Re: [Epiphany] Bookmarks window changes

[Christian Rose <menthos menthos com>]

tor 2003-02-13 klockan 04.09 skrev bordoley@msu.edu:
> I'm concerned about a recent change to the bookmarks ui which allows a user to
> change the location of a bookmark. In particular, this makes accidentally
> changing the location of a bookmark trivially easy, with no way to undo. 
> Furthermore, these are bookmarks right, does it even make sense to allow the
> user to change the location...

I've given some thought about this and how it relates to using bookmarks
(in Galeon¹) in my own case, and if/why I ever use the location field --
it could, as you argue, just be considered a non-editable property, much
like the primary key in a database, at first sight.

My answer is "yes, I do use it", and even though it's not the most
frequently used feature it's not that uncommon over a longer period of
time. The reasons are basically as follows:

1) Many web sites set excessively verbose page titles, or even none at
all. Instead of "Welcome to the web site of FooCorp Inc." or even
"Untitled" I prefer something short and descriptive as "FooCorp" in my
bookmarks, in order to cut down the irrelevant information and be able
to actually find the bookmark later.

2) I rarely categorize bookmarks when I first file them, but later try
to do bigger cleanups. Then I move the bookmarks into different bookmark
folders, or even create new folders if I have several bookmarks of some
kind.

3) The web is dynamic and web sites actually move stuff around, for
better and for worse. They move content to different directories,
archive the content, or rename files from .html to .php, .shtml or
whatever. I sometimes find that bookmarks are no longer valid after only
months, which is pretty annoying, but nothing to do much about except
trying to correct the bookmarks.

In order to solve the problem in 3) I usually just edit the URL field,
instead of having to file a new bookmark and do 1) and 2) all over
again.

Since all other web browsers out there do allow for customization of the
URL in bookmarks, one could also argue that there possibly is some level
of expectation among some user group in being able to do so. Hence, if
this is not allowed in Epiphany, there should probably be some visible
instruction (dialog text, tooltip or something like that) with how to
file a new bookmark in order to correct the location, so as to make sure
that no user is left in the dust wondering about why they're not allowed
to edit the location like in other browsers.

But then again, that seems somewhat backwards as a solution to a fix a
problem we don't actually know is a problem, as it seems such a fix
would instead cause more problems (the need for a instruction on how to
file a new bookmark instead). Perhaps the solution is to have a
multi-tabbed bookmarks property dialog where the URL field isn't that
prominently placed, instead of going out of ones way in trying to
disable editing altogether.


Christian



¹ Yes, I don't use Epiphany yet. I'm a bad, lazy person. I know.