Places:Fx3UIPlan

Places UI Implementation Plan for Firefox 3

Notes

Tracking bugs:

• bug 374522 - Starring
• bug 374524 - Tagging
• bug 374521 - Unified Organizer

Schedule

• Alpha 5
  • bug 383803 - tagging back-end service

• Alpha 6

• M7/8
  • bug 385266 - tag/bookmark popup UI

Prerequisites

Tagging service (bug 383803)

• completed
• tag observers?

Break out the bookmarks menu into it's own special folder (bug #)

• see "open questions" below
• it's another special folder, not delete-able
• does not contain the toolbar folder

Smart folders (bug #)

• for saved searches
• read only
  • possible exceptions
    • drag a url or bookmark to a tag folder, tags that uri
    • drag a tag folder out of a MRU tags, for example, doesn't change the smart folder contents, but copies the folder to the drop position
• "show all" as the last item (where capped), when clicked loads organizer w/ that search populated
• editing
  • where are they created? a view in the organizer
  • take a look at spotlight UI
• needs new icon set (normal, hover, etc)

Statistics storage (bug #)

• for canned searches
• examples
  • recently used folders
  • most used tags

Platform dependencies

• XXX list any external dependency bugs here

Allow starring/bookmarking/tagging from primary UI

Bugs:

• bug 385266 - New starring, bookmarking and tagging UI
• bug 387642 - A user should be able to bookmark a page in one click
• bug 387485 - Tag editor

Button/icon location?

• toolbar button
• location bar
• favicon menu

Interaction

• single-click fills in the star (bookmarks the URI)
• double-click the star icon for popup
  • folder option is checked
• keyboard shortcut cmd+d shows popup
  • with folder option checked
• keyboard shortcut for tagging (TBD) shows popup
  • folder option not checked

Popup

• "Name" entry field
• "Create in folder" (no change)
  • folder menu
    • bookmarks menu and toolbar are permanent static entries
    • 5 most-recently-used folders
  • folder expander
  • folder tree
• "Tag"
  • tag editor field (see bug 387485)
    • look at mail.app address completion
  • tag list expander
  • tag list
    • list of tags with checkboxes on the left
    • sort by most-used tags
    • enhancement: show how many times the tag is used?

Bookmarks Menu

• change "Organize Bookmarks" to "Show All", make it the first item
• contents are rooted to the new "menu" special folder

Bookmarks Toolbar

Add a "Places" folder (bug #)

• contains these pre-populated saved search folders:
  • recently starred
  • recently used tags
    • subfolders are tag folders
  • most used tags
  • recently visited bookmarks
  • most visited bookmarks

History Sidebar

• search is broken out into it's own bar
• add a "view" bar
  • has a dropdown for selecting which items to view
    • "tagged items"
    • XXX what else here
  • the old "view" dropdown is adjacent to it
  • add a "plus" icon for adding addition filtering criteria
• interaction

Bookmarks Sidebar

• search
• advanced search
  • has a button for advanced?
  • a way to save from the advanced search

Organizer

• main
  • view/hide sidebars? alex: no
• search bar
  • start typing, and get the advanced search UI in the content pane
• "finder" pane, top-left
  • all bookmarks
  • all tags
  • toolbar
  • menu
  • downloads
  • history
• folder pane, bottom-left
  • same as clicking "all bookmarks"
  • new folders go under static items (menu folder, toolbar folder)
• content pane
  • star column
  • name
  • tag column
• detail pane, right side
  • show always
  • screenshot
  • edit properties
• thumbnail view in content pane? [enhancement]
  • richlistbox w/ screenshot, favicon, details

Search Box

• Add a "Search bookmarks and history" entry?

Location Bar Dropdown

• have a "show all" at the bottom
• have search terms highlighted
• stars for bookmarks
• off-stars for history?

bugs: bug 378798 - support unified bookmarks+history searches

Regressions

• bookmarks menu is not the bookmarks root - for users of the menu, this will appear as though their bookmarks are gone

Open Questions

menu vs toolbar

• what's the use-case for saving a bookmark in the menu vs the toolbar. might be different views on the same data? what's the use-case for having something visible in UI vs not visible? quick-click access, for mouse-oriented users?
• should the toolbar and menu be the same folder?

what are starred items, and where to put them?

• maybe they're unfiled bookmarks
• "all bookmarks" in the organizer shows starred bookmarks, and subfolders
  • ew, you have your starred mixed w/ your folders. how to show "just starred"? is that desirable? it is in gmail and greader.
• alex: starred items go in the bookmarks root, unfiled
• unfiled shouldn't show up in the menu though. if the main reason for breaking the menu out of the root is so that it doesn't show unfiled (ie: starred) bookmarks, then maybe an "all starred" subfolder would be a better solution
• problem: if you star something, and then later file, it won't show up under "starred" anywhere.

what does unstarring do?

• nonstar sometimes is a history entry (eg: urlbar dropdown)
• unstarring in the organizer could bring up a delete prompt

where should canned searches (smart folders) be exposed?

• add the canned searches to toolbar, menu, and root? mockups show them in the toolbar and in the organizer finder pane.

are canned searches removable and editable?

• they are removable and editable in iTunes