overview.htm Automatically Organizing Bookmarks per Contents], Fifth International World Wide Web Conference, May 6-10, 1996, Paris, France.  ([http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=5092164817324641042 Google Scholar search for the article] if it moves)
* [[User:Dria/On Tagging|Deb Richardson's "On Tagging"]]


Studies from the late 1990s show that while revisitations of pages previously seen counted for roughly 39% of all page navigations (see [http://scholar.google.com/ Google Scholar]), Bookmarks and History usage was low (1-3%), despite the fact that roughly 20% of those revisitations were to pages seen > 10 URLs ago (and thus outside the usefulness range of the Back button or menu).
* Comments from Todd Agulnick of Foxmarks
 
** [http://blog.foxcloud.com/?cat=7 blog post]
Autocomplete in the URL bar is a useful tool but fails to address some common desires when looking up visited pages. There is a gulf between the capabilities of that tool, the capabilities of the Bookmarks and History systems today, and the desired capabilities of those systems.
** [http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.apps.firefox/browse_frm/thread/173ba1f87d7f88c2 newsgroup thread on sync]
 
** [http://www.foxcloud.com/Places/ ERD (possibly obsolete)]
== Use Cases ==
 
* [[Places:History Use Cases]]
* [[Bookmarks_Use_Cases]] (not specific to places)
 
== Functional Requirements ==
 
TBD, but reasonable compatibility with Firefox 1.x
 
== Plans & Design Documents ==
 
=== Design Documents ===
 
* [[Places:User Interface]]
* [[Places:Design Overview]]
 
* [[Places:URL Store]]
* [[Places:Bookmarks]]
* [[Places:place URIs]]
* [[Places:Results]]
* [[Places:Controller]]
* [[Browser History]]
* [[Places:AutoComplete]]
* [[Places:Transactions]]
* [[Places:Drag & Drop]]
 
Much of the design information is on the developers wiki.
 
==== Special Containers ====
* [[Places:Bookmarks Containers]]
* [[Places:Live Bookmarks]]
* [[Places:File System Container]]
 
More to come...
 
=== Code Location ===
 
<pre>mozilla/browser/components/places/</pre> for the most part. Build with --enable-places in your .mozconfig file. This development is happening simultaneously on the trunk and MOZILLA_1_8_BRANCH.  To avoid conflicting with the browser and causing bustage, there are some shims in place that overlay the browser to insert the Places UI access points.
 
=== Team ===
 
* [[Places:Task List]]
 
== API Changes Required ==
 
The APIs for accessing Bookmarks and History will be replaced. APIs abstracting the layout of the metadata tables used in the profile storage file will be provided. See above for details.
 
* [[Places:History API]]
* [[Places:Bookmarks API]]
* [[Places:Annotations API]]
 
== Impact ==
 
=== Extensions ===
The APIs for accessing and manipulating Bookmarks and History are being replaced with new ones, and almost all Bookmarks and History user interface will be replaced or updated significantly. Any extension that does anything with History or Bookmarks will almost certainly have to be rewritten, at the very least to use the new APIs.
 
= Discussion & Implications =
 
== Discussion Elsewhere ==
 
[http://robert.accettura.com/archives/2005/08/01/intelligent-bookmarking-draft/ Intelligent Bookmarking (Draft) - Robert Accettura]
 
[http://tdot.blog-city.com/evolution_bookmarking.htm/The Evolution of Bookmarking -- Bookmarks, Firefox, del.icio.us, Tagging, and Information Management]
 
[http://www.ra.ethz.ch/CDstore/www5/www185/overview.htm Automatically Organizing Bookmarks per Contents], Fifth International World Wide Web Conference, May 6-10, 1996, Paris, France.  ([http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=5092164817324641042 Google Scholar search for the article] if it moves)
 
[[User:Dria/On Tagging|Deb Richardson's "On Tagging"]]

Latest revision as of 19:32, 15 December 2016

Places is a system for storing bookmarks, history, and other user information about the Web, intended to improve developer access to this data and make it easier for people to Bookmark pages. Places is currently enabled for Firefox 3 and greater, powering History and Bookmarks, as well as providing plumbing for Livemarks, Annotations and Microsummaries and the Awesomebar.

Quick Links

Documentation

Communication:

Source:

Current work:

Active module peers:

Design

Compatibility

As of Firefox 3, the APIs for accessing Bookmarks and History have been replaced. Some history APIs remain the same. See the Places developer wiki for more information.

Extensions

The APIs for accessing and manipulating Bookmarks and History have been replaced entirely in Firefox 3, and are incompatible. Almost all Bookmarks and History user interface components have been replaced or updated significantly. Any extension that does anything with History or Bookmarks will almost certainly have to be rewritten, at the very least to use the new APIs.

Timeline and History

  • Initial Places implementation slated for Firefox 2. Landed for early alphas and then backed out and eventually cut from the release. [TODO: proper links and dates needed]
  • Project re-initialized in fall 2007, slated for Firefox 3.
  • History-on-Places was enabled on the trunk in January 2007, first released in Gran Paradiso Alpha 2.
  • Bookmarks-on-Places was enabled in May 2007, first released in Gran Paradiso Alpha 5.

Credits

Past core contributors:

Help and guidance from:

Discussion & Research

In-depth discussion is in the original design documents, linked from Places:Design Overview.

Retrieved from "https://wiki.mozilla.org/index.php?title=Places&oldid=1157175"