User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.1b2) Gecko/20081201 Firefox/3.1b2 Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.1b2) Gecko/20081201 Firefox/3.1b2 I'd like to have a toolbar button to toggle private browsing. It'd be MUCH more convenient to just click a button than to do ALT (hide menubar is on) -> Tools -> Private Browsing Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. 2. 3.

I wonder if this button would be used, for everyone then knows that you browse privately sometimes or often enough to place the button on your toolbar.

For the record. I created an extension to toggle private browsing via a toolbar or statusbar button. You can also toggle the prefs in Add-ons options. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9517 See also, http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=938615 for CSS that will be in the next version for more UI verification of being in this mode.

Maybe it would be best if private browsing were always visible in the statusbar (icon red or green that you can toggle). Then it's not so obvious that you want to erase your tracks sometimes.

I'm not sure if we want to ship this button in the core product (and if we do, it would target 3.2 at least), but here are a few comments. I don't think a toolbar/statusbar button is useful to a large percentage of users to be visible by default. So, for example the visibility of a toolbar button for private browsing itself can let other people know that you use this mode from time to time. If the toolbar button's appearance is changed inside the private mode (for example, showing it depressed, or using a graphic glyph to represent it being active), then it will allow people to tell whether you're in the private browsing mode by seeing the appearance of the toolbar button.

Under the rationale that we should provide toolbar buttons in the customization pallet for commonly used menu commands, I think this makes sense. But I agree with your points for why we would not want to make this part of the default control configuration. An additional reason is that the mode probably won't be used enough for inclusion in the default UI, where "enough" is probably an action you take multiple times per day, every day.

(In reply to comment #5) > Under the rationale that we should provide toolbar buttons in the customization > pallet for commonly used menu commands, I think this makes sense. But I agree > with your points for why we would not want to make this part of the default > control configuration. > > An additional reason is that the mode probably won't be used enough for > inclusion in the default UI, where "enough" is probably an action you take > multiple times per day, every day. I think it would make sense to have it in reserve in the button palette even if it might not necessarily be worth having it on a toolbar by default. Users would then have the choice of activating it or not. I suppose that some users might prefer to keep on a toolbar an important button which they use only occasionally, maybe _because_ they use it only occasionally - but when they do, they want it immediately reachable without having to hunt for it through the various menus on the menubar. (When I use a menu every day, I know where it is; but if it's only once a month or so, I might remember that it exists but not necessarily where or under what name. So I might want to place that button between two elastic spaces right of the "Help" menu on the menubar, where it would stand out like a sore eye.)

So, Alex, am I correct in assuming that we are not targeting this for 3.1? If we need it by then, I can post a patch soon, if not, we can take this after the pressure of the 3.1 release drops.

Yeah, we don't have time to get the artwork done for 3.1, so let's target 3.2

Alex, should I mark this as [icon-needed]?

yep, adding

We now have a toolbar button for a new private window so => WFM.