Another Firefox usability issue


  • Considered Harmful

    I have a bug report open for a major blocking issue (basically, the application we just purchased crashes as soon as I open it, every time). I've been checking back hourly for the past two days for updates on their "community driven" bug tracker (even though their app costs in the same ballpark as Photoshop). This is not the WTF.

    In the Firefox address bar, I type a few characters from the URL from memory and click the history item corresponding to the site. Huh; nothing happened. Try it again. Nothing. Eventually I look two monitors over and see that in a separate instance/window/whatever of Firefox it has focused the tab I'd forgotten I had open from last time.

    Awesome usability.

    (To anybody thinking, "yeah, and...?" I didn't expect any interaction between what I was thinking of as two different instances of Firefox. I was especially not expecting something I typed into this window to only have an impact on that window which I'd all but forgotten about - with no visual cues within my field of vision.)


  • ♿ (Parody)

    I just tried this on FF 21.0 with google.com, and in the list of stuff in the drop down, it says "Switch to Tab." But there's no item for "just go there in this tab." That's fine for something simple like google, but it seems WTFy for more complicated / obscure stuff.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @joe.edwards said:

    (To anybody thinking, "yeah, and...?" I didn't expect any interaction between what I was thinking of as two different instances of Firefox. I was especially not expecting something I typed into this window to only have an impact on that window which I'd all but forgotten about - with no visual cues within my field of vision.)
     

    In small tiny font that is ignored, it says "Switch to Tab". It's a stupid feature that I have a small part in apologizing for.

    In college, we had an "Open Source" course. One of the term projects was to pick a small feature and implement it in Firefox. I think The Mozilla Foundation was providing funding or something that semester. It must have been a significant amount, since when I graduated, my college [url="http://www.senecacollege.ca/about/MichaelShaver.html"]bestowed an honorary degree[/url] on Mike Shaver, who is (or was, who the fuck knows) Mozilla's "Chief Evangelist". I'll leave that without comment.

    Anyways, when it came time to pick and implement a feature, one of them was a feature request from some Mozilla developer who found it "so annoying like a pet peeve" (paraphrase) that if he clicked on a Bookmark for a tab he already had open, it would load that URL instead of switching tabs. Since I had more important things to do, and this one seemed easy, I picked it.

    Hey, remember that legendary Open Source philosophy about how anyone can change anything, and the Community exists to help the Community?  Yeah, fuck that noise. First you download a damn near incomprehensible codebase. Then when you need to figure out where the best entry point is, you ask on the forums, ask on the newsgroups, ask on IRC-- all so you can be completely ignored. Or worse, given a [url="http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.extensions/browse_thread/thread/e24d6b26a5ebb5ae"]near useless answer[/url]. Don't forget, you can also try to find Extension Developer guidelines, only to find out that they're either non-existent or wrong.

     In any case, I did manage to cobble together a janky piece of shit [url="http://zenit.senecac.on.ca/wiki/index.php/%22Avoid_loading_the_same_page_twice%22_Extension"]Alpha 0 version of the extension[/url].  I think I might have gotten it up to 1.4a.  I'm pretty sure the code sucks, doesn't work, and would break if you tried to find and install it.

    Now, I can't say for sure that my shitty, shitty code actually made it into Firefox Core-- but I'd like to think by showing a miniscule, tiny amount of interest in this "functionality", I inspired a Mozilla developer. I made him actually think that someone wanted this functionality. So he ran with it, implemented it poorly, got it into Firefox-- and directly lead to this WTF.

    In conclusion: Sorry.


  • Considered Harmful

    Wow, small world.

    I don't think the feature is entirely without merit. It makes a lot of sense when juggling a lot of tabs in a single window. It does not, however, to me, make sense when the tab in question is in another window on another screen. At least it needs to call my attention over somehow, lest I not notice the change.



  • @joe.edwards said:

    Wow, small world.

    I don't think the feature is entirely without merit. It makes a lot of sense when juggling a lot of tabs in a single window. It does not, however, to me, make sense when the tab in question is in another window on another screen. At least it needs to call my attention over somehow, lest I not notice the change.

    When I use that "feature", it closes the tab I just opened, that usually calls my attention to it.

     


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Lorne Kates said:

    Mike Shaver, who is (or was, who the fuck knows) Mozilla's "Chief Evangelist". I'll leave that without comment.

    Goddamn, I've been trying to get Mozilla to acknowledge that fuckers role for years.



  • @boomzilla said:

    I just tried this on FF 21.0 with google.com, and in the list of stuff in the drop down, it says "Switch to Tab." But there's no item for "just go there in this tab." That's fine for something simple like google, but it seems WTFy for more complicated / obscure stuff.

     

    To "just go there", you hit shift. I mean, obviously. Clearly, it is so obvious that it doesn't even need documented. Anywhere.

    Oh, but you have to select the item with the keyboard NOT the mouse. Shift-clicking it does something radically different than shift-enter. The fact that you can only skip the tab-switch using the keyboard doesn't matter, of course, as Real Users never use the mouse.

     



  • @SamC said:

    To "just go there", you hit shift. I mean, obviously. Clearly, it is so obvious that it doesn't even need documented. Anywhere.

    Oh, but you have to select the item with the keyboard NOT the mouse. Shift-clicking it does something radically different than shift-enter. The fact that you can only skip the tab-switch using the keyboard doesn't matter, of course, as Real Users never use the mouse.

    Remember when Firefox was one of the Crown Jewels of FOSS?

    Yeah, that didn't last long..



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @SamC said:

    To "just go there", you hit shift. I mean, obviously. Clearly, it is so obvious that it doesn't even need documented. Anywhere.

    Oh, but you have to select the item with the keyboard NOT the mouse. Shift-clicking it does something radically different than shift-enter. The fact that you can only skip the tab-switch using the keyboard doesn't matter, of course, as Real Users never use the mouse.

    Remember when Firefox was one of the Crown Jewels of FOSS?

    Yeah, that didn't last long..

    It lasted longer than your erection.



  • @Ben L. said:

    It tasted longer than your erection.

    That's disgusting



  • @Ronald said:

    @Ben L. said:
    It lasted longer than your erection.

    That's disgusting

    Are your erections more than five years long? I didn't think so.



  • @Ben L. said:

    @Ronald said:
    @Ben L. said:
    It tasted longer than your erection.

    That's disgusting

    Are your erections more than five years long? I didn't think so.

    The part in bold is disgusting. Also as seen on my avatar I'm a hot chick flying airplanes so how could I have erections.



  • @Ben L. said:

    It lasted longer than your erection.

    True. But a 3-and-a-half year long erection is still pretty impressive.



  • @Ronald said:

    @Ben L. said:
    @Ronald said:
    @Ben L. said:
    It lasted longer than your erection.

    That's disgusting

    Are your erections more than five years long? I didn't think so.

    The part in bold is disgusting. Also as seen on my avatar I'm a hot chick flying airplanes so how could I have erections.

    I don't get it



  • @Ronald said:

    Also as seen on my avatar I'm a hot chick flying airplanes so how could I have erections.

    Hot chicks get plenty of erections.


  • Considered Harmful

    @Ronald said:

    The part in bold is disgusting. Also as seen on my avatar I'm a hot chick flying airplanes so how could I have erections.

    And he's a cupcake of some kind? So I guess the implication is that Morbs fucks pastries.



  • @joe.edwards said:

    @Ronald said:
    The part in bold is disgusting. Also as seen on my avatar I'm a hot chick flying airplanes so how could I have erections.

    And he's a cupcake of some kind? So I guess the implication is that Morbs fucks pastries.

    You have horns, but only on your shadow.



  • @joe.edwards said:

    So I guess the implication is that Morbs fucks pastries.

    Libel! Slander! I'll sue you like I sued the National Enquirer!



  • @joe.edwards said:

    I guess the implication is that Morbs fucks pastries.

    You've got it wrong. Morbius eats too much pastries and therefore does not fuck. The other day I drove by his house, there was a huge Kripsy Kreme delivery truck in the driveway and the driver was fork-lifting boxes of donuts to his kitchen window.



    I'll never bring him on my airplane that's for sure.



  • @Ronald said:

    I'll never bring him on my airplane that's for sure.

    D:



  • @joe.edwards said:

    I didn't expect any interaction between what I was thinking of as two different instances of Firefox.
     

    FYI: there are no instances of Firefox. It's all the same instance.



  • @dhromed said:

    @joe.edwards said:

    I didn't expect any interaction between what I was thinking of as two different instances of Firefox.
     

    FYI: there are no instances of Firefox. It's all the same instance.

    Unless you're using multiple profiles.

    Something that happens to me, more frequently than I'd like, is when an external application asks for Firefox to display a URL. The profile manager appears, and I'm not able to select the profile I'm already using, as Firefox will complain that it's already in use. And because I don't know what URL was trying to be displayed so I can open it manually, I have to use the "wrong" profile.

     



  • @joe.edwards said:

    Wow, small world.

    I don't think the feature is entirely without merit. It makes a lot of sense when juggling a lot of tabs in a single window. It does not, however, to me, make sense when the tab in question is in another window on another screen. At least it needs to call my attention over somehow, lest I not notice the change.

     

     

    FWIW, there's an extension called "Switch to tab no more" that disables this "feature".  I won't use FF without it any more.

     



  • @sprained said:

    I won't use FF without it any more.
     

    I don't quite understand what usage pattern has you bump heads with the Switch To Tab feature so often that you desire an extension to disable it.

    It pretty much never happens for me, I mean.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    True. But a 3-and-a-half year long erection is still pretty impressive.
     

    Well, if all the Cialis ads are to be believed, you'd better go see your doctor if your erection lasts longer than four hours.



  • @dhromed said:

    @sprained said:

    I won't use FF without it any more.
     

    I don't quite understand what usage pattern has you bump heads with the Switch To Tab feature so often that you desire an extension to disable it.

    It pretty much never happens for me, I mean.

     

     

    3 or 4 cases.  Do you really want an enumeration?

     



  • @sprained said:

    @dhromed said:

    @sprained said:

    I won't use FF without it any more.
     

    I don't quite understand what usage pattern has you bump heads with the Switch To Tab feature so often that you desire an extension to disable it.

    It pretty much never happens for me, I mean.

     

     

    3 or 4 cases.  Do you really want an enumeration?

     

    enum SwitchToTab {
        TRUE,
        FALSE,
        FILE_NOT_FOUND
    }


  • @inori said:

    ...you'd better go see your doctor if your erection lasts longer than four hours.

    I did. He was impressed, too. Gave me a standing ovation.



  • @Zecc said:

    Unless you're using multiple profiles.

    A "feature" I always had a problem with--if you have multiple instances running, and you launch another window by running the firefox executable, it won't use the profile you tell it to. It either uses the first profile you started on that machine, or the most-recent.. I don't remember which.

    Anyway, it made the multi-profile stuff useless for me. I tracked down through the source how it determines which profile the new window belongs to and it's something really stupid--like it just grabs the first firefox process in the process list and then sends a message to that window requesting a new window.

    So, I ended up running Chrome + Firefox, instead of multiple FF profiles. And since FF had all my developer extensions, Chrome became my main browser and FF was my dev browser. And right away I noticed how much more stable and fast Chrome was. Before long, I discovered the Chrome dev tools and now Firefox is relegated to running Outlook Web App, although they recently upgraded that so maybe it's compatible with Chrome now and I can only use FF for when someone wants me to specifically test something in FF.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    So, I ended up running Chrome + Firefox, instead of multiple FF profiles. And since FF had all my developer extensions, Chrome became my main browser and FF was my dev browser. And right away I noticed how much more stable and fast Chrome was. Before long, I discovered the Chrome dev tools and now Firefox is relegated to running Outlook Web App, although they recently upgraded that so maybe it's compatible with Chrome now and I can only use FF for when someone wants me to specifically test something in FF.

    For the record, Chrome has profiles under the name "Users".



  • @Ben L. said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    So, I ended up running Chrome + Firefox, instead of multiple FF profiles. And since FF had all my developer extensions, Chrome became my main browser and FF was my dev browser. And right away I noticed how much more stable and fast Chrome was. Before long, I discovered the Chrome dev tools and now Firefox is relegated to running Outlook Web App, although they recently upgraded that so maybe it's compatible with Chrome now and I can only use FF for when someone wants me to specifically test something in FF.

    For the record, Chrome has profiles under the name "Users".

    Yeah, but I don't even need them on Chrome, so it's all good.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    it's all good.




  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @El_Heffe said:

    Not to worry.  More Firefox usability coming later this year.
     

    So they went from "If it ain't broke, break it" to "If it ain't fixed, break it more."

    @The first fucking paragraph of the article said:

    “Maybe we shouldn’t even call it a browser anymore,” Mozilla’s VP of Firefox engineering Jonathan Nightingale told me a few days ago. “‘Browser’ is really an antiquated word. People don’t really browse all that much anymore.” 

    The very premise on which the project's FUCKING VP bases his decisions on is so massively wrong and stupid, that the wrong and stupid collide together with such force that it emits Higgs/Stupid Bosons.  It's like the head of the NYC Subway System suddenly basing all his decisions on the fact that no one uses the subway anymore, so they better start building underwater dirigible to transport people from the piers to the secret floating Pier One hidden in a fourth dimension sideupways of Central Park. 

     



  • In a near future, everybody will use Chrome, only some people won't know because the icon will be labeled Firefox or Opera. The Great Melting Pot.



  • @Ronald said:

    In a near future, everybody will use Chrome, only some people won't know because the icon will be labeled Firefox or Opera. The Great Melting Pot.

    Except for the people who use safari

    Sent from my iButt.



  • @joe.edwards said:

    I didn't expect any interaction between what I was thinking of as two different instances of Firefox.
     

    There hasn't been such thing as "two different instances of Firefox" for years now (unless you somehow manage to trick it I guess). Firefox is a single-instance program, all you had was two different windows belonging to the same instance of Firefox.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @El_Heffe said:
    Not to worry.  More Firefox usability coming later this year.
    So they went from "If it ain't broke, break it" to "If it ain't fixed, break it more."

    @The first fucking paragraph of the article said:

    “Maybe we shouldn’t even call it a browser anymore,” Mozilla’s VP of Firefox engineering Jonathan Nightingale told me a few days ago. “‘Browser’ is really an antiquated word. People don’t really browse all that much anymore.” 

    The very premise on which the project's FUCKING VP bases his decisions on is so massively wrong and stupid, that the wrong and stupid collide together with such force that it emits Higgs/Stupid Bosons.  It's like the head of the NYC Subway System suddenly basing all his decisions on the fact that no one uses the subway anymore, so they better start building underwater dirigible to transport people from the piers to the secret floating Pier One hidden in a fourth dimension sideupways of Central Park.
    A few months ago I came across a blog by someone from Mozilla and they said that Firefox is no longer a browser, it is a "platform".  I knew we were in trouble.  Platform is another way of saying "we're going to cram in every piece of useless shit we can because . . . well . . . because fuck you, that's why".

     



  • @El_Heffe said:

    A few months ago I came across a blog by someone from Mozilla and they said that Firefox is no longer a browser, it is a "platform".  I knew we were in trouble.  Platform is another way of saying "we're going to cram in every piece of useless shit we can because . . . well . . . because fuck you, that's why".

    Platforms are awesome! That's why we're all still using Netscape and emacs!



  • @MiffTheFox said:

    @El_Heffe said:
    A few months ago I came across a blog by someone from Mozilla and they said that Firefox is no longer a browser, it is a "platform".  I knew we were in trouble.  Platform is another way of saying "we're going to cram in every piece of useless shit we can because . . . well . . . because fuck you, that's why".

    Platforms are awesome! That's why we're all still using Netscape and emacs!

    Speak for yourself, I used emacs and Netscape this morning on IRIX 6.5.22.

     



  • @inori said:

    ... you'd better go see your doctor if your erection lasts longer than four hours.
    that's because an erection of extended duration can damage the penis; a common treatment for priaprism is to drain the excess blood with a syringe!


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @drurowin said:

    Speak for yourself, I used emacs and Netscape this morning on IRIX 6.5.22.
     

    Sweet, when did you upgrade?



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @drurowin said:

    Speak for yourself, I used emacs and Netscape this morning on IRIX 6.5.22.
     

    Sweet, when did you upgrade?

    2004!  I'm trying to find a torrent of 6.5.30.

     



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    So they went from "If it ain't broke, break it" to "If it ain't fixed, break it more."



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @inori said:
    ...you'd better go see your doctor if your erection lasts longer than four hours.

    I did. He was impressed, too. Gave me a standing ovulation.

    FTFY



  • @Ben L. said:

    Except for the people who use safari

    If you can call Apple users "people"..



  • @drurowin said:

    Speak for yourself, I used emacs and Netscape this morning on IRIX 6.5.22.

    You know that feeling where somebody says something so retarded that you're not sure if they're trolling or just legitimately insane?


  • Considered Harmful

    @morbiuswilters said:

    @drurowin said:
    Speak for yourself, I used emacs and Netscape this morning on IRIX 6.5.22.

    You know that feeling where somebody says something so retarded that you're not sure if they're trolling or just legitimately insane?


    Yeah, there was a crazy guy in another thread that said the police don't need guns.



  • @joe.edwards said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    @drurowin said:
    Speak for yourself, I used emacs and Netscape this morning on IRIX 6.5.22.

    You know that feeling where somebody says something so retarded that you're not sure if they're trolling or just legitimately insane?


    Yeah, there was a crazy guy in another thread that said the police don't need guns.

    Well, to be fair, police don't need to wear clothing either. In fact, nobody does. A statement with an unqualified "need" is pretty much always wrong.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @joe.edwards said:

    Yeah, there was a crazy guy in another thread that said the police don't need guns.
     

    There's no such thing as police.


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