"AwesomeBar" is totally NOT awesome

Discussion about official Mozilla Firefox builds
Locked
12bando12
Posts: 4
Joined: March 21st, 2008, 4:36 am

"AwesomeBar" is totally NOT awesome

Post by 12bando12 »

You can feel free to delete this, O Great Admins, but I'm putting it in as a new topic because I don't feel it's getting enuf attention. I read many of the posts here that talked about it and some people are just blind to the disaster. So, you should really leave this post, IMHO, and allow some more serious discussion...

The bottomline, as many others have posted here and other places, is that the new autocomplete location bar is a big pain in the buttocks. It's too big, the list does not 'learn' my choices correctly, and it's a total change to browsing habits that is not wanted. This should be an option only.
User avatar
Recall
Posts: 1686
Joined: November 7th, 2004, 11:07 am
Location: United Kingdom

Post by Recall »

Disagree totally, the only thing I would like is for tags to be the top search.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-GB; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008051206 Firefox/3.0
duntkno
Posts: 124
Joined: February 19th, 2006, 7:43 am

Post by duntkno »

Recall wrote:Disagree totally, the only thing I would like is for tags to be the top search.


and i disagree with that.
User avatar
nightwatch
Posts: 158
Joined: May 15th, 2006, 1:57 am
Location: Chicago, IL
Contact:

Post by nightwatch »

among many you're one of the few that doesn't like it
User avatar
DuncanL
Posts: 235
Joined: August 1st, 2003, 7:41 am

Post by DuncanL »

I certainly can't go back to FX2 after using the Awesome bar - being able to dig up any past page without worrying about the specific URL is a revolution in browsing habits. Just give it a few days to get used to it and I don't think you'll be going back either.
Current Firefox Version: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-GB; rv:1.9.1b99) Gecko/20090605 Firefox/3.5b99
supernova_00
Posts: 4832
Joined: June 24th, 2004, 8:03 pm
Location: Maryland, USA

Post by supernova_00 »

I would have agreed a few months ago and even a few weeks ago (I was a strong hater of the awesomebar) but now it is great. It works perfectly for me! I don't bookmark or tag so I just type a letter or two and the first result is usually the one I wanted.
User avatar
J.Yousey
Posts: 31
Joined: March 16th, 2007, 4:39 pm

Post by J.Yousey »

It's very useful for surfing in the beautifully enhanced full-screen mode. I imagine it would be quite a hack to show the boomarks menu in full-screen.

I like it.
XP pro, P4, Minefield
trieste
Posts: 618
Joined: September 4th, 2003, 4:15 am
Location: Singapore

Post by trieste »

Isn't there an extension (Oldbar?) to revert to Fx2 behaviour? But my, you don't know what you're missing out on.

Out of ALL the websites (~15) I visit at least once weekly, only 1 forum-based thread fails to show up at the top when I type the first keyword that comes to my mind.
User avatar
Bluefang
Posts: 7857
Joined: August 10th, 2005, 2:55 pm
Location: Vermont
Contact:

Post by Bluefang »

I agree with DuncanL. It may not be perfect, it may not be nice, and it may not be done, but I wouldn't want to go back to the old way.

I also want to point out that over the past week, there have been a number of bug-fixes regarding the new URL bar... so f you aren't using the latest nightly. I would suggest it (Though it looks like beta5 will be out in not too long).

Here is basically a summary of the bugs:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=405745
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=393678#c40

And while I haven't used oldbar, the addon page states that it only affects the visual presentation and doesn't change the auto-complete algorithm.
There have always been ghosts in the machine... random segments of code that have grouped together to form unexpected protocols. Unanticipated, these free radicals engender questions of free will, creativity, and even the nature of what we might call the soul...
GSkRC33NJ9US
Posts: 239
Joined: January 10th, 2008, 8:13 am

Post by GSkRC33NJ9US »

Well, I could quite easily go back to the old version.
It was much simpler.

However, the new bar has potential. It is as ugly as hell though(Vista theme), and the priority is not correct. It sorts things a bit poorly.

The mac version looks pretty good, but the Vista version feels wrong. It is a waste of space, with two lines of text, and whitespace surrounding the favicon and star.
Mardak
Posts: 333
Joined: October 10th, 2003, 10:24 am

Post by Mardak »

12bando12: Could you try this pre-beta5 version with some extra tweaks without using any extensions that try to revert the look/functionality?

https://build.mozilla.org/tryserver-bui ... Nfast.bar/

Fixed:
  1. <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=422491">Bug 422491</a> - Optimize AwesomeBar if it finished searching and found fewer than maxResults
  2. <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=422177">Bug 422177</a> - Awesome bar interrupts typing, so continue from where it left off
  3. <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=424454">Bug 424454</a> - Typed urls (like domain roots) need more frecency bonus
  4. <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=406257">Bug 406257</a> - reduce the number of rows in url bar autocomplete from 10 to 6
  5. <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=418257">Bug 418257</a> - Show what part of which tags match for urlbar autocomplete
  6. <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=392143">Bug 392143</a> - show keywords as url bar autocomplete choices
  7. <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=249468">Bug 249468</a> - Add all bookmark keywords to location bar autocomplete drop-down list
  8. <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=395161">Bug 395161</a> - make it possible to restrict the url bar autocomplete results to bookmarks, tags, or history entries
  9. <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=420437">Bug 420437</a> - Search and emphasize quoted strings with spaces
  10. <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=422698">Bug 422698</a> - different levels of URL decoding for address bar and autocomplete suggestions
  11. <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=423942">Bug 423942</a> - "Clear List" in download manager should be "Clear Current List" during the search
  12. <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=423718">Bug 423718</a> - Use native platform colors for URLs in the location bar autocomplete, make the line between rows lighter
  13. <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=414326">Bug 414326</a> - Use DownloadUtils for software update downloads
  14. <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=424251">Bug 424251</a> - current page's favicon displayed when letting an address starting with a protocol auto-fill
User avatar
Bluefang
Posts: 7857
Joined: August 10th, 2005, 2:55 pm
Location: Vermont
Contact:

Post by Bluefang »

Are you using the latest nightly? Like I said, There were some check-ins relating to its appearance, so it looks a bit more compact.

Also, if you are using a nightly build, there are some new about:config settings that may be of interest. They are under "browser.urlbar"

You could also use chrome edits to mess around with the display. I don't know that the element tags are, but they're probably listed somewhere or someone around here knows them.
There have always been ghosts in the machine... random segments of code that have grouped together to form unexpected protocols. Unanticipated, these free radicals engender questions of free will, creativity, and even the nature of what we might call the soul...
User avatar
JAB Creations
Posts: 394
Joined: December 28th, 2003, 10:21 pm
Location: Sarasota Florida
Contact:

Post by JAB Creations »

I like it however pressing r to remember my password has not been working in nightly builds. So the page loads but I have to manually move my mouse every time to save a password. Hope this is fixed soon. ;-)
Here to mostly fix the browser's broken GUI. I maintain the Fixed Firefox website to share the things I've confirmed work.
Oropher
Posts: 346
Joined: September 26th, 2007, 7:12 pm

Post by Oropher »

JAB Creations wrote:I like it however pressing r to remember my password has not been working in nightly builds. So the page loads but I have to manually move my mouse every time to save a password. Hope this is fixed soon. ;-)

Have you filed a bug?
Fabfire
Posts: 83
Joined: February 12th, 2005, 10:31 am

Post by Fabfire »

The functionality is there and I like it - What is absolutely horrible is the looks: the size of the drop down, with those big fonts and the double line to show the name and the address of the url... ARRGH! The look is not awesome - it is awful, and will scare the hell out of the average user. In fact it is so ugly that any of the competitive browsers end up looking much better in this department.

Seriously. I can't believe they will ship Firefox 3.0 like this - with the present looks, it will spoil the functionality of the otherwise really awesome bar...
Locked