Not Happy With 2.53.4 History

[Lerner]

I just upgraded to 2.53.4 and I haven't used it long, but already I'm not happy. So far I haven't found any improvements and it is more sluggish.

But my main complaint is the history. There used to be a 'Group by' option to change the way history is displayed. One of the options there was 'None'. I don't see that now and you are forced to view the history in groups like Today, Yesterday, Last 7 Days, etc. I have increasingly been forced to use other browsers like Chrome to do things I can't do with SeaMonkey, such as viewing streaming video from some sties. But I have never changed over completely, due in large part to the history. In fact, I often try to open all the sites I open in other browsers in SeaMonkey too, even if I can't use it to view the page, just to maintain a consistent history in one place where i know I can view it in the way I want. I have never seen another browser that lets you view all your history in one complete list like SeaMonkey used to. Now that that's gone SeaMonkey has become much less useful.

[Frank Lion]

I just upgraded to 2.53.4.... and it is more sluggish.

Try Safemode - http://kb.mozillazine.org/Safe_mode

One thing 2.53.4 is not, is sluggish.

I have never seen another browser that lets you view all your history in one complete list like SeaMonkey used to..

As mine still does, on my SM 2.53.4.

Where are you viewing History, in the Sidebar, Library or somewhere else?

[Lerner]

Oh it's definitely sluggish for me. Between the delays in text showing up when I am typing and the delays when accessing files on my computer, the difference is obvious. This is on the same computer as before I upgraded with all my other programs acting the same.

I view history in what they are now calling the library. There is definitely no option there to remove groupings. It used to be under the View menu below Show Columns and Sort. View->Group by->{None, Day, Website, Day and Website}. It may look like everything is in one long list but if you scroll down you can't go past the day without changing to the next group. In the old version if you group by none you could scroll down as far as your history would go, which was several years for me. The added bonus when you selected group by none was the sidebar went away giving you the whole screen to view the history data.

If any change is going to be made to history why not make it something useful. For instance, better information columns. Back in version 1.x you could choose from Title, Location, Last Visited, First Visited, Hostname, Referrer, Visit Count. That became Title, Location, Last Visited, Visit Count in version 2.x. Now it's Name, Tags, Location, Most Recent Visit, Visit Count, Description, Added, Last Modified. Not sure what the new columns do really because they appear to remain blank for every site I visit. What's the difference between 'Most Recent Visit' and 'Last Modified' anyway? I didn't think you could modify the history without visiting a site. But why not add First Visited again? Maybe that's what Added is supposed to be, but like I said, for me that's always blank. First Visited is really useful because that's often the information you really want to know and if you visit a site again you lose that for use in the future. It often happens that I am looking through my history for a site I visited and will click on a whole array of history items before I find the right one. But in doing so I erase all the first visit information for all those sites, at least since SeaMonkey stopped allowing you to see First Visited. Also, why not make history go back further? Why can't there be an unlimited option for history that will let it grow to the limit of the size of your hard drive? That might really cause sluggishness, but maybe it's a tradeoff some people are willing to make.

A lot of people are worried about privacy and clearing their history. I am exactly the opposite. My browser history is one of the most useful things on my computer. I use it as a kind of log of my life. What I was doing on a certain day. If I want to find out the date I filled out a web form to make an inquiry to see if it's taking too long where do I go? History. If I find a cryptically named file and I can't remember what it's for what do I do? Look at the date on the file and go to my browser history and see what I was doing on that date and time. I want my browser history to go back to the first day I started using a computer and I want it treated as sensitive data that is protected from deletion.

It's too bad 'progress' has so often involved removing useful features.

[Frank Lion]

Oh it's definitely sluggish for me. Between the del

I see I'm not making myself clear here.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU TRY SAFEMODE?
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Safe_mode

I view history in what they are now calling the library. There is definitely no option there to remove groupings. It used to be under the View menu below Show Columns and Sort. View->Group by->{None, Day, Website, Day and Website}. It ma...The added bonus when you selected group by none was the sidebar went away giving you the whole screen to view the history data.

View > Sort > Sort by Most Recent Visit and select the oldest History date on the left hand sidebar, which you decided to hide.

All History is now shown in one long continuous list in date order, right back to the start of your History. To reverse the date order (your First Visited) just click the words 'Most Recent Visit' on the column called, unsurprisingly, 'Most Recent Visit'.

***

As for the rest...unless you are writing a 'Origins of Life' thesis, support posts do not need to be as long as yours. Luckily, I am adept at skim reading, but some poor slob may be tempted to wade through that wall of text, for little outcome.

Please respect other people's time.

[Lerner]

Yes you are right, I didn't notice that everything in the categories below include everything in the categories above as well. But you can't hide the sidebar like you suppose. And every time you open history it reverts to the Today group so you have to change that all the time. So those can remain complaints, but admittedly less minor than my original one.

Safe Mode does seem to help. I have had problems with junk accumulating in my profile from version to version before. Until recently it would take an actual 5 minutes to open the password manager. But after some research I deleted the Storage folder, I believe it was, and that fixed it.

As far as the rest, here's a precis in case your skimming skills missed anything. The additional history information columns show nothing. Bring back the First Visited column. Provide the option to remove all limits on size of history. Allow the library sidebar to be hidden. Remember the group last selected when reopening history.

[Frank Lion]

... So those can remain complaints, but admittedly less minor than my original one..

The new bookmark/history system is called 'Places' and was inherited from Firefox and is 'not ideal'. I only mentioned that sidebar, because you had done so earlier, it can, however, be dragged to the left but not hidden.

Try also the browser Sidebar (press F9) which does always show a long History list (set it to 'By Last Visited) but, bizarrely, no individual dates.

Also, as History is important to you and is easily accidentally deleted by users or other programs, then I suggest you back-up your profile - http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... #p14832589

Safe Mode does seem to help.

Disable extensions selectively in normal mode until the perp is found. If not that, then disable Hardware Acceleration that is somewhere in Edit>Prefs.

If still sluggish, then try a new, clean, additional profile
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Creating_a_ne ... on_Windows
(Procedure is the same in SeaMonkey as Firefox and takes 5 mins to do) just to compare.

If that does the trick then the good stuff can be copied over later. On no account, delete anything in your existing profile.

As far as the rest, here's a precis in case your skimming skills missed anything.

All valid concerns, none of which will be fixed by the devs, but valid nonetheless.

However, here's a ruse to remove all limits on size of history. -

Enter about:config in the addressbar, ignore silly warning, right click any entry and select New > Integer. Enter as name - places.history.expiration.max_pages. and then some huge value and you're done.

(This overrides the otherwise unchangeable value, that is set by SM of - places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages )

It doesn't matter that you may not understand any of that, just so long as one of us does.

[therube]

(The problem is, Firefox, basically. Over time as FF got more & more dumb & less & less configurable, & now as SeaMonkey advances, & picks up more FF-isms, we are stuck with, well in this case, with a system, History, that is more dumb & less configurable, so there isn't really a whole lot that be done to fix things in that respect.

Maybe an extension can pick up some slack... ?

Wait till/if webextensions kick in. That will surely be a blast!)

[frg]

2.53 basically got the Firefox library. More and more apis broke in the previous versions and it was the sledgehammer or trying to fix the unfixable. I am able to kill the complete history in 2.49.5 with just the right delete via menu.

It would still be possible to enhance it. Just needs someone willing to do it without much help from the remaining devs which are swamped to keep SeaMonkey afloat. Happy to give build setup instructions. If you find something history related which does work in Firefox 60 and not in 2.53 or 2.57 let me know. Pretty easy to do ports right now.

> Wait till/if webextensions kick in. That will surely be a blast!)

As long as we are able to update 2.53 and 2.57 it should be a nice blast. As for a SeaMonkey based on current code and webext only: don't bet on it anytime soon and it would shed so many features I am not sure I even want it. But lets first see how fast Mozilla dies or if we are first. My bet is on ...

FRG