Open Bug 115981 Opened 23 years ago Updated 2 years ago

Quick access to "Favorites" directory in the "Open" and "Save As..." dialogues in Windows

Categories

(Firefox :: File Handling, enhancement)

x86
All
enhancement

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()

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(Reporter: Peter, Unassigned)

References

Details

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(2 files)

Quick access to "Favorites" directory in the "Open" and "Save As..." dialogues in Windows There should be a button (or icon) in the "Save As..." dialogues that takes you to the favorites directory. There, the user has quick access to all directories he has deemed as important enough to want quick access to. For instance, I am currently managing about 10 projects at my company and have a "favorite" defined for each project. I also have an additional 10-20 favorites for other network directories (e.g., proposals, report templates, technical data, etc). Now, whenever I receice attachments from clients, it would be very useful to be able to quickly select that project's directory and save the files there. Suggested UI: +- Open/Save a file -----------------------------------------+ | ________________________________ | | Recent directories: |________________________________|\/| | <-- bug 115574 :) | ---------------------------------------------------------- | | _______________________ | | Look in: |_______________________|\/| |^| [FavIco] | <-- fav-icon here | +--------------------------------------------------------+ | | | files (favs) listed here | | | | | | | | | | If bug 115574 is possible (modify open/save dialogues) and "a good idea" then this one must at least be one too :) Would this apply to other OS's (Linux, Mac) too?
adding Alex B. because he liked my other idea in bug 115574 (if you're not interested, I apologize)
Blocks: 75364
Keywords: mozilla0.9.9
OS: Windows 98 → All
Hardware: PC → All
confirming rfe. UI people should look at this....
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
next release
Target Milestone: --- → mozilla1.0.1
I looked over the shoulder of my colleague who uses MS Access 2000 and saw that it "seems" that MS has split the "file" favorites from the "web" favorites (two separate folders, two separate icons). This would make this feature even more useful, since favorites will increasingly be used (and demanded by users) for quick access to file directories. I will attach some screenshots of typical applications (WordPerfect and Word) showing their use of a favorites button in their "Open" and "Save as..." dialogues.
Once discovered, this is an immensely useful tool.
bug http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=125133 has some discussion and a proposal for this
Target Milestone: mozilla1.0.1 → Future
Blocks: 80636
No longer blocks: 80636
Blocks: 125133
adding self to cc list
Depends on: 132831
Dup of bug 112900?
Jesse, as I pointed out in 112900, this bug has been chosen for the work on favorites (it describes the problem better IMO) and therefore blocks 125133. Therefore 112900 should be a DUP of this, not the other way round.
Depends on: 19437
How does this bug depend on bug 19437 ([RFE] Move, delete, and edit bookmarks inline (in menu))? :-/
Peter, I guess you are right - I meant to make it dependent on bug 64324. The idea is that having a context menu for menu items would greatly simplify the interaction needed for this. I dont say it has to be in the final design, but we should keep that idea in mind. A dependency would also show the potential usefulness of this feature in bug 64324.
No longer depends on: 19437
nsbeta1-
Keywords: nsbeta1nsbeta1-
Incorporating by reference http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=24625#c13 and the attachment it describes.
Making this dependend on bug 64324 (see comment #12) and bug 146137 (odd behaviour of button when type menu-button is used). I'd like to implement this as a menu-button dropdown menu that is attached to the home button in filepicker. Having bug 64324 implemented would be great because it would let us avoid seperate menu items like "manage favorites" to delete or reorder the favorites. Getting info on bug 146137 would be great because it seems that either there is a bug in the implementation of that button type or I am missing something bigtime. Unfortunately nobody did confirm that bug yet, though it has a simple testcase attached.
Depends on: 64324, 146137
RE comment #15: What is the difference between a "home" and a "favorites" button? It seems you use Linux(?) and don't know that the expected OS behavour for the favorites button in Windows is to take the user to/from the favorites subdirectory. This "special" directory merely contains *links* to other directories. Thus there is no need for extra buttons to manage, delete or reorder favorites - this can be done once in the favorites directory. This is *far* more powerful than a simple "home" button in Linux (unless there are a bunch of simlinks(?) to other directories in the home directory (unlikely). BTW. Mozilla for Win has a "go to desktop" button (like the linux "home" button), which is about as useful as a fork in the eye (OK, slight exaggeration). ;) All this bug really requests is one favorites button that takes the user to (and from?) the favorites directory. Perhaps, as a bonus, there could also be an "Add this Location to Favorites" button. If you are still interested in takling this bug, with the above in mind, I would be thrilled. :-D
This bug only applies to the XP filepicker. Windows issues are of no relevance here since Windows uses the native OS filepicker. The plan for this bug is to use the existing home button and attach an additional menu to it that lets you handle favorites. Comments on how to do this in a user friendly way welcome. I was thinking that a first implementation could simply use a menu that is limited to, say, 10 locations, with a FIFO strategy to throw them away when the 11th one is added. I guess one usually will not have more favorite download directories anyway - if the favorites menu gets too complicated, you are probably faster using other means to go to the desired path. For the same reasons I would suggest not to use a hierarchical menu like for the bookmarks for this, not even in the ultimate version wich might not be limited to 10 directories.
> This bug only applies to the XP filepicker. Windows issues are of no relevance > here since Windows uses the native OS filepicker. *I* filed this bug because the windows native filepicker sucks, and *every* decent windows program (even MS WORD!!!) has a "Favorites" button in the filepicker. Hiding the favorites under a never-used "Home" button would be useless - no one would ever *discover*, let alone use it. Limiting the Favorites to a (limited) menu list further increases the ideas uselessness. I have at least 30 favorites at my office pointing to all kinds of obscurely named, but often used, network directories. Being able to manage (rename, delete) Favorites in the filepicker is also important because when you add a Favorite, it gets the name of the directory it points to, which is often not an intuitive name (project number "09488-152"). It therefore often needs to get renamed on-the-fly (e.g., "EXXON Merger - Environmental Audit"). Also, windows users are used to having a Favorites button. BTW. Favorites *can* contain (non-shortcut, REAL) subdiretories, so a hierarchical menu would become mandatory, thus making the idea of a menu even more ... well you get the picture. BTW. You could have a Favorite shortcut that takes you to your "Home" directory. The home dir is a *subset of Favorites* and not the other way around.
OK I guess we should divide this into two bugs then, one for windows and one for the XP filepicker. The problem is that the dependencies and several comments apply (falsely, according to Peter) to the XP version only. So one solution would be to make this bug the XP favorites bug and create a new bug for OS Windows that requests the favorite buttons as seen in Word (there are actually two of them as seen in attachment 69240 [details]).
I don't care what you do with winXP (I don't and will not use that spyware POS). This bug will remain for win9x and other applicable OS's. You can move winXP to _another_ bug, if you must. Win9x stays here!
Peter, this is not about WinXP versus other Windows versions, but *any* windows versus non-Windows. The filepicker that is used for other (non-windows) platforms is called "xp" for "cross-platform". My suggestion was to be pragmatic and move the Windows-only bug to a fresh one and leave this bug as the XP (cross platform) one.
Thank for clearing that up (xp <> Windows XP). :) The subject line (and I) says "Windows". So please move "xp" stuff to another bug.
Incorporating by reference a continuation of comment 14 http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=24625#c15
The i suggest that bug 112900 be for favorites in the XP filepicker and this one for the Windows filepicker. Sorry for the confusion. It seems it is not possible to have OS=Windows, but OS=All seems wrong too. Should we pick a representative Win-OS, e.g. Windows98?
Hardware: All → PC
Removing incorrect dependencies, adding to bug 112900
No longer blocks: 75364, 125133
No longer depends on: 64324, 132831, 146137
QA Contact: sairuh → petersen
*** Bug 183432 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Nav triage team: nsbeta1-
Keywords: nsbeta1nsbeta1-
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.2.1; MultiZilla v1.1.34 (d)) Gecko/20030221 Related: Mozilla should recognize the .url file extension on Windows. Currently, if you open a .url file from the Favorites, you see something like [InternetShortcut] URL=http://www.w3.org/Protocols/
Assignee: law → nobody
QA Contact: chrispetersen → file-handling
Product: Core → Firefox
Target Milestone: Future → ---
Version: Trunk → unspecified
Severity: normal → S3
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