spun off from bug 132626 --the Search item should not be in the context menu if there is no selection. o'course, this bug might become invalid (or, heh, just *fixed*) once the reorganized context menus (bug 75338) are implemented. however, the fact that this non-context relevant item is present (it's just greyed out when there's no selection) is a regression. i don't have many intermediate builds on my current machine, but this was not an issue with 3/13 bits --it is in 3/22 bits.

This is not a regression. This was an enhancement that was part of polishing search. CC'ing folks who lobbied for this. Given the new spec this should probably go to whoever is implementing the new context menus. I'm happy to fix it though. Blake, you want this?

this item should be shown at all unless there's a selection.

sorry, this item should >not< be shown at all unless there's a selection.

So who are all these people who randomly select text on web pages to see if new right-click menu items show up? How will anyone ever discover the search functionality? I only discovered it because I filed an enhancement request to implement such a feature and it got immediately closed with "we've had that for months already". "Context" should mean where you are on a page (plain text, frame, text area), not whether stuff is selected. Selected text makes sense as a "state" which might affect the items present, but it's damn confusing when it affects which items show at all.

Context would include things such as selection. I sympathize with Dan's point, but even if it is there with no selection, I doubt most people would get that the disabled'Search for <select term>" becomes enabled and meaningful when there is a selection.

While I generally agree with the premise that items in the context menus should only appear when they are available, I think our view on this is too strict here. Dan is right, no one will ever find this very cool feature otherwise. Putting it there, disabled, with the text "Search Netscape Search for <Selected Text>" would go a long, long way to making the feature discoverable and used. As it tends to be a more savvy user that is using context menus anyway, I think many of them will be able to figure out how this feature works if we do this. Frankly the bottom line is that it will help a lot more than it would hurt to bend the rules here. I've had more than one person ask me about this feature already, and as Dan found out, I've told them it's already in. You know what they say? They say they never would have found it and why isn't it there when text isn't selected. You know what we will likely never hear from our users if we do this? We will never hear "but it shouldn't appear in the context menu when I don't have something selected". We need to have this in the menus.

just for reference the bug that called for this addition in the first place is bug 114972. for my .02 this bug should be 'wontfixed'. While it is true that not a ton of people will put together the greyed-out text with the new feature and what actions they can take, that number is orders of magnitude greater than the number of people who will figure out this feature without the text(presumably through clairvoyance). Let's leave this contextitem in until someone presents a better sol'n for discoverability and we can implement that. Let's temper the knee-jerk reaction to pull this simply b/c it's non-standard. Bear in mind as well here that the audience is people who use context menus. That's a *slightly* more enlightened subset that Joe User and they may actually have a chance at 'getting it'.

I find the addition of this item in the context menu annoying and distracting - but suppose that it's something I can live with. There do seem to be more arguments for keeping it there, disabled, than not. However. Is there *ANY* way that I can turn off the icon, leaving just the text? The fact that this is the only context menu item that has an icon makes it far too obvious for my liking. I've had Smart Browsing / Internet Keywords (and Show Web Site Icons) disabled for months now and had hoped I'd seen the last of such graphics...

Nav triage team: nsbeta1-

WFM in a 04/03 build (probably from bug 75338). Re discoverability: users will discover the search-from-context-menu feature when they try to copy text from a web page to paste into a search engine. (Especially if we remove the useless "cut" and "paste" options, making "copy" first and "search" second or third.)

thanks for checking, jesse --i'll also check commercial verif bits once those are available.

this also wfm using 2002.04.03.14 comm verif bits on linux rh7.2.

v