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Firefox 3 smart bar is just too smart

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Firefox 3 smart bar is just too smart

#31

Post by dangoldin »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #30
Zev wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like that Mozilla went out there and tried to change things around. I'm just wondering what the rationale behind not allowing the previous way to be used is. Don't suppose you know or have an inkling? My problem with "awesomebar" is that while it does bring up the sites I visit often (which FF2 did, and given they're a small number of social/news sites; /., reddit, hn, facebook, nytimes, etc its not exactly difficu…

I'd like to point out that Opera 9.5 alpha had this feature before "Mozilla went out there and tried to change things around."

Definitely. I've been using it for the past month or so and have no idea why everyone is making such a big deal out of this.

At first it was a little messy but I've gotten used to it so it's fine by me.

Re: Firefox 3 smart bar is just too smart

#32

Post by Tichy »

I think it is great. Bookmarks on FF always sucked really, really bad. With the ability to search them on the fly, I am almost happy (it is a hard problem, how to organize information).

Maybe it should be possible to disable it, but since I actually like it, I don't care...

You know about the bookmark keywords, right? I have set news.yc to keyword yc (in the properties of the bookmark), so when I type "yc", I go straight to this site. Maybe that feature could alleviate your pain?

Re: Firefox 3 smart bar is just too smart

#33

Post by jsdalton »

huhtenberg wrote: post #26
bkrausz wrote: post #2

While I agree that there should be a way to disable the awesome bar, it's worth nothing that it does take some training and getting used to. The awesome bar uses historical data from previous searches, so if your search for "news" always ends with you clicking on HN, it will put that at the top. Over time, the bar will learn your preferences and become much more useful. I hated the bar at first, to the extent that I…

Well, it may sound strange and counter-intuitive, but when I am typing something in the address bar, I am typing a URL . Not searching God knows what in God knows where. I know that in FF3 I could be, but that's not what I am used to. So all non-URL stuff that smartbar throws at me is just a noise that I have to filter out. As I said above - the transition logic for FF2/IE/etc users was not thought through AT ALL. Gi…

I actually like it quite a bit.

There are probably a bunch of people like me who have grown quite accustomed to using the Firefox address bar as a quick way to do a Google i'm feeling lucky search. For me, as an FF2 user, this fits quite perfectly with that pattern of usage, and actually extends it conveniently.

Like you I do get tripped up when I try to type a straight URL in there though. Maybe if they raised the awesomeness level a tad they could do some basic pattern matching to recognize when an explicit URL is being typed there. Until then it's just a "cool" bar in my book.

Re: Firefox 3 smart bar is just too smart

#34

Post by timcederman »

Sometimes there needs to be a hard break to what you're used to if it is simply a better interaction model. Firefox's smart bar is a definite improvement, although it takes adjusting to (like the Office 2007 ribbon, and the Vista start menu)

Not all of us want feature creep, and if we're doing something a crappy way, then I don't mind if I sometimes get dragged kicking and screaming to a better model. I eventually got used to opening my browser windows in tabs instead of new windows. I got used to Gmail compared to Eudora. It's hard to satisfy everyone, and if you can satisfy a lot more people with a hard change that upsets a few people, sometimes it is better.

I don't think the points you made are prerequisites for good UI design.

Re: Firefox 3 smart bar is just too smart

#35

Post by s3graham »

Completely agree, I can't stand it. That combined with the fact that (in the Windows theme at least) the drop down on the back button is now in the wrong place are two pretty random changes that are exceedingly irritating.

Without reading up on it, I'd guess the SmartBar is an attempt towards trying to address the fact that "a lot of" [1] people don't distinguish or understand the differences between the address bar, a search box in the chrome, and whatever largish text box is at the top of their home page. That doesn't mean I don't hate it though.

[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2006/11/27/1160055...

Re: Firefox 3 smart bar is just too smart

#36

Post by Tichy »

huhtenberg wrote: post #26
bkrausz wrote: post #2

While I agree that there should be a way to disable the awesome bar, it's worth nothing that it does take some training and getting used to. The awesome bar uses historical data from previous searches, so if your search for "news" always ends with you clicking on HN, it will put that at the top. Over time, the bar will learn your preferences and become much more useful. I hated the bar at first, to the extent that I…

Well, it may sound strange and counter-intuitive, but when I am typing something in the address bar, I am typing a URL . Not searching God knows what in God knows where. I know that in FF3 I could be, but that's not what I am used to. So all non-URL stuff that smartbar throws at me is just a noise that I have to filter out. As I said above - the transition logic for FF2/IE/etc users was not thought through AT ALL. Gi…

I don't see your problem: you can still "just type your URL", can't you?

Re: Firefox 3 smart bar is just too smart

#37

Post by axod »

Zev wrote: post #21
jsteele wrote: post #12

A Firefox extension to turn off the AwesomeBar has been out since February. Oldbar https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6227

That only makes it look like FF2. It still uses the same annoying way of guessing what URL you want.

How is it annoying? Just unlearn the cryptic prefixes or urls, and type in what you really want.

Re: Firefox 3 smart bar is just too smart

#38

Post by bootload »

bkrausz wrote: post #2

While I agree that there should be a way to disable the awesome bar, it's worth nothing that it does take some training and getting used to. The awesome bar uses historical data from previous searches, so if your search for "news" always ends with you clicking on HN, it will put that at the top. Over time, the bar will learn your preferences and become much more useful. I hated the bar at first, to the extent that I…

"... Over time, the bar will learn your preferences and become much more useful. ..."

Not really.

It looks like I submit more than I read. So the "awesome" bar puts "submit" before the "index" page. Counter intuitive to what I really want, the index page where if I have to I can add /submit. It just means I now look at line 2 if I want to read.

Re: Firefox 3 smart bar is just too smart

#39

Post by gambling8nt »

Tichy wrote: post #36
huhtenberg wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it may sound strange and counter-intuitive, but when I am typing something in the address bar, I am typing a URL . Not searching God knows what in God knows where. I know that in FF3 I could be, but that's not what I am used to. So all non-URL stuff that smartbar throws at me is just a noise that I have to filter out. As I said above - the transition logic for FF2/IE/etc users was not thought through AT ALL. Gi…

I don't see your problem: you can still "just type your URL", can't you?

His problem is that he has to go through a lot more effort because under FF2, etc., he only had to type a few letters from the beginning of the URL in order to get where he was going.

Re: Firefox 3 smart bar is just too smart

#40

Post by DougBTX »

huhtenberg wrote: post #26
bkrausz wrote: post #2

While I agree that there should be a way to disable the awesome bar, it's worth nothing that it does take some training and getting used to. The awesome bar uses historical data from previous searches, so if your search for "news" always ends with you clicking on HN, it will put that at the top. Over time, the bar will learn your preferences and become much more useful. I hated the bar at first, to the extent that I…

Well, it may sound strange and counter-intuitive, but when I am typing something in the address bar, I am typing a URL . Not searching God knows what in God knows where. I know that in FF3 I could be, but that's not what I am used to. So all non-URL stuff that smartbar throws at me is just a noise that I have to filter out. As I said above - the transition logic for FF2/IE/etc users was not thought through AT ALL. Gi…

What happens when you type in "ycomb" instead? Since it is search, that should come up with news.ycombinator.com, not any old web address that starts with news...
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