Firefox/Feature Brainstorming

Firefox Feature List Brainstorming

We are currently in the early development stage for Firefox 2, and would like to collect all the ideas for front-end, user-facing feature enhancements in a single place. Our goal is to create a single index that lists what sorts of things we're thinking of doing, with links to more detailed ideas about implementation specifics or concerns, and tagets for inclusion in the project.

How to use this page:

• If you have ideas about features listed below please create a new wiki page off of your user page that outlines your ideas (mockups welcome!) and add a link to that page in the "References" column. Or link to existing pages with examples, design thoughts, interesting articles, etc.

• If you have ideas for features not listed below please add them to the most appropriate group below. Leave the target field blank, and add any references to more detailed implementation ideas.

note: mozilla platform feature enhancements are not in scope for this page; please refer to the Draft Gecko 1.9 Roadmap

Requiring new UI design

Feature	Target	References
Deafult Page Zoom and Default Text Zoom setting the default page zoom % for every page being loaded setting the default text zoom % for every page being loaded Menu entries for them in the view menu in a possible page zoom submenu and text zoom submenu Also putting this in Tools > Options > Content > Page Zoom % and Text Zoom % pretty please with a cherry on top	FFx2
Identity Management password and cookie management next-generation identity systems single sign-on	ext/FFx3	Identity 2.0 at OSCON
Optional Eye Candy Integration Tab opening + closing animation Sidebar and search animation Possible manipulation by theme	FFx3
Optional IE theme Same size and button positioning Tab opening like IE7
Session Saver restore tabs/windows restore history of each tab advanced restore of DOM state/content	FFx2	Session Saver .2 Session Manager
Roaming Profiles share a server hosted profile between multiple installations secure storing and transmission: bookmarks, mail headers, passwords, cookies etc. optional choices, eg: mail -> share only sent mails HTTP(DAV)[, SFTP, LDAP] user installable server script (PHP?)		"Roaming Thoughts" (boo)
RSS Reader/Viewer	FFx2	Feed Handling - design document feedreader+ design document
Omnibus "Status" Area download status popup/cookie/XPI blocker status security/trustworthiness status see "Artifact/Resource Detection"	FFx2
Phishing Protector	ext
Content Manipulation (like GM) persistant site-specific view options tie-in to accessibility for consumers annotation/personalization of the web	future
Artifact/Resource Detection make it easier to find linked/embedded content media type detection microformats rss detection	ext	Myk's Microsummaries Idea
History/Bookmark Overhaul history enhancements global history navigation & presentation session history navigation & presentation (handling iframes & modern DOM trickses) search using metadata / full page text from cache Option to store all text from all pages (possibly excluding https and preset sites) ever visited -- this would let you revisit pages that disappeared off the internet, and also do very good search through history. At 100 pages per day, and a very generous 10k per page (storing text-only, not scripts and images), this would be about a third of a gig annually, so manageable storage requirements by modern standards. bookmark enhancements tag-based system preserving hierarchical behaviour for those who want it when searching for bookmarks show the folder from the founden bookmarks page change notification (any bookmark can be "live") make it easier to directly add a keyword when saving bookmarks (ie: you should see a keyword field when you press cntrl+D to bookmark a page) Easily-accessible, actual book-style bookmarks for long documents, where you can: Preserve your position in the page Move, rather than create new/delete old, the bookmark. This is useful when reading through e.g. the archives of an on-line comic, an e-book, or catching up after vacation on a blog like slashdot, Allow the user to store the full text and images of bookmarked pages, just in case they go away. next-generation ideas scrapbook/grabbag concept relevance based filtering leverage power of DB-based history/bookmarks auto-linking/smart tagging preserving DOM state baysian training/pruning APIs & integration points social web service tie-ins remote/sharing APIs portable profile	FFx2	"on tagging" (dria) thumbnail session history (ben)
Intro/Tutorial Mode host it on mozilla.com as movies have some UI hooks in the product	FFx2	thoughts from FunnyMan3595
Bluetooth support (send content to device)	future
Extension Security & Management whitelist & blacklist third-party signing and authentication by Mozilla	FFx2	Extension Blacklisting UI Spec
Stub Installers	FFx1.5
Look & Feel for XUL Rendered in Browser Window Get a design team up 'n running	FFx2	Bug 322007
EULA displayed on first run for each new profile required for distribution opportunities This is probably not required for distribution opportunities, and is indeed probably a bad idea (reduces usability, no benefit). This is only required for programs having license clauses stronger than copyright law (e.g. no reverse engineering), and not for GPL/MPL/NPL-style licenses.	FFx2	End-User License Agreement (EULA) Requirements for Firefox 2

Requiring significant changes to existing UI

Feature	Target	References
Tabbed Browsing select on close behaviour close buttons tabs instead of windows drag tabs between windows detach tab to new window merge windows to tabs tab switching via Mouse Scroll Wheel (on all Platforms) grouping of tabs (possibly by multiple tab rows) open tabs one upon the other and/or side by side in a single window Shading of Tabs denoting time since it started (On the scale of white to black, white is more recent than black) Thumbnail tab view as currently in foXpose extension	FFx2	design thoughts for tabs instead of windows Ben Goodger blogs about tabs Whether Ctrl+W should not close the app Diego Gálvez made some comments on Ben Godger test build that includes new tab management
Find Improvements find integration points for web applications	FFx3
Search Engine Management adding/managing search engines clarifying the default "I'm feeling lucky" search in URL bar	FFx2	User:Auk/Search_Model
Spell Check	FFx3
Download Manager schedule integrated support for 3rd party Anti-virus scanners ability to 'Add' file to be downloaded via URL make many connections (to different or same server) p2p support (locating/participating) download queue	ext	Further Thoughts on download manager changes
Aging Population Accessiblity smart font sizing page zoom	FFx3
Zoom/panning/scaling for images	future
Print Preview Fully editable document within print preview utilizing simple text editor	FFx2
Extension Management version compatibility options management update/install/remove	FFx2
Image file support support for MNG embedded SVG in page via <img> tag support for JPEG2000 keep transparency when copying/pasting transparent images (PNG, GIF, etc...)	FFx2
Improving Theme Capabilities	FFx3
Support w32 Group Policies Allowed extensions Basic customizations (eg. company homepage)		Requires that controls become disabled if overridden by policy. Use the normal Windows UI for editing the policy itself. See bug 267888
Make the profile manager accessible through the menu		details & discussion
Tabbed Browsing via Sidebar User should choose tab or tab Sidebar (with thumbnails)		Tab Sidebar extension homepage
Allow user to move toolbars		See bug#172818
Allow user to disable plugins via about:plugins via Options/Preferences via Extensions
Extentions and GUI convert to object code should increase execution speed should decrease less memory usage

Requiring little or no UI changes

Feature	Target	References
Improve App/OS Integration	FFx3
Transactional DOM	FFx3
Adblock and Remote Filter Sets	ext	Why not use Adblock?
Base on XULRunner	FFx3
Autocomplete URL from middle of word local filenames user's bookmarks using history frequency for relevance	FFx2	remarks from bur
Offline Mode/Use of Cache browsing apps (supercookies)	FFx2
Instrumentation history navigation install/uninstall	FFx3
Precognitive Fetch	FFx3
Integrate MHT saving (see MAF extension)
Convenient usable flash blocker should be easy to use should apply as a default for all pages should allow flash for certain sites should be able to load flash on user request Should also block the stupid "Extension not installed" pop-up if you do not have flash installed. Without flash installed, Firefox is a royal pain to use, since half of the sites on the Internet use it for ads, and each time you visit one, you get a stupid dialog you need to click away before you can keep browsing. I should be able to say "no" once, dammit.		remarks from bur Flashblock ext exists
Make printing popup windows possible		more here
Make searching textarea possible	FFx2	more here
Show and hide navigation/bookmark/menu bar via a right-click menu everywhere		details & discussion
Minimize to tray		details & discussion
Improve bookmarks backend		more here
Option to show an icon next to (and/or in the status bar) hyperlinks which open in a new window/tab (e.g. the icon next to external links on Wikipedia, etc).
Saved Password Editing Ability to edit saved usernames and their respective passwords via the Privacy > Passwords > View Saved Passwords dialog
Find function improvements/options Highlighting Allow user to configure highlight colour Highlight colour is chosen to be in contrast to the page background		Visual feedback on text/link find
Stability/Performance Stability Optimize browser stability when using a lot of extensions Performance Optimize memory usage	FFx2	Mozillazine advice
Form Dirty Bit Warn User before closing page with modified form		Form Dirty Bit
Crash Recovering (automatic session saving with minimal UI impact) Saves tab histories, form data, cookies Offers to restore after a crash Optional restoring after controlled shutdown Prompt force termination of Firefox process when trying to reopen after unexpected crash		Crash Recovery
Better AccessKeys implementation no conflicts between web page and browser shortcuts showing AccessKeys for the current page		AccessKeys_solution
Search for whole words only Search bar should allow the user to search for a string matching only a whole word.		Search for whole words only
Improved ad filtering A bunch of web sites get around pop-up blocking by having it event-triggered, rather than on-load. I hit ctrl-L on the Dilbert comic site, with maximum pop-up block settings in my browser (FX 1.5.0.1), and much of the time, it pops up an ad window. That sucks. Have a menu option to the effect of "show all images", because there's some Akamai server that mostly servers ads, but also "order" buttons on some Yahoo stores and travel web sites Possibly, replace ads with "Ad blocked. Right click to display" Block links around ads. The whole pages shouldn't be a danger zone -- if I click somewhere blank on a web page to give my browser focus, I shouldn't be taken to the advertiser's web site. Eventually, regexes I can type in myself Then, learning by example. "Block this one" "don't block that one" and it figures it out The goal should be to have Firefox work well out-of-the-box (rather than with n hours of poweruser tweaking), so relying on extensions is not the best idea		RemoveItPermanently
Maintain form state in history You fill out a long form, click Submit, and an error occurs. You click Back and sometimes all of your form data is gone. I think it has to do with the page having a short TTL so it is re-requested from the server and re-rendered with a blank form. Allow users to go back through history and see exactly what was entered in the forms on pages. Never save password fields except through existing functionality Allow user to enable/disable feature
Resize search box The box may extend as needed or be set to a new static size Users (like me) can see what they are searching when using more than two words.	FFx2
Ability to remove search engine addons from search box Users won't have to remove the default/global search engine addons to get rid of them Users won't have to find to find and remove user specific added search engine addons	FFx2
Easy extension finding It's one thing being told Firefox is great because you can add all these extensions. For a significant number of users the reality is that wide choice is confusing and disencouraging, and that searching through 3 "tabbed browser extensions" wondering which is "the best" or "right for them" is a powerful disincentive. Not how many developers here think, but many end users will. The Firefox forum has a basic FAQ "I want to do X, what extension do I use" page Users coming to Firefox need to be met on their first use, with a "welcome to Firefox" intro, to be told about extensions (amongst other things), and an easily noticed "find me an extension" access point, because helping people to look for extensions for functions they are used to, and quickly choose the one they want, is crucial to acceptance by a significant part of the market who want it easy and "just to work". Ideal solution, some kind of online "find me an extension" wizard that helps users identify needs, and recommends the top 3 extensions to do that function, describing them in enough detail that users have some way to choose; online so it's always most up to date. (In best marketing style, I'd have it, however it's done, always say "People who liked this extension, might also like an extension to do XYZ." To encourage exploration of Firefox's strengths)		FAQ on forum Extensions summary on TEM
Run userChrome.js when loading a XUL window		details & discussion
SSL auth required for send password This is an optional, but stongly recommended feature suggested during install Sending password with FORM.send or Javascript.Send check if the page is SSL encrypted and will display an error message if there's no valid SSL certificate. Will not allow adding "*" to FORM.edit field from Javascript (avoid sproof) This way a user will get warning when tries to log in to an unsafe service, like phising sites. All sites with authentication should have valid SSL certificate or should be added to "safe to login" list.		details & discussion
Extension compatibility improvements		Extension compatibility ideas