Firefox/Feature Brainstorming:User Interface

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Permanent toolbar customization

It would be good if the customize feature for the main toolbar would allow permanent customizations instead of just for one session. Currently, the customization is lost each time you close the browser. If you want always to have a feature like Print (not sure why this isn't standard), you have to customize each session to add the Print button. This is a real inconvenience.


New Rendering Modes

The idea is to introduce multiple rendering modes that make sense when the window is in different orientation. In particular, this idea arises out of annoyance with monitors that are wider than they are all. The best way to use that extra space would be to have two windows side by side... however, the monitors aren't quite that wide. So, create a rendering mode that looks for the widest column of text and emphasizes that text. The middle column would be made wider as a percentage of the overall page width. The side columns would be shrunk. But most importantly, the page would flow across both halves of the window, filling the whole thing with text.

Other render modes become possible too: a narrow window might be used on a different screen form factor, such as a smart phone or when the window is taking up just a slice of a wide screen. Twinotter 02:27, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Remove 1px margin left to first toolbar button

The current build (beta 3) of Fx 3 has a greatly improved toolbar. I especially like the fact that the developers had the guts to implement the asymmetrical Back/Forward button configuration. However, there is an issue with the toolbar on Windows Vista (probably shared by other versions as well): To the left of the first toolbar button ("Back" by default) there is a 1 pixel margin separating the button from the left screen edge where it is not clickable. This may seem like a tiny issue, but can be extremely annoying when using the button a lot and relying on "throwing" the mouse pointer to the left edge in the general direction of the button, just like most people do with the "Close" button in the system menu on the top right corner of the screen. Removing the margin would allow the user to use the "Back" button intuitively and quickly and not require repositioning the pointer anymore. I can imagine that for someone familiar with the code, it would take less than a minute to fix.


Autohide Menu Bar

This is an idea I got from vista. All the menu bar options (like File, Edit, View) should be autohidden, and appear when the user presses "ALT".

  • A better option could be to have a button named "Menu" in the toolbar which when clicked will present the normal menus which would cascade down."Something like the gimp."
    • This should be optional for those of us who are not big fans of automatically hiding toolbars. Whether auto-hiding should be on or off by default doesn't matter if there is an easily accessible way to toggle it on or off. --Armaetin 20:21, 2 February 2007 (PST)
    • This should be disabled by default, so normal users don't get confused. Maybe a tooltip could appear when trying to reach the toolbar area alerting this new toolbar-hiding feature. --rafaelinux 16:22, 20 August 2007 (GMT)
  • There should be an additional square 'control' icon next to the standard minimize and maximize and close icons that lets you toggle show/hide both the title bar and menu bar. For the amount that I use those I would prefer the extra screen space and clean look. In the event they are hidden the control icons can be beside the search box. --groovyd 18:34, 23 March 2007

Save tabbed Session

When the computer crashes, Mozilla gives you a restore session parameter. Many of us use certain websites as a personal portal, would it be possible to Save/Load sessions into mozilla -- it would make my life easier specifically as a developer

  • It would be nice to have an option to save current tabs on exit and an option to do it always without prompt (like Opera). I have to kill firefox every time (#pkill firefox) to have my tabs open next start.
    • Go to Tools and then Options. If you go the Main tab and under the Startup box, there will be an option that says "When Firefox starts:". Change it to "Show my windows and tabs from last time." This only works for Firefox 2.0.0.x, which, from the context of your comment, I believe you already have. --Armaetin 16:50, 30 May 2007 (PDT)
      • Could we have 'prompt me on opening' added to the Startup options, please? Sometimes you're finished with everything when you close, and sometimes you aren't. --Irrevenant 17:31, 6 July 2007 (PDT)
        • In hindsight, it might be better to ask on closing whether you wanted to save the tabs for next time. --Irrevenant 01:49, 7 July 2007 (PDT)
          • Why not both options (separately, of course)? --Armaetin 22:19, 18 July 2007 (PDT)


Hibernate mode

Why not adding a simple button (maybe at the left of the reduce button in title bar) to close Firefox which automatically saves the current session, regardless of the number of tabs opened? To make it easier for users to understand, name it something like the "Hibernate mode" on windows. This would be very useful and simple.


Auto-hide option

It would be very helpful if there would be an auto-hide button next to minimize button (right-up corner) for hiding the toolbar, bookmark and tab bar, so we could see more of the web page on the screen, not just in "full screen" mode.

When we want use one of the features of the bars, we just move mouse pointer to the top of the page and all the bars would appear. Just like happen in NetBeans, Eclipse, etc. IDE's for toolboxes.

Sorry for my bad English, I speak Spanish.

Save Multiple tabs

It'd be great if we could save all of the tabs I'm currently browsing, and not only to bookmark them. maybe in the Menu: File-->save this (Session / all tabs)
so that all the opened Tabs will be saved in a File in text form named *.tabs and that it could be opened with firefox in the next time I start the browser

Would this save the back/forward histories of the tabs? If so, this is an excellent idea. --Armaetin 13:26, 28 December 2006 (PST)
That's a good idea. It would be like having tab playlists. It's perfect if a user has to do several tasks and wants to focus on doing one thing at a time that involves multiple tabs. I see it looking like a playlist icon or a bundle of favicons as one image that can be sorted like bookmarks, yet more powerful.--— Edson Ayllon [twitter] 21:56, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Support for Microsoft Vista's Aero

  • Vista has been released to manufactures already. Id be great to see the toolbars in Firefox using the Aero transparency effects, same with the status bar...
    • An excellent idea! I assume such effects would also apply to non-default toolbars? --Armaetin 00:00, 13 January 2007 (PST)
    • I would love to see this as well. --Exino 19:27, 25 November 2007 (PST)

Variable Sized fonts in the Menu Bar

  • This would be useful for people with poor eye-sight or who use high resolutions (causing the menu fonts to be too small)

Easily Edit Right Click Menu

  • Right click menu becomes cluttered with options after installing extensions.
    • The Menu Editor extension will do that.
    • why not include a MS Office 2003 (?)-like feature, where the seldomly used (context/toolbar/main) menu entries are automatically hidden, and can be "opened" via a ">>" Menu entry (or like ffchrome addon with automatic detection which entries are often used?)
  • Being able to move options around and creating groups would be useful.
  • User should be able to indicate in which context these groups should be visible
  • Why not merge the functionality of the main menu, context menus and toolbars? Then a single editor as easy to use as the "Customize Toolbar" dialog can be used to edit both, as well as move menu items into the "Bookmarks Toolbar", or bookmarks into a context menu. There is already overlap between the "Bookmarks" menu and the "Bookmarks" toolbar, so obviously they share structure and functionality. This would open up a whole realm of possible configurations.

As an extension of this, it would be nice if something similar was applied to the main menu (File, Edit, View, etc.) so it would be easy to remove various options from the toolbar, such as "Help>For Internet Explorer Users", and other such options.

  • I would like to see search access (google, wiki, whatever search installed) from a right-click on a word. ie. the right click menu has the default search as an option for the word you right click on or the selected text.--groovyd

Floating tool bars

  • Allow all tool bars to be detached and float (like the tool bars in GIMP). They could then be tiled, overlapped, stacked or moved to any convenient location.
    • This is not necessarily good. It may confuse users, and I have never felt the need for such a feature. Of course move them to the bottom for example, but not floating. --Eproxus 05:54, 26 October 2006 (PDT)
    • Limitation above can be removed by locking the toolbars by default. To dock/move toolbars, user has to unlock them. Not only toolbars, but menu bar, address bar and links bar should be dockable. IE6 has this feature which unfortunately missing from IE7. This gives more space for browsing area which power users love.
    • I don't think it is such a good idea. More advanced customization, though, would be an improvement. For example, allowing the icon-links such as the Downloads button, Home, or any add-on, to be place on the side (either to the absolute right or to the left. With wide-screen laptops you find yourself having way to much left-right space and not enough up-down space. This would help with the problem.
    • I also agree, adding floating toolbars will confuse those who are not quite as computer-friendly as others of us. What could benefit from being implemented is an option to allow changing size, position, etc. (in a Microsoft sort of way, where the toolbars can be dragged and optimized to fit the users screen). This should stay an option though, because as can be expected with any program, some users will not need this or will find it worse off than its benefits can help it. --FlyingIsFun1217 12:30, 29 December 006 (CST)

Reorganize and Simplify Options

  • With new features, the Options preferences have now become cluttered and difficult to use.
    • For example, proxy settings is now under "Advanced->Network->Settings". No setting should be deeper than two levels.
  • The Advanced Tab should be removed. What's considered advanced? There's no way to tell without having to look. All settings should be in their appropriate categories so the user can easily find what they're looking for.
    • For example, "Encryption" should be under "Security" (perhaps under a "Settings" submenu). The "Languages" setting should be under "Content" not "Advanced->General".
  • In general, the whole Options menu should be reorganized and reviewed for simplicity of use.
  • In a principal text of page do the last word in the last line another color and when roll one page this word appear on top very easy find to read from you stopped in a previous page.

MS Office like Flat menu and toolbar

  • This is just a preference but it look like more beautifull than pseudo-3d toolbar and old-style menus...

Workspace management

  • There are so many way to use Firefox and his extensions it should be great to have the ability to switch from a layout to another, according to our needs.
  • The symbol bar is configurable by the user, but some important icons are missing, as symbols for increasing and decreasing font-size. When a user has the option to customize the symbol bar, he should add icons for many more commands. This is especially useful for visually impaired or tablet-pc-users.

Throbber

  • Reinstate the throbber's (the circle thingy at the top right) link to firefox's support page.

Password Request

  • Allow user to continue to use the browser window while the password dialog is shown. Currently, Firefox switches to the tab that requests the password and denies the user any navigation. It should allow the user to switch tabs and continue browsing, just as if the user had multiple windows open.
    • Better yet, all modal dialogs should work like that. --Pile0nades 19:37, 31 October 2006 (PST)
    • To carry this idea further, get rid of the dialog window entirely, and replace it with a web page, like what has been done with the invalid SSL certificate dialog in Firefox 3 beta 3. In other words HTTP authentication would look like form-based authentication (except the page design should still make it clear that it's HTTP authentication). And yes, all modal dialogs should be replaced with something like this.
  • The dialog on the Master Password request alert labeled "Password Required" is not informative. "Please enter the master password for the Software Security Device" should be changed to something more informative as described on the Self Explaining Password Dialog page.
  • Possible phis attack solution (?)
    • The simplest way to fix it is...
      In the 'Password Remember' options; the user selects or types something that should be shown every time the 'master password' box pops up...
      eg. Welcome message [H3ll0 Cr4zy M4n!]
      Thus, if you don’t see your message in the master password request box then you would know it’s a phis attempt :)

Real full screen

I wish I could activate a "presentation mode", where even the address bar and the tabs disappear. There would be only the web page left in the whole screen. This is currently done by an add-on "Full Fullscreen". Setting this as an option would be nice.

  • I second the motion on an auto-hide of the address bar in full-screen mode.
  • I agree. Something similar to IE7, only better, because it's Firefox ;-)
  • I agree. At least minimize excess content other than the back and forward buttons. They are very essential. A border around the presentation page is also recommended for aesthetics reason.
  • This feature is VERY important, as ONLINE presentation tools like Zoho are already available. Google is going to come up with a tool named "Precently" soon.
    • Cite your "Precently" thing, please. I see no indication of it. --FlyingIsFun1217 05:51, 13 February 2007 (PST)
      • It's spelled "presently"[1]
  • see also DefaultBrowserUI/AlternateUIModes or Default_Browser_UI (search for "Alternate UI Modes")
  • don't forget to implement the option to hide a idle mouse coursor while in "presentation mode"
  • ive been wanting this feature for ages, ever since i started using youtube n the like. I was suprised to see that IE got it first to be honest, with people watching TV and things through their browsers now this is a must
  • Firefox 3 fullscreen mode is almost perfect, but it would be even better if the content of the page did not move when toobars become visible. I think it would make more sense visually since in normal mode toolbars and the page content feel unconnected (only the page moves up and down when scrolling).
  • I would suggests (optionally) making the toolbars disappearance/reappearance animation such that instead of moving up and down, the toolbars would chance between transparent and opaque. Benefit of that would be that the user could trigger the reappearance and click the desired toolbar target even before it is entirely visible, thus decreasing apparent flickering.

Better interpolation for resized images

  • Whenever an image is displayed that is not it's actual size, it has so many horrific looking artifacts. A better interpolation algorithm or a feature to override HTML sizing of pictures would make things look a lot better.
    • I may be wrong, but i think this was left out Firefox 2.0 only because of Windows 9x/ME compability issues. It will be in 3.0, considering it won't be compatible with 9x/ME.

Better view of full-sized images

When zoomed in it could also have a box in the corner to drag around where you want to look. It's kind of hard to explain, but I am talking about what is on Google Maps. It has a box that shows a zoomed out view, with a small box that can be drug around shifting what you are viewing. This is integrated into Picasa by Google when looking at a picture in full resolution. It is very helpful.

Multiline copy and paste into textbox

When copying from one page to a single line search box, a new line somewhere necessiates copying multiple times into a search box, e.g. an address into google maps. A way of reducing a multiline copy and paste to a single line for textbox would be useful.

Example:

  • 123 Fake
  • Some City, State
  • 10001

With Opera, copy and pasting into the search box will paste the entire line '123 Fake Some City, State 10001' but Firefox only paste's '123 Fake'.

  • I noticed that for some sites, Firefox already does do multiline pasting. However, Firefox does not paste multiple lines in all websites. --Armaetin 20:26, 2 February 2007 (PST)

Ignore white space when pasting

When copying text some times a blank line is copied before it. When the text is pasted into an one line input box nothing comes up. It would be useful if the first line is blank to instead past the second line (which is not blank and actually contains what you wanted to paste) --Adam1213 17:15, 1 March 2008 (PST)

Customizable Hotkeys

The ability to change around hotkeys as desired would be great because, not only does it give the user a much more personalised experience and interface with the browser, but it means that Firefox doesn't bug you with the "Bookmarks" sidebar every time you try to press ctrl+i to switch to italics in a textbox.

You should also be able to set the hotkeys' priority, deciding whether or not a website can "steal" them for their own shortcuts.

References

File manager

Firefox should be able to be used as a file manager. That way it would be easy for ftp. When I'm on a Windows computer I hate having to use IE for ftp. It would be nice if Firefox did it the graphical way like konquerer.

  • Though there is FireFtp extension for ftp which works very well, ability to be used as a file manager for ftp will add to easy use of ftp well within current window of browser. Uploading is important! downloading happens without any hiccups.
  • To make it like konqueror(adding kio slaves etc.) is a lengthy and complex process and unwarrented. Firefox is a browser and keep it as simple as possible.
  • You can just type into the address bar 'C:\' or whatever your drive name is, it'll list its contents --FlyingIsFun1217 05:53, 13 February 2007 (PST)

Mute Button

Background sounds on web sites should be treated like pop-ups. By default sounds should be muted (just as pop-ups are blocked), but the user receives a notification that sound is blocked and has the option to play the sound once or always for the particular domain. This should work when music and sounds are embedded in the HTML as well as in a Flash movie on the page. --Getgreg 11:25, 2 April 2007 (PDT)

There should be control over the sound Firefox and its plugins emit. I generally find it annoying to visit a website with background music or to have to listen to advertisement, especially when I'm listening to my own music or watching a video.

  • I think there should be a control (in addition to or instead of this) to mute a tab individually Happysmileman 08:05, 20 February 2007 (PST)
    • We should also have a keyboard shortcut for muting. --Armaetin 19:57, 2 April 2007 (PDT)
  • I couldn't agree more. Perhaps a mute button in the lower right of the status bar at the bottom of the browser. If I'm listening to iTunes and surfing the web it would be nice to not have sounds automatically start. When exiting the browser it would remember whether the mute was on or off from the previous session.
  • I believe it should be possible to mute the whole Firefox browser or each tab individually. I often find it annoying when I open my session, and 10 instances of YouTube etc. begins to play. Then I will have to manually find all the YouTube tabs, and stop then individually as they load. Also some banners (crappy emoticon banner especially) play annoying sounds on random occasions. So I would like to:
    • Mute all sounds from Firefox, and the option to mute each tab individually.--Keba 19:58, 12 December 2007 (PST)
      • I think it might be possible to mute tabs when you're using Windows Vista. My idea comes from the IE tab extension. If I want to "mute" a tab, I can simply opt to open the tab in another application (in this case, Internet Explorer). However, I like using Firefox (there's a reason I'm posting here and not somewhere else), and I'd rather not use IE. So my suggestion would be to have a "second" Firefox, which would be muted by Vista, and switched to whenever I wanted to mute a tab. Is this possible? Gbuch 17:45, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

References

  • Flashmute - standalone application (Windows only)

Galeon User Interface Features

Galeon showed some really neat features that make adictive. Some of them are:

  • Tab Handling: Duplicate a tab
  • Smart bookmarks: Its great to have a row of fields with your prefered forms where you can input a value. This row from galeon is quicker than the single drop down list where you can select your search engine or whatever.
  • Fast changing of proxy (Feature of Galeon 1.0.x which enabled a quick access to proxy settings without awkward preferences editing)

Stop Animation Button/Combine with existing Stop Button

  • Also, a stop animation button would be great too. Or when you press stop maybe it could stop sound and animations (including flash).

References

Scrollbar Reminder of Where You Scrolled From

  • Let the user scroll briefly to review another part of the document without losing their current location. Some scroll bars work this way by default ( if you drag the mouse off the scrollbar it reverts back to where you started scrolling from ) - I'd like to see this across all versions in some equivalent form.
If I'm not mistaken, this is a Windows set thing. All of the scrollbars are like this already. --FlyingIsFun1217 18:32, 29 October 2007 (PDT)

Icon Size

Upon first installing or upgrading Firefox, icons under the "Customize Toolbar" feature are small when added to the bookmarks toolbar and big when added to the Navigation toolbar. However, after clicking "Restore Default Set" or checking "Use Small Icons", this is no longer the case. These Toolbars with Small Icons should be integrated into Firefox.

Restart command

If I might add my two cents, I often wish there was a "Restart Firefox" command, for instance in the "File" menu, just before the "Quit" command : Firefox already has the (extremely valuable)ability to restart and restore your session, whenever you download any update. Why not making this possibility available at any time ?

And by the way, it's a pity FF doesn't restart by itself when you install an extension or a theme. Every time I try some new add-on, I have to close FFox, relaunch it, and then try to remember my opened tabs and so on...

    • While I disagree that FF should automatically restart upon adding an extension (many people install many extensions in one session, and to restart every time would be Extremely time consuming), I agree that better integration of the restart function should be implemented into FF. Not just the extensions dialog, but maybe allow the user to add a button to a toolbar with 'View->Toolbars->Customize'.--FlyingIsFun1217 12:40, 29 December 2006 (CST)
    • I agree with FlyingIsFun. This idea would be a great convenience for uninstalling add-ons. --Armaetin 00:10, 30 December 2006 (PST)
    • Also for when there's a memory leak and FF starts sucking up 400k of memory on just a few tabs I will want to restart to clear it. --Jethro 10:42, 31 July 2007 (PDT)

Smoother fonts

I compared Firefox with Internet Explorer and realised that firefox has raugh letters which are pretty smoother in Internet Explorer. This gives a better web experience, more pleasant.

"Close popup-menu" menu item

I don't like it when javascript disables my right-click popup-menu. Luckily Firefox enables me to prevent javascript from doing that. However, certain web apps like Google Docs, have built-in right-click popup-menu's that I do like to use. Unfortunately they will be unaccessible when they're behind Firefox's popup-menu.

So, my suggestion would be to add a "Close popup-menu" menu item to Firefox's right-click popup-menu. (Or perhaps a little 'x' button?) When clicking this, Firefox's menu should close enabling me to use the underlying javascript popup-menu (and such). This menu item could be available only if one has prevented javascript from controlling popup-menu's.

Fix focus while user is typing

Few things are more annoying than typing a login, url or password into a text box, then realizing that you've typed the last six characters of your login name in the password box.

This is especially bad when backspacing, as a change in focus (for instance a popup window) causes the browser to try to "go back" in history.

Firefox should maintain text box focus (and window focus) while a user is typing. This doesn't have to be too complex. Simply waiting for two seconds after the last typed character before switching fields will not slow anyone down.

This should also get rid of that nasty focus switching exploit ("Incidentally, I like cheese").

Adding a bit of intelligence to the user interface would be a great feature.

  • Interesting idea. Perhaps, for those who do not like to be delayed for even two seconds, users can disable this feature whenever they wish. --Armaetin 16:18, 26 March 2007 (PDT)

Descriptions in about:config

The average user seldom, if ever, needs to change the settings in about:config. However power users like to tinker with things, so it would be nice if each entry would contain a short description of what it does and what the possible values are. While some of the entries are self-explanatory, some are less so. Requiring this from extensions is probably unfeasible (although extension writers could implement it if they wish so), but at least descriptions for each built-in entry would be a good start.

  • I second this request, but since about:config is such a power user tool, I think it would be perfectly acceptable to just have a handy way to open the wiki page of the setting in question (could be in the context menu as "Explanation in wiki" or something).

Maintain font size integrity across tabs

Maintain one font size across newly opened tabs. Example: user presses 'CTRL' and '+' in order to increase font size on a poorly designed website. When user opens a new tab from within that website then the font size reverts back to its original size. Very annoying because user then has to resize. Solution: keep font size the same. User should have the option to activate the feature.

Zoom

Allow the user to increase and decrease (zoom) all content on a rendered web page, including text, images and flash, at the same time by the same factor. This should be possible using only the keyboard or using only a pointing device, and the current zoom factor should be shown in the status bar. This is described in Firefox/Feature Brainstorming:Default Browser UI and bug 4821.

    • That's debatable because often the font size increase is only necessary for a particular page/site. Like websites that have .7em fonts that are a pain to read. If I switch to another tab I don't want to decrease the font size to compensate. If I had a general problem with font sizes I'd change my preferences rather that Ctrl-+ ing all the time. --Jethro 10:48, 31 July 2007 (PDT)

Scroll-Centered Text Enlarging

A small revision to the existing zoom (or text enlarge) feature. Currently holding down the ctrl key and using the scroll wheel will enlarge text on most platforms. However the scroll reference remains at the top of the page. So if you are in the middle of a long page and decide to enlarge the text, the content you were reading will fly an unknown distance off the bottom of the screen! Update this feature to keep the current text centered in the window as it is enlarged.

Remember which page and window a page was opened from

Remember which page and window (tab) a page was opened from. Then allow the user to go back to that tab or window. This extends the concept of browsing history and helps users to grasp how the content in visited pages relates together.

Show link to open target as a line

When the pointer or focus is on a link to a page that is already open in the browser, show the link visually as a line from the source to the target. When a link to an anchor is followed, flash a circle around the anchor on the page. This fixes two common problems: not knowing where the link is supposed to follow, if the page is too short to be scrolled, and not seeing the context before the link because if the page scrolls the anchor to the first line.

Tab animation indicates completion status

Have the animated dots to the left of the page title on each tab be a visual representation of the page loading status.For example: 3/4 of the dots glowing will represent that only 3/4 of the page has loaded. Behavior: Much like the status bar bottom right corner of the browser.

  • There is an addon Tab Mix Plus. It puts the green loading Bar on the tab(as well as other options). That seems to be an elegant solution. --Jethro 11:04, 31 July 2007 (PDT)

Show Bookmark Tab when in Full Screen mode

Bookmark Tab holds most of the sites I usually visit. Jumping to and out full screen mode is inconvenient.


Integrated Menu and Title bar

Just like in iTunes or in Netscape Browser 8 integrating the two bars that have a lot of unused space would offer the user more content space

Different cursor for external links

Show a different cursor for links that will open in another window/tab.

Note that an extension for that and more already exists: Link Alert. I agree that this should be standard functionality. --dregio 19:07, 5 April 2008 (PDT)

Vertical Scrollbar Functionality Changes

  • Left-clicking the up or down arrow buttons on the vertical scrollbar does exactly what it does right now.
  • Middle-clicking the up or down arrows on the vertical scrollbar acts as if the Page Up or Page Down buttons have just been pressed, respectively.
  • Pressing the Home or End key while in an active text box moves the text cursor to the front of the first character of the the text or to the end of the last character of the text, respectively.
  • Right-clicking the up or down arrows on the vertical scrollbar acts as if Home or End have just been pressed, respectively.
  • As of right now, middle-clicking or right-clicking the arrow buttons on a scrollbar does nothing.
  • These vertical scrollbar changes should be optional to the end user, and he or she should be able to change it so that middle-clicking and right-clicking does what left-clicking does, or any combination of events that occur when a vertical scrollbar arrow button is left-clicked, middle-clicked, or right-clicked.

Treecell contents

  • Get the ability to put other types of content such as buttons, iframes, etc. within a treecell...

Reading feed's xml files

  • To be able to read any feed file like you do with any xml (firefox shows a element tree) without needing to go to View -> Page Source. Useful when exporting xml's and not knowing if these are getting generated properly.

More intuitive use of arrow keys for navigation

  • I use an RSS feedreader called NetNewsWire Lite, which has a GUI built up quite like Firefox's default view (left tree window, right window with upper and lower half), I can use the arrow keys to navigate up and down in the window that has focus, but also from left to right between the left and right pane using the left and right arrow keys, so that in Firefox I could travel through my folders and boxes, but also browse my messages while using only the arrow keys, which is extremely convenient.

Auto completion for URL bar

I suggest extending the auto completion feature. The already built in (firefox 2) completion for the google search bar incredibly increased my search efficiency. Now, I also often use the feature that allows typing keywords in the URL bar and google's "I'm feeling lucky" directs me where I want. e.g. I type "leo dict" and I reach the extensive online dictionary (http://dict.leo.org/). I imagine it to be very helpful if the auto completion previews the URL that it will direct it to according to the current keywords. Of course, this should not replace the URL completion, but jump in iff no previous URL matches or a space was entered.

Split screen

I often work in resolutions like 2048*1536 and I find it annoying to have to arrange my browser windows to do multitasking. There should be an option to split the screen in Firefox in order to work with two windows separately in the same browser. Alternatively, there could be an option to size the window to fit the screen in different ways. An example could be to size it to fit ½ the screen horizontically.

  • To be able to either work with two pages simultaneously in the same browser, or to size the windows to fit the screen in different ways.
To split the window in two or more: Split Browser extension.
To size the windows easily in different ways: some tool like WinSplit revolution. (Sizing windows is not a browser issue but an Operating System one I think.)
--dregio 21:11, 5 April 2008 (PDT)

--Keba 20:11, 12 December 2007 (PST)

Horizontal Scrollbars in Firefox Components/Applications

There Aren't Any Horizontal Scrollbars in some applications/Components.
Yeah, Some Web Pages have Horizontal scrollbars at the bottom so you can see the whole page. Some of the Firefox Applications/Components don't let you see everything you may need too; not even if you maximize the window it’s contained in. It Needs scrollbars. Why DoN'T they have Horizontal scrollbars again?

-3:29 PM 12/21/2007 Minor Edit, I Replaced the Words Scroll with Scrollbars due to some Confusion earlier to prevent Confusion now (If applicable).

Movable/Draggable Columns in Firefox Components/Applications

In Addition to Not being able to See the Crucial Details of Columns due to Not having Horizontal Scrollbars Available, I have also Just noticed that You Can't even Move the Columns, Either. You can Drag 2 Sides of them as long as they aren't connected to the outside Extents. But even then, it impedes your ability to get all the details out of it. No, this is just unacceptable. Perhaps it was a Forgotten Artifact that was meant to be fixed later but has yet have had attention drawn to it's Existence or apparent lack thereof. A Fix would be Greatly appreciated and most beneficial.

-3:26 PM 12/21/2007 Minor Edit, I Replaced the Word Scroll with Scrollbar due to some Confusion earlier to prevent Confusion now (If applicable).

Search bar keyboard accessibility

Search bar/search box should display all available engines available for searching when scrolling through using ctrl+up or ctrl+down. Currently, you only see the menu by clicking on the icon to the left of the box. It would make scrolling through using the keyboard much easier if using ctrl+up/down brought up a similar menu to display the order of the engines.

Alt+Down already shows the menu in FF 2. --dregio 21:22, 5 April 2008 (PDT)

Find-bar regular expressions

Allow the find bar to be used with regular expressions.

Note: Thankfully there is now /Find bar/ to address this power-user need.

Middle-click search functionality

Instead of enabling such search on the whole page (while upsetting lot of users) make some dedicated area where you can paste-with-middleclick some text and it will be immidiatedly searched for. Dropdown indicator of the search engine should be just fine for it (i.e. left click - change engine, middle click - search for clipboard contents)


Differentiated Browser windows

I use a different Firefox window to each of my areas of work. This groups my research and activities. In one window, all tabs relate to a certain project; on another window, all tabs relate to a specific research; on another, my personal interests, and so on. It would be good to be able to differentiate them somehow --colors, maybe-- organizing and grouping our browser tabs like folders group files. The goal is to make each window easily recognizable as focused on that task, project or area.


Creating OpenSearch through GUI

UI for creating OpenSearch XMLs and installing them is pretty simple. Just some text boxes for title, URL, etc.


Exiting the Location Bar or Search Bar - Keyboard Shortcut

It is quite easy to move the focus to the Location Bar (ctrl-L) or the Search Bar (ctrl-K or ctrl-E) from the keyboard, but it is not easy to move the focus back to the main browser window. The only way I know of is to hit ctrl-F6 a few times, but even that won't get you back to your original location on the page (e.g., if you're typing in a text box, then hit ctrl-L, then hit ctrl-shft-F6, the focus will return to the page, but not to the text box).

I suggest adding a keyboard shortcut which would restore focus to the main window. Alternatively, or perhaps in addition, hitting "esc" from either the Location Bar of the Search Bar could return you to the main window.

Graph-based visualization of open pages

I'm not sure if other people use their browsers this way, but I tend to have many tabs open, usually grouped by some theme or site when I'm comparing information from various sites. At this point the tab interface becomes less useful as the label does not convey the page, let alone the structure of navigation that lead to it.

So the idea is a view of open pages that shows their structure. Lets say I'm comparing 10 faculty members from 3 departments and two different university. This is a lot of tabs! A graph view would show two main nodes (one for each university) then each of those nodes would branch to each department, and each department down to each faculty member.

I may be a power user, but a browser is as much about information and research as it is about entertainment. A browser that allows you to see the structure of the pages your looking at, in a informational/research context, would be a huge hit in the academic community.

An easy(ish) first step would be to use indenting and grouping in the list of tabs (the one that pops up on the right of the tabs when there are many) to show the structure of those pages. In that case you would end up with something like (without the bullets):

  • UBC
    • Philosophy
      • Fred
      • Jane
    • Mathematics
      • John
  • SFU
    • Psycology
      • Janet
      • Brian
    • Contemporary Arts
      • Jason
      • Aiden

Ability to sort modules by status

the modules menu should have an option which give the ability to sort modules by name or status ( active / not active)

"Back" button takes you back to the previous domain

A double-click or a similar function (small arrow next to the "Back" button) takes the user outside of the current domain, to the previous domain visited. For example, if you browse inside flickr.com and have visited 5 pages in flickr.com, pressing the "Back to previous site" would take you out of flickr.com to the previous domain visited. This saves time from having to go back in history to the previous site, manually.


Separate chrome tooltips from site tooltips

The about:config setting for browser.chrome.toolbar_tips governs both the tooltips displayed in Firefox's chrome, when hovering over buttons etc., and the similar textual popups generated by the title attribute of IMG and by the ABBR tag. These should not be so tightly coupled; regular users of FF don't often rely on the tooltips to know which buttons do what (and therefore wish to hide them), but in hiding them these users give up the ability to view pages as originally intended. This can be a pain in situations where an image's title is particularly salient (e.g., when an image serving as a button has an unclear purpose which is revealed via the title attribute), and the outright dismissal of the ABBR tag is senseless.

This wouldn't be so bad if the identity verification tooltip (seen when hovering over the page icon in the URL bar) didn't block items from being dragged onto a portion of the bookmarks toolbar, but 1) that's a separate bug and 2) this really should be fixed on principle.

Separate fullscreen toolbar

As one switches to fullscreen mode, all toolbars except the navigation and tabs bar are gone, which I think is good. (I'll give one real world scenario) If you'd want to access the menu bar you'd need to install an addon like Tiny Menu, which is fine. But I don't want to use Tiny Menu when I'm not in fullscreen mode, so I don't want that button on my toolbar, it wastes valuable space.

Solution: give 'advanced' users the option to have a separate, customizable fullscreen toolbar and not simply use the navigation bar (which is perfectly fine for less demanding users). This will also let them use icons which they placed on a toolbar other than the navigation bar (in normal mode).

Using the mouse-wheel to horizontally scroll

The current default behaviour when scrolling the mouse-wheel while holding the shift key is to traverse the history of visited pages. I think this is rarely useful because 1) the only time you would want to use this feature is if you want to go waaaaaay back/forward in history but you would NOT want to do it with a mouse-wheel because you would probably still want to get to a certain point in history and 2) it is a "trial and error" process, you don't get a visual cue of where in history you get to, instead you have to wait for the page to render before you get to know if you've gotten where you were supposed to and 3) if you by accident traverse past a point in history than what was intended (which is easily done) there is no easy way of knowing (unless you have a memory of an elephant) and 4) there is still a better (default) behaviour available and that is to resize the page/text size.

But I would suggest an even better alternative, which is not possible at this moment, and that is to being able to scroll horizontally with the mouse-wheel. Preferably using the shift key to toggle which scrollbar to scroll, just using the mouse-wheel scrolls vertically and holding shift scrolls horizontally. Just like resizing the text it's visual and there is no question of what is going on (and therefore better ;).

Disable Backspace Navigation

Because backspace navigation can suddenly cause you to lose all the data you have typed into a web form if you accidentally hit the backspace key one too many times while deleting a typo, I find it terribly frustrating.

Could it be replaced with some other keyboard combination, like Ctrl-Backspace?

User:Cjenkins 16:15 (Eastern)

Disable Blink HTML Encoding through stopping the page

It should be possible to stop text from blinking using the esc key, just like how using the esc key would stop animations from running.

Temporary tooltips in menus

using Firefox 3.6.10 in ubuntu lucid lynx. When dragging an url from the address bar to a folder in the bookmarks toolbar, a hover tip is appearing saying "this website does not supply identity information" and this text appears just under the adress bar so just in front of the folders where i would like to drag the url, so i dont see anymore the folders and i need to use the "esc" key of my keyboard to make this text dissapear... is it possible, please, to change the place of this tooltip or to make it temporary visible ?

i have another problem like that but i think that this is a main sysex problem. when browsing menus, if im pushing the right mouse button by mistake, i have a "context menu" appearing and it is not dissapearing, so i need to leave the menu, and go back to the same place, so maybe this action can be temporary.

Tools » Clear Site History

Fairly simple idea: option to remove cookies, cache, password, etc.. from the current domain.

Clear Recent History is often a quickfix for common browsing issues with the drawback of losing stored data on sites which you would otherwise like to keep. It would also be possible to have a small menu if the user is on a subdomain or other circumstance allowing for options like:

Tools » Clear Site History »

  • Clear Page History
  • Clear Sub Domain History
  • Clear Domain History
  • Clear Selected History


Which would probably be overboard, but still possible. Other options would be to include this as a sub menu or selectable options associated with current Clear Recent History item.

Seperate keybinds for tabs and app tabs

Currently app tabs and 'normal' tabs share same keybinds (ctrl+number) witch puts first 'normal' tab on ctrl+(app_tab_count+1). That in my opinion reduces the speed and easiness of switching tabs fast as numbers you need to press in order to access 'normal' tabs when there are several app tabs open are quite far from ctrl and not so easy accessable.

My suggestion: Add new keybinds for app tabs (ctrl+shift+number) or (alt+number).

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