the-edmeister wrote:"We" are gonna have to wait for Firefox 2.0 to see it, it was posted to the Trunk and shows as resolved for 2.0 .
Actually, it's so far fixed only for Firefox 3.0. I've now requested inclusion of the (very simple) patch for Firefox 2.0 and 1.5.0.2.
Vectorspace wrote:What annoys me is that any bug filed that argues that that behaviour causes data loss is immediately declared invalid because they won't change that behaviour - no-one stops to consider that there might be alternate solutions to it...
The problem is that BugZilla is not the place for making design decisions. Instead try to propose an alternative over at wiki.mozilla.org and create a bug for implementing the alternative (filed as enhancement request).
Vectorspace wrote:Like, Firefox only deleting known profile files and stopping and warning you if there are other, non-known files in the profile folder.
Since FF creates every file in the profile, Firefox should be capable of maintaining a list of every file in the profile, and only deleting those.
Even a bigger warning would be nice.
Both alternatives aren't bad (although I suppose that a bigger warning would most probably be just as ignored) - but you'll need someone to implement them. The "devs" (main developers) have got different priorities (if you look through BugZilla you'll find many bugs which could get more attention - but there simply isn't the necessary manpower available), so somebody else should write the patch. Now getting a different warning text is a simple patch to write (give me the wording, I'll get you the patch), but if you want the wording to be bold, you're already asking for more than a simple one-line fix. And your first alternative would require reaching deep into Gecko internals, which isn't something you do light-hearted.
Vectorspace wrote:I think the argument that profile manager should not be seen by anyone but expert users is flawed, because a. last time I checked, profile manager was still discussed on the FF help pages on the mozilla web site; and b. even an experienced user can fail to notice that no subfolder was created for the profile, or can fail to notice the warning on profile deletion - it only takes a moment's carelessness;
I agree on that. Just don't expect any coding support from the "devs". Rather get a collection of real alternatives and ask e.g. mconnor or some other UI-responsible to give design advice. Depending on the impact of the required changes, you could then even find somebody else willing to contribute a patch.
My own suggestions were:
* When choosing a folder, modifiy the "Choose Profile Folder" to read "Choose Profile Folder (should be empty)" - not for the non-reading users, but for those who are not precisely sure of the dialogs behavior.
* Warn the user, if the chosen folder is not empty.
* Warn the user, if the chosen folder at or inside "My Documents", resp. not located inside "Application Data".
If the warnings are presented as message boxes, this might/will annoy some sysadmins. An alternative would be to present the warning right under the path in the dialog - red and bold. This might catch someone's attention without requiring any more clicks by those who know what they're doing.