I am a poweruser. I use a browser continiously for several hours each day. Some of it is because of web development, but that was mainly in earlier years, now it is mostly a work tool. I search and research, communicate, manage documents and documentation, read and write in all possible forms throughout a normal workday. It is *the* one application I need and use.
So, I want and need to have as few bumps and as many effective shortcuts and useful features as possible - doesn't mean I want *many* features, quite the opposite, but I do need the features that are to be streamlined and effective. So, of course I'm happy when I find a browser that is under development, for my selected platform and that already seems to have understood parts of this effectiveness. And now I'm sad, because it seems to have become forgotten again. Maybe I'm missing something, but now it seems that very strange descisions and defaults are entered into the process without due thought - like making a typed word default to www.theword.com - that is rarely useful or yields the expected result (try it yourself). So, of course I'm protesting. And I'll outline how I think this should work, and why. First, I'd like to address this: On 9/4/05, Adam Hooper <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > First of all, read <http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=158486>. > The original behavior was a privacy violation (with a dash of corporate > favouritism) which is certainly a more critical bug (albeit, probably > for fewer people). If the choice is only between enabling and disabling > the auto-search, disabling is unquestionably the right thing to do. [...] > It boils down to this: automatically sending typos and other accidental > phrases to a for-profit company beyond GNOME's control is Wrong. It's > evil. Taking that into account, we must think up a better way of > handling searches. It'll take creativity: no browser I've seen has done > a good job of it. "Evil"? Come on. Favoritism maybe, and for the privacy concerned it might be uncomfortable, but calling it Evil is a bit rich. I might agree with you though, if it wasn't for the fact that a huge percentage of all web browsing goes via Google anyways - having to jump through hoops to get there (going manually to the site, using separate bars, having to press down/up arrows like in old obsolete Mozilla suite...) is just awful and hindering for someone who does this a lot. And: everyone who is concerned enough about their privacy *will* check preferences for settings to turn off, that's why that proposed solution was so much better. Give them the ability to not auto-search, everyone is happy. The only way around Google is if there were any good alternatives. And I'm all in favour for having *where* to search configurable. You could even have several available choices, including Yahoo, MSN and "none" and pop a question first time browser is started. Now that is providing choice, and being honest up front. What I really would want is a Unified and Smart Location Bar(TM). That is, a location bar that takes any input and tries to make sense of it. Most of this is already there (although now disabled) and with a few final tweaks it could be extremely effective. This would also allow for extra goodness such as being able to send any selected text via context menu to Location bar and have it used as a link when it's an unhyperlinked URL, or as a search when it's just plain words. Any external application could send *anything* to Epiphany for "web processing" and have it treated in a best guess-manner. Such as when I select a few words in Gaim, I could do context->send to Epiphany and have it do The Right Thing(TM) - probably a search. The location bar should: * Look and see if the first word matches a keyworded search. * If it was only that word, go to matching non-search bookmark * If there's more, go to matching search bookmark. * Yep, I want double meanings for keywords in many cases, think Wikipedia (which has a workaround instead). * Look up any valid-looking input in DNS, and if there is a match, go there. * If the site does not respond, display error message and do not search (remember, this is *after* DNS lookup ensuring the site *should* exist) * If there is no match in DNS, use the query as entered in the chosen default search. Even if there is dots or special characters in the input. Why then do I want keyworded searches instead of matching on title, search in bookmarks etc? Because then I can set it up with a minimum of effort. There is no risk that another bookmark suddenly clashes with my others, it's always obvious what is meant, because I have to explicitly make it behave this way. Otherwise, I think we are looking at lots of unexpected results and accompanying complaints/bug reports. On top of all the wikipedia and different forum searches I've set up, I am also planning to set up a simple system where I can easily enter bugs, ticket, todos, notes etc by simply typing stuff like: CTRL-T CTRL-L "bug ProjectName:Window crashes on exit" and have that filed as a bug for project projectName. Of course, that's only a keyworded bookmark to "http://url.tld/bugs/add/%s"; but this is high usability for me. And with a convenient context menu dialog like in FF, it's a breeze to add the keywords. I'll also argue that doing a search like this is what most people will like and have use for. Consider how people use the web: A complete rookie on everything web might enter an address she got from someone, like www.somepetstore.com or simply entering some words for what she wants to reach, ie "Pet Store Springfield". A list of good matches appear. Good things happen all around. A more savvy user either enters a full URL, or goes to Google to search for "Pet Store Springfield". Might use a bookmark to go to Google, but often not. Can be enlightened of more direct way to do it. Good things happen eventually. Power users already search, search, search all the time and either use CTRL-K in FF or have tweaked setting to old Epiphany behaviour, use keyworded bookmarks for common sites and searches and just occassionally enters manual URLs - hell, I often search for appropriate keywords rather than type a long URL, even if I do know it. Good things again, all around. Now, I wonder, what are the bad cases? When is something unwanted happening here? More from Adam Hopper: > What's the easiest workaround? Create a smart bookmark to google.com > (bookmark "http://www.google.com/search?q=%s";). When you type in an > address, you can select that smart bookmark to perform the search: it > shows up at the bottom of the auto-complete list. This has always > worked, and it's nice because it lets you use many search engines. This is the behaviour in the old Mozilla Suite and it's no wonder it was not kept in FF. It's very awkvard to use, although I won't mind if that is provided as an alternative for those who like it. > How about a better fix? Well, if we could allow a keyboard shortcut to > go to a smart bookmark field, we could bind "Ctrl-K" to a default > "google" smart bookmark, as done in Firefox. I personally dislike that > behavior, because I'm used to typing anything I want into the one, big > "location" field. (In my experience, 90% of Firefox browsing sessions > begin by typing a whole lot of words into that 10-character-wide field; > and the Location bar is rarely -- if ever -- used.) Completely agree. I've had FF set up in old Epiphany behaviour for at least a year, and always remove that box completely from my interface. Not a good solution. > There are plans for a "keyword search" feature, too, like Galeon does. > "gg some search terms", for instance. I'm not particularly fond of that > idea, but I could live with it. It would be an extension. This I use all the time, both for search and not. "bank" goes to my bank, "mail" to my gmail account. "ggf" searches Garagegames forums, "wp" searches Wikipedia, "swp" the Swedish Wikipedia, and so on. It's absolutely excellent for "power surfing" if you will. No need to open and navigate a bookmarks menu for things you do all the time. This is also the one feature people always say "wow, cool" and start to use when I tell them about it in FF. My only wish is that I could set the same keyword for two URLs: search and non-search. I hope there isn't some issues about trying hard not to be FF, so the features that are good in it are ignored. That would be too bad, because Firefox *is* a really good browser. It is possible to do a better one, for sure, but not by throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Ok, now that was a longwinded letter alright. Sorry about that. I am not trying to pick a fight - at least not for the purpose of fighting, but I am very concerned about the direction Epiphany is taking. I would extremely much want it to be as great as it can possibly be, and I want to use it myself. So I'm a bit vehement about issues like these, which I feel are going in the wrong direction. I hope you can have some understanding. :) Regards, Stoffe -- Kristoffer Lundén ☎ 0704 48 98 77 ✉ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ICQ: 618 289 83 http://www.gamemaker.nu/ Rediscover the web: http://getfirefox.com/
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