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== URLbar Enhancements == | |||
URLs just keep getting longer and longer these days. The urlbar should be able to parse them and generate something more... readable by users. I'll throw out a couple ideas: | |||
===Page Title URL's=== | |||
The url of any page is hidden by default and instead, the user is shown the title of the page, and the favicon (perhaps with the url in smaller print to the side). This textbox would not be editable, but when the user hovered over it, it would lite up in a way to indicate it can be clicked. When the user clicks on the URLbar (showing only the title) a textbox appears with the sites url filled in. The user can then type in another URL or another page title, which will be found either through a good autocomplete version, or through a websearch. | |||
OK, I have to admit, I'm not a huge fan of the above style. There's a lot of questions about why the user should think to click on the page title, why the textbox would show up with a URL the user hasn't seen before, etc. It's all a bit confusing, and there's a lot of options about what to show when and where. But its an idea, and this place is for ideas, eh? | |||
===Vista inspired URLbar=== | |||
I like this idea much better, as its functional. Instead of just showing the URL | |||
which might look something like: | |||
http://www.google.com/search?q=pants&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a | |||
URL's are instead parsed for the user, and the box displays things like directories, files, and... all that other junk in a reasonable way. For instance, the above could become something like: | |||
[] http:// > www.google.com > search : q=pants, ie=utf-8, rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official, client=firefox-a | |||
In fact, ideally you could hide all the things that users won't care about and just show: | |||
[] http:// > www.google.com > search : q=pants | |||
Now this can all be shown, not in an editable textbox, but just in a series of xul:labels. Perhaps the passed in parameters like q, wouldn't even be shown, but would just show up when the bar was hovered (in a popup similar to Opera's). | |||
When the user hovers over part of the URL then, it lights up to indicate that it can be clicked, and when its clicked autocomplete does a search of history (and bookmarks) for things matching the url to that point. The actual urlbar becomes a textbox, and the user can refine the autocomplete results by typing. This makes intrasite navigation really really easy. | |||
If the user wants to type a new url, they can doubleclick the urlbar anywhere or single click the http:// section. This would basically provide an empty urlbar to use. | |||
== Custom Toolbar Enhancements == | == Custom Toolbar Enhancements == | ||
Custom toolbars seem really limited in my opinion. Right now they're limited to a simple toolbox with a palette inside it and a few permanent toolbars defined. Users can add custom toolbars to the box, and settings for those toolbars are stored as preferences. Settings for toolbars are system wide so that one toolbar can not be created that with mode=text and another without it. | Custom toolbars seem really limited in my opinion. Right now they're limited to a simple toolbox with a palette inside it and a few permanent toolbars defined. Users can add custom toolbars to the box, and settings for those toolbars are stored as preferences. Settings for toolbars are system wide so that one toolbar can not be created that with mode=text and another without it. | ||
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I know I'm getting greedy with unncessary features, but I'm gonna list the things I'd like to see in toolbars from a customization point of view. | I know I'm getting greedy with unncessary features, but I'm gonna list the things I'd like to see in toolbars from a customization point of view. | ||
==Toolbar Ideas== | ===Toolbar Ideas=== | ||
*Custom toolbars shouldn't be limited to a set at one point in the page. | *Custom toolbars shouldn't be limited to a set at one point in the page. | ||
**You should be able to define toolbars at the top of a web browser and at the bottom and have both be customizable (same for right and left sides). | **You should be able to define toolbars at the top of a web browser and at the bottom and have both be customizable (same for right and left sides). | ||
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***Toolbar Properties... - an option to bring up Properties for that particular toolbar. This could be both a generic toolbar properties dialog, or a toolbar specific one if the toolbar specified it. | ***Toolbar Properties... - an option to bring up Properties for that particular toolbar. This could be both a generic toolbar properties dialog, or a toolbar specific one if the toolbar specified it. | ||
==Toolbar Customize Dialog== | ===Toolbar Customize Dialog=== | ||
*The toolbar customize dialog should morph form dramatically, perhaps into some sort of richlistbox. The box could show both descriptions of toolbar items, along with names and icons. This would also clean up a lot of the code in the current implementation. | *The toolbar customize dialog should morph form dramatically, perhaps into some sort of richlistbox. The box could show both descriptions of toolbar items, along with names and icons. This would also clean up a lot of the code in the current implementation. | ||
==Toolbar Palette== | ==Toolbar Palette== | ||