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Thread: Firefox and software developers

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  1. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by John
    May I humbly suggest to your developers that they add an option "Disable Tabs Completely", for those old-timers who hate tabs? If that option is selected in the Preferences, then the Open in a New Tab and the File/New Tab options should completely disappear from the user interface, along every other reference to tabs.
    You can suggest it (file a bug in Bugzilla), but I doubt it would get anywhere in core Firefox. Features like that have to be tested, localized, and maintained, and they interact with add-ons. It's simply a bad tradeoff of enormous maintenance burden versus tiny user benefit.

    That doesn't mean it can't be done in an extension, though:

    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/fir...ew-tab-button/
    http://piro.sakura.ne.jp/xul/_tabkiller.html.en

    Quote Originally Posted by John
    - Whatever happened to the "Stop" (X) and "Reload" buttons in the Navigation toolbar? I've managed to find the Reload button, but the Stop button, while I move it to the left of the address space, it doesn't appear. I assume it will appear only while a page is loading? Again, another case of altering the user interface, again, not to an improved layout.
    By default, a combined stop/reload button is embedded into the location bar. If you customize the Navigation Toolbar (context menu > Customize), you can drag individual Stop and Reload buttons anywhere you like. This is how I have mine set up.

    Quote Originally Posted by John
    - The No-Script menu button is now moved to the navigation bar, at the top. Again, I have to ask, why? It was fine where it was before, why was it moved??
    Simplification and consolidation. For every user who complains about things moving around, there's another who complains about too many toolbars (especially on machines with small screens) and too much clutter!

    At least for Adblock Plus, if you right-click on the icon and look in Options you can check "Show in Status Bar" and uncheck "Show in Toolbar". Then choose View > Toolbars > Add-on Bar, and you should see the little icon in the bottom bar. I think No-Script works the same.

    Quote Originally Posted by John
    - While typing my answer in the Quick Reply box at the bottom of this page, for some strange reason, a part of the pictures shown in the left column (the M1911.ORG logo at the top and then the Rock Island Armory banner) are copied and appear in the Quick Reply box.
    I see that too. I'll file a bug. It's very likely a platform-specific graphics issue.


    Quote Originally Posted by John
    - I noticed another problem, when I right-click to open the "Back-Forward-Reload-Stop-etc" menu. The first time you do that in a page, the menu appears for a very brief instant bigger (as if it contains more options) and larger in size. It stays on for a few milliseconds and then it is replaced by the standard menu.
    I don't see that. It's possible that you have an add-on installed that adds or removes items from the context menu; it's modifying the menu as it's being displayed, and so the menu is changing size.


    Quote Originally Posted by John
    hgr, don't misunderstand me. I appreciate you jumping in here to help us out with FF4. As far as I am concerned, it was my favorite browser when I was using Windoze and it is still my favorite one, for security reasons and because (you guessed it) I am too old a dog to learn new tricks (like Chrome or even Safari). But if you guys are going to keep changing things in the user interface, I seriously doubt I'll be downloading any newer versions.
    Then I'm afraid you're likely to be disappointed with all operating systems and browsers; Firefox is, if anything, one of the more stable interfaces around. (Consider Chrome with its tabs on top, or full-screen browsing in the next version of Mac OS.)

    Change is an inevitable part of computers, otherwise you'd still be using this!





    Quote Originally Posted by John
    By the way, is there any place from where I can download the last 3.xx version? I'd rather use that, until you guys have iron out the infancy bugs from FF4.

    Again, thanks for your jumping in here.
    Happy to help.

    You can always get older versions here:

    http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/all-older.html

    but I should point out that Firefox 4 is already much, much more stable (crashes less often!) than 3.6 (even ignoring the improvements in speed and features). Eventually 3.6 will stop getting security fixes, but that shouldn't be for many months.

  2. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by hgr
    We don't do anything without measuring. For example, here are some results from studies done last year:

    http://blog.mozilla.com/metrics/2010...-study-part-i/

    http://blog.mozilla.com/metrics/2010...visualization/

    You can see from that first link that New Tab in the main menu gets clicked about 30 times as often as New Window. New Window is at number 21 in the list — it's used less often than Quit!

    In every change there will be people who are unhappy. We try to keep that number as small as possible, and we make an educated decision to trade off the cost of a change versus the potential benefit.
    [my emphasis]

    OK I have to admit that the evidence here is quite compelling - assuming the research was done based on a really large sample of users, as I am not familiar with the size/composition of the 'firefox community' that the article refers to. If this sample includes several hundred thousand people, the majority of whom are not developers, testers, or anything to do with evolving a program that they're happy to use as-is, then this is fine by me.

    But I have a question: does clicking on item No2 in a pull-down menu really take more time than clicking on item No1?

    You see, soon after posting earlier in this thread, I got version 4.0 and have been using it for a few hours. Again, I like tabs. I was actually very enthusiastic about them from day 1. As a moderator in this forum, I often go to 'new posts' near the top of this page, and open a couple of dozen new tabs in quick succession. Since 'Open in new Tab' is now the first option when I right-click on a link, opening new tabs should have become easier - it hasn't. Yes, I'm sure moving my mouse a little less further will become a natural habit in a day or two, if that... but so what? I occasionally opened a new window instead of a new tab before, and I'm guessing that it won't change. So as a 32 year-old frequent Firefox user, who (like most users) likes tabs, I have felt no gain from the switch, and I have a minor irritation to deal with for a short period of time.

    Meanwhile, the minority of people like John, have to work their way around the problem. John knows his way around computers much better than most people his age (you have no idea how many times I rewrote this sentence! ), so he's already found a way that works for him. Most others will have to re-adapt, somehow.

    So in a nutshell, I'm arguing that the benefits of this change for the majority, are not vital enough to counter the disadvantages for the minority. That's assuming that I understand what the majority wants and how they work, which, I accept, is a very 'bold' assumption, so value my opinion as you see fit.


    Incidentally, I wholeheartedly agree with Hawk's opinion on MS Office. Hawk, it's 2007 where the change occurred, and after trying to live with it for over two years (I hung-on this long, believing I might get used to it), I gave up and re-installed Office 2003. I needed an add-on to let me read .docx and .xlsx files, but that's freely available. To be fair to Mozilla, I don't think that this change in Firefox is in anything like the same league as the multi-page menu of MS Office... one is mildly annoying swap, the other is a glorious example of idiocy, which renders an otherwise great product un-usable and nearly made me switch to OpenOffice...
    Too many people miss the silver lining because they're expecting gold.
    M. Setter

  3. #13
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    Change

    I feel the pain! About 15 years ago I retired from a lifetime career with a major corporation with the intent of becoming a consultant as I was somewhat of a subject matter expert in my field. I hated retirement for lots of reasons that many career people never think about. The worst part was the mind numbing lack of intellectual stimulation, responsibility and decision making. I was a stranger in a strange land and suddenly had a boss who had been in my home for 35 years doing things her way. My opinions were usually dismissed as irrelevant. Be forewarned people, you go from being an executive to being a "nothing" in 24 hours and it hurts like heck.

    As a spoiled "executive" with a large staff and a secretary who made my coffee and sharpened my pencils, I also quickly learned that I didn't know how to do most things and running a PC was one of them. The complexities of personal computing appealed to be and I became competent quickly; so much so that I decided I could teach "Mature" people like me which was a huge and largely untapped market 15 years ago. So I put a modest ad in the local paper and my "business" exploded. I evolved into a small but very busy computer-services company and even started building machines particularly at the high end or for special applications like musicians. I also found a large amount of business with one-person companies like real estate agents, translators and accountants.

    I started with W95, transitioned to W98 and then to XP where I stayed when the infamous Vista appeared. I managed to keep most of my clients on XP and had special arrangements with companies like Dell who would configure machines with XP at my request. For others I bought and installed OEM copies of XP. Being totally self taught, I had learned all sorts of trickery with XP and software of the same vintage. Although I didn't like it, many of my clients used Outlook Express which I could backup, restore and transition to new machines easily by saving ".dbx" files. Suddenly OLEX was out and in came Windows Mail and nightmares replaced simple maneuvers.

    So for various reasons I sold the business and retired again to become a full- time RVer and Gun noobie. My timing was lucky. I'm running W7 on both my machine and that of my most difficult and demanding client. I'm still somewhat crippled but it doesn't matter much anymore. To all my forum friends, I hope you reach the same state as me where most things don't matter very much anymore :-)

  4. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by John
    No need to. The menu structure is NOT internal to the code, it's somewhere external, I do not know where, and I do not care, after I found Menu Edit. It does it for me.
    Excellent! Easy fixes!

  5. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by hgr
    By default, a combined stop/reload button is embedded into the location bar. If you customize the Navigation Toolbar (context menu > Customize), you can drag individual Stop and Reload buttons anywhere you like. This is how I have mine set up.
    Well, here's a perfectly good example of not practicing "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

    I'm using Firefox version 3.6.15. In my tool bar, I have an icon (and label) for "Reload," and a separate icon (and label) for "Stop." I didn't customize it to get it that way. IIRC I had to tirn on labels with the icons, but the separate stop and reload icons was the default. As it should be. Why did you change it to a combined stop/reload button? How many users, exactly (or even approximately), asked that you take two perfectly functional and self-explanatory buttons and combine them into one?
    Hawkmoon
    On a good day, can hit the broad side of a barn ... from the inside
    Last edited by Hawkmoon; 23rd March 2011 at 20:12.


  6. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hawkmoon
    Why did you change it to a combined stop/reload button?
    I am by no means attempting to answer on behalf of the Mozilla Foundation, but the logic of this was immediately obvious to me. The “Stop” button can do nothing, at all, when a page isn't loading. It wastes space. As netbooks, laptops, and tablets have become almost the majority of the computer market, wasted space has become a liability.

    Then again, I've used Linux for more than nine years and move easily among it and Windows, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, and Solaris...so my results sure as heck aren't typical. I am also a niche of a niche of a niche, since I prefer LaTeX and/or vim to every word processor I've ever used.
    “Competence breeds confidence, just make sure competence always comes first.”

    “Attributing a quote from a presidential speech to the president who spoke the words makes as much sense as blaming the local weatherman for a tornado.”

  7. #17
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    Somehow, I believe that Mozilla has gone the wrong way with this release. But from what hgr is telling us, I am a minority (I do not use tabs, my computer has a huge monitor 24", with a larger than average analysis etc). So I guess I have to live with the requirements imposed by people using netbooks, even though none of the contemporary Apple computers have such small resolutions.

    And Spyro, yes, scrolling down one line when you right-click on a link, to open it in a new window, is a huge change for someone who has been using that gesture for more than 10 years (or so). Same thing when I want to open a new browser window. For me, that's a huge thing, as if Apple all of a sudden decides to change Cmd-C and no longer do a copy, when you press it (or Microsoft to change Ctrl-C).

    And while as a software developer, I understand the importance of adding features, in all my life, I've always tried to implement changes, without changing the way existing things were done.

    Coming to bugs:

    As hgr said, you can customize the Location Toolbar to include a Reload and a Stop button. I did that, and I moved the Reload button, next to the Back/Forward button, and the Stop button next to it and before the No-Script button. In that configuration, the Stop button disappears, when you save the Toolbar. If you place the Stop button after (to the right of) the Back/Forward buttons and the Reload button after it and before the No-Script button, then the Stop button stays in place and doesn't disappear. Clearly a bug, no matter which way you look at it.

    Regarding the right-click menu behavior I mentioned before, I am not using anything that changes that menu. Except if Menu Edit is causing it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Robstafarian
    I am by no means attempting to answer on behalf of the Mozilla Foundation, but the logic of this was immediately obvious to me. The “Stop” button can do nothing, at all, when a page isn't loading. It wastes space. As netbooks, laptops, and tablets have become almost the majority of the computer market, wasted space has become a liability.

    But, but, but ......

    This is not a version for a tablet. It's not even a version for a netbook. It's a version for Mac. Even my 2-years-old MacBook has a monitor analysis of 1280x800. Not exactly handicapped on the resolution department, more than enough to accomodate the buttons we are talking about. Never had any issues using FF3 on it. I can undestand such estate-saving measures in a tablet version, or a netbook one (call me Windowzzz) but on a Mac, it doesn't make sense. Since when is the least-common denominator a deciding factor in software analysis? Of course, when you try to keep code changes to a minimum, it makes sense, cost-wise, but..... it also leaves a lot to be desired.
    John Caradimas SV1CEC
    The M1911 Pistols Organization
    http://www.m1911.org
    Last edited by John; 24th March 2011 at 02:37.


  8. #18
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    Marketing people manage to use "market research" to justify (rationalize) all sorts of dumb changes. Akin to John's and Spyros' gripe about shifting things on the menu bar and my gripe about combining stop and reload, I am reminded of WordPerfect (back when it was the king of the word processors). WP began as a DOS program with an incredible array of two-key keystroke commands for basic tasks. I no longer remember what they were, but let's say "Print" was Shift+F7.

    The key commands were the same, version after version, and hundreds of thousands of users (more likely millions of users) had been using them for ten, fifteen, maybe twenty years. So WP came out with a new version, and suddenly "Print" used a different key combination -- let's say Shift+F8. And the "Print" command was also moved, either up or down, one line in the drop-down menu for those who accessed printing that way.

    I wrote to complain. And the answer I got was essentially the same as the one provided above: "We did it in response to customer requests."

    Frankly, that's nonsense. Millions of customers did NOT ask WP to remap the keystroke combination for printing. Customers might have asked for a new feature to be added, but I'm 100 percent certain the customers asking for the new widget did not write to WordPerfect and request that the Shift=F7 command they'd been using for the past 15 years be reassigned to some other function, and a different keystroke combination assigned to "Print."

    And I rather doubt that 400,000 users of Firefox actually requested "Hey, how's about exchanging the positions of 'Open new Window' and 'Open new Tab' on the menu bar, that would be really helpful." In reality, what I suspect happened is somebody looked and said "Hey, looks like more people are opening a new tab than are opening a new window, maybe we should switch where those items are on the menu."

    And some other person, or a committee, said, "Yeah, that's a great idea. It'll only confuse a few hundred thousand people, go for it!"

    Hawkmoon
    On a good day, can hit the broad side of a barn ... from the inside

  9. #19
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    I am afraid you have a slight mistake in your message buddy. FF has 400,000,000 users, not 400,000. LoRL

    Apart from that, I think you are absolutely correct.
    John Caradimas SV1CEC
    The M1911 Pistols Organization
    http://www.m1911.org

  10. #20
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    400 thousand, 400 million -- who's counting?

    Dumb is dumb. The point is that change for the sake of improvement can be justified. Change for the sake of change is dumb. This was an example of change for the sake of change. It represents NO improvement of any kind, while representing a significant irritation factor for the installed user base. I don't see how anyone can honestly justify that sort of nonsense.

    If that logic is followed to a "logical" conclusion, then since "Quit" is used far more than "Open new Window," it would seem that "Quit" should be moved up beneath "Open new Tab" and "Open new Window" should drop to the bottom of the menu list, where "Quit" used to be.
    Hawkmoon
    On a good day, can hit the broad side of a barn ... from the inside
    Last edited by Hawkmoon; 24th March 2011 at 11:47.


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