You know when you type an address in and it drops down a list of previous sites you've visited? All the entries in the drop down are huge compared to FF2.
You know when you type an address in and it drops down a list of previous sites you've visited? All the entries in the drop down are huge compared to FF2.
That's the aweseome bar. It's awesome. I'm pretty sure you can easily modify it's behavior with some theme action, though. The same goes for people who are not liking the back button.
You know when you type an address in and it drops down a list of previous sites you've visited? All the entries in the drop down are huge compared to FF2.
But that is really cool feature. Now I can finally see clearly the website names as well as the URL. Feature, not bug. Or something.
But that is really cool feature. Now I can finally see clearly the website names as well as the URL. Feature, not bug. Or something.
I just think it's way too big. It almost seems like dead space when that thing opens up. Also, the "feature" of bolding letters which match what you are typing make it almost impossible to read the addresses that drop down. Again, this is probably just my personal preference but I like things super small.
I just think it's way too big. It almost seems like dead space when that thing opens up.
You're quite possibly correct, but from a usability standpoint it doesn't really matter. If you're interacting with the address bar, you're no longer focused on the webpage it's occluding. Providing a larger drop-down for the awesome bar, with large, easy-to-read bolded page names, means that the user no longer has to explicitly associate a URL with page content; the association is made for them by the program. Furthermore, more boldface text in an entry implicitly conveys fitness to a user's search. I applaud Firefox for the development of the ill-named awesomebar.
Personally, I don't really like the awesome bar. I have keyword searches to go through my bookmarks, I don't need it going through my bookmarks on it's own. As for pulling up history results when I type- christ...
Fortunately, there are plenty of fixes: Oldbar makes it smaller. Though from what I've heard, it doesn't change the bar's behavior...so it's barely a fix. I have found some about:config tweaks, though: browser.urlbar.maxRichResults That lets you tweak how many dropdown results show up. browser.urlbar.matchOnlyTyped If you change that to true, it won't go through your bookmarks and history, only shit you've typed in!
Though from what I can tell (just downloaded it), the only changes are the buttons. The stupid little star in the address bar is still there, and that's really something I wanna get rid of.
I'm trying desperately to figure out why there's so much push back on awesomebar, so bear with me for a second.
As for pulling up history results when I type- christ...
The expected functionality is that the address bar will search through your history based on a partially completed address, and display a small, but scrollable, list of web addresses and page titles. These address hits are sorted in descending order based on time of visit, and truncate both the address and page title.
Let's review:
As we can see, the address bar mini-history tells us very little once we have any sizable amount of a URL typed as the results are truncated. The only part of the dialog that provides any meaningful information now, the page title, has been grayed out and severely truncated. This makes finding the target history element difficult, if not impossible.
Awesomebar, on the other hand, places the emphasis on the increasingly-pertinent page title by increasing the font size, and providing more weight to it in the searching algorithm. The boldfaced text also plays into this as I mentioned earlier. This allows for significantly faster retrieval of the target history item from the list.
Example (please ignore my unfortunate search history):
Given the evidence, is the argument simply: "change in user interface behavior bad, even when it means real progress"?
Given the evidence, is the argument simply: "change in user interface behavior bad, even when it means real progress"?
It is. Which imo is bullshit, the awesome bar is awesome.
@ DKong, why would you want to ditch the bookmark star? Quick bookmarking, quick bookmark editing. I don't see why you'd dislike that little star, but anyways, just find the id of that star, go to your chrome file and add "visibility: hidden !important;" to the id selector.
@ DKong, why would you want to ditch the bookmark star? Quick bookmarking, quick bookmark editing. I don't see why you'd dislike that little star, but anyways, just find the id of that star, go to your chrome file and add "visibility: hidden !important;" to the id selector.
The star is good, but it's not perfect. It puts all the bookmarks in an unfiled folder, and then you have to go sort them by hand later. Also, I wish there was some way to make the star do the del.icio.us thing instead of the del.icio.us extension making separate buttons.
@ DKong, why would you want to ditch the bookmark star? Quick bookmarking, quick bookmark editing. I don't see why you'd dislike that little star, but anyways, just find the id of that star, go to your chrome file and add "visibility: hidden !important;" to the id selector.
The star is good, but it's not perfect. It puts all the bookmarks in an unfiled folder, and then you have to go sort them by hand later. Also, I wish there was some way to make the star do the del.icio.us thing instead of the del.icio.us extension making separate buttons.
Just click the star again and you can put it in a specific folder. The main use of that star is just quick bookmarking and continuing your search or whatever, and leaving the archiving and sorting of that bookmark for a later date when you have the time. As for switching it up with the del.icio.us button. Might be possible, but I don't know about that.
Given the evidence, is the argument simply: "change in user interface behavior bad, even when it means real progress"?
It is. Which imo is bullshit, the awesome bar is awesome.
@ DKong, why would you want to ditch the bookmark star? Quick bookmarking, quick bookmark editing. I don't see why you'd dislike that little star, but anyways, just find the id of that star, go to your chrome file and add "visibility: hidden !important;" to the id selector.
Personally I like just dragging and dropping the url from the address bar into my bookmarks menu when I want to bookmark something. Sure, that's still possible in FF3, but it makes the star pretty damn useless.
As for why I don't like the awesomebar... Like I said, I don't like it going through my bookmarks. If I want to go through my bookmarks, I'll go through the damn menu, or I'll type in a keyword for a bookmark. For history, really...I just don't wanna see them. If I want to search my history, I'll type in ctrl+h, then go to the search bar and search. I really only want to use the address bar for, ya know, addresses.
For history, really...I just don't wanna see them. If I want to search my history, I'll type in ctrl+h, then go to the search bar and search. I really only want to use the address bar for, ya know, addresses.
Ah, so your beef with awesomebar is less about the fact that history is displayed differently and more that it's displayed at all. So, it's not just awesomebar, but the functionality present in every GUI-based browser. That's fair I suppose, though not likely to change.
Returning bookmarks as results I'm neither for nor against. From a usability standpoint it makes a lot of sense (faster way from A to , but it's quite a departure from expected behavior. In a perfect world I would like to see that feature enabled by default, but also disable-able for those who don't like it.
Also, I wish there was some way to make the star do the del.icio.us thing instead of the del.icio.us extension making separate buttons.
Didn't see this earlier, and yes, I agree. To make this happen properly, however, one of two things should happen:
There should be more color states to represent being
Not Bookmarked
Bookmarked locally
Bookmarked remotely (del.icio.us)
Bookmarked in both places
del.icio.us should completely replace the entire bookmarks system in Firefox, replacing the Bookmarks toolbar menu with a del.icio.us menu, awesomebar searches del.icio.us bookmarks instead of (capital)Bookmarks, etc.
Personally I would prefer the latter, as I'm normally using one of several browsers at any given time, and never use local bookmarks, but I understand that many users would probably disagree with me on this point. The former would do me just fine.
People still type urls? I simply type all or part of the website title and firefox recognizes it. For instance, to go to Craigslist, I simply type "craigs" and press enter. I really like both the awesomebar and back button, but I'd like to see more Delicious support.
People still type urls? I simply type all or part of the website title and firefox recognizes it. For instance, to go to Craigslist, I simply type "craigs" and press enter. I really like both the awesomebar and back button, but I'd like to see more Delicious support.
I sometimes type in urls. I mean really, I search, I use keywords, I do the ctrl+enter thing....
Comments
Fortunately, there are plenty of fixes: Oldbar makes it smaller. Though from what I've heard, it doesn't change the bar's behavior...so it's barely a fix.
I have found some about:config tweaks, though:
browser.urlbar.maxRichResults
That lets you tweak how many dropdown results show up.
browser.urlbar.matchOnlyTyped
If you change that to true, it won't go through your bookmarks and history, only shit you've typed in!
Also, if you really wanna go whole hog, there's an FF2 theme for FF3 already:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6898
Though from what I can tell (just downloaded it), the only changes are the buttons. The stupid little star in the address bar is still there, and that's really something I wanna get rid of.
Annnnd one more thing: http://lifehacker.com/396603/tweak-the-awesomebars-suggestion-algorithm
Let's review:
As we can see, the address bar mini-history tells us very little once we have any sizable amount of a URL typed as the results are truncated. The only part of the dialog that provides any meaningful information now, the page title, has been grayed out and severely truncated. This makes finding the target history element difficult, if not impossible.
Awesomebar, on the other hand, places the emphasis on the increasingly-pertinent page title by increasing the font size, and providing more weight to it in the searching algorithm. The boldfaced text also plays into this as I mentioned earlier. This allows for significantly faster retrieval of the target history item from the list.
Example (please ignore my unfortunate search history):
Given the evidence, is the argument simply: "change in user interface behavior bad, even when it means real progress"?
@ DKong, why would you want to ditch the bookmark star? Quick bookmarking, quick bookmark editing. I don't see why you'd dislike that little star, but anyways, just find the id of that star, go to your chrome file and add "visibility: hidden !important;" to the id selector.
As for why I don't like the awesomebar... Like I said, I don't like it going through my bookmarks. If I want to go through my bookmarks, I'll go through the damn menu, or I'll type in a keyword for a bookmark.
For history, really...I just don't wanna see them. If I want to search my history, I'll type in ctrl+h, then go to the search bar and search.
I really only want to use the address bar for, ya know, addresses.
Returning bookmarks as results I'm neither for nor against. From a usability standpoint it makes a lot of sense (faster way from A to
- There should be more color states to represent being
- Not Bookmarked
- Bookmarked locally
- Bookmarked remotely (del.icio.us)
- Bookmarked in both places
- del.icio.us should completely replace the entire bookmarks system in Firefox, replacing the Bookmarks toolbar menu with a del.icio.us menu, awesomebar searches del.icio.us bookmarks instead of (capital)Bookmarks, etc.
Personally I would prefer the latter, as I'm normally using one of several browsers at any given time, and never use local bookmarks, but I understand that many users would probably disagree with me on this point. The former would do me just fine.