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Firefox 2.0 for Mac: User Interface Grievances (Redux!)


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Firefox 2.0 for Mac: User Interface Grievances (Redux!)
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Brad
Selfish Heathen
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
 
2006-11-05, 22:45

Firefox 2.0 has been out for almost two weeks; so, it's high time for me to revise my list of Firefox User Interface Grievances!

Supposedly, a major focus for 2.0 was improving the user experience. If that was a goal for the Mac version, I'd say the team failed miserably. Yes, the Mac version generally got all the same new doodads that the Windows and Linux versions got. Yes, some Mac-specific issues are better, but some things are worse and many existing problems haven't been touched at all.

To recap the reason for this rant from my thread for Firefox 1.0:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad
People have seen me complain about how bad I think the user interface is for Firefox on Mac OS X. It may be able to squeak by on Windows and Linux where interface elements and behaviors aren't as universally consistent, but on Mac OS X where nearly all apps inherit the same, correct UI behaviors "for free," Firefox stands out like a sore thumb.

[...]

To some of you, few or none of these may matter at all. That's okay and that's your opinion. However, such a large list of inconsistencies can make Firefox feel quite uncomfortable for veteran Mac OS X users. In fact, some of them can be wholesale deal-breakers for users with physical disabilities.
Basically, I have serious reservations about using Firefox on Mac OS X because it feels like a shoddy, half-assed attempt at a port. Yes, it has some great extensions and features. I won't argue against that because that's irrelevant. I actually use Firefox at work on my Linux box with the Firebug, Web Developer, and HTML Validator extensions. However, when I am using a Mac, I want to use an app that feels like it was made for running on a Mac, not like it's being shoehorned into a Mac window when it really belongs in Linux-land or Windows-land.

I want to make more people aware of these problems so that one day hopefully the Firefox development team will put a little more effort into making Firefox a first-class citizen on Mac OS X. I would really like to enjoy using Firefox on Mac OS X, but the unending interface problems and inconsistencies drive me up the wall.

That being said, the following list was made using the official Firefox 2.0 version for Mac OS X, the most current stable version available at the time of this writing. I may update this list as I continue to find problems with Firefox.

Various UI Issues
  • Firefox is not localized. Changing your preferred language in System Preferences has absolutely no effect on Firefox.
  • Firefox does not intelligently support Mac OS X's resolution independence setting.
  • Scrolling is much faster than in other apps. The minimum scroll distance is much too large.
  • When the status bar is not shown, the resize box covers the scroll bar arrows.
  • The resize button acts like the Windows/Linux maximize button, but it does not even take the whole screen. It leaves 128 empty pixels to the right.
  • Despite having a blue "default" button, nothing happens when pressing return or enter when a sheet is open.
  • Saving and printing use modal dialogs that otherwise lock the entire app.
  • Tooltips are not native tooltips. Note the incorrect shadow and lack of transparency.
  • Tooltips sometimes appear empty and have the contents blink into view a brief time later.
  • Tooltips belonging to Firefox sometimes "linger" on the screen when switching to another app.
  • Contextual menus are not native. Note the incorrect shadow, incorrect divider, and sometimes incorrect font.
  • Contextual menu items cannot be selected by typing letters.
  • Contextual menu items cannot be executed by pressing the space bar.
  • Views are allowed to scroll while contextual menus stay in the same place.
  • Popup menus scroll within a specific vertical height instead of expanding as needed.
  • There are no window proxies anywhere and command-clicking the window title does nothing. While not a necessity, this is a convenience and Safari, OmniWeb, and even the years-old Internet Explorer all offer these features.
  • HTML form widgets look nothing like Mac widgets.
  • HTML form widgets (checkboxes, radio buttons) are unforgiveably ugly, using only 2-bit color and having sharp, jagged edges. This is not 1987, people.
  • Custom cursors (the "pointer" finger, the "wait" spinner) only use 1-bit "color".
  • Areas that can receive drag-and-drop objects give absolutely no feedback that they can receive something.
  • Dragging of images is not WYSISYG. Instead, Firefox creates a large marquee box with the cursor at its x and y midpoint.
  • Changing tabs is not documented in any menus and uses nonstandard keyboard shortcuts (cmd-opt-left arrow and cmd-opt-right arrow) which differ from previous versions of Firefox.
  • The full screen option is missing from the Mac version of Firefox. This is at least better than the broken full screen functionality in previous Mac versions of Firefox.
  • Option-clicking a disclosure triangle (like in the bookmark manager) does not expand child elements.
  • Page source, page info, "About", and other windows have a toolbar button that does absolutely nothing.
  • Clicking the toolbar button does not adjust the window size and does not use the slide animation. This looks especially odd in the Preferences window.
  • Page source windows present a blinking cursor implying editability, but input is not accepted.
  • Changes in a user's highlight color is not recognized until Firefox has quit and restarted; this should be a live option.
  • Firefox does not respect Mac OS X's "Smooth Scrolling" setting.
  • The whole menu bar rearranges itself depending on the context of the frontmost window (web browser, bookmarks manager, DOM inspector).
  • When the "About" window is open, it has no title and has a blank menu item under the Window menu.
  • Old circa-10.2 tabs are used in various places like the Preferences and Page Info windows and aren't even implemented correctly (selected tab doesn't move in front of the tab "edge").
  • The window should not fade when changing Preferences sections.
  • The selected item in the "List all tabs" menu is in bold text. The Mac convention is to use a check mark by the item to indicate that it is selected.
  • Pressing cmd-w when there are is only one tab does not close the window.
  • Text in the browser view ignores the system setting for the antialiasing threshold for some fonts (Times, Helvetica, Geneva, Monaco, Courier, etc.).
  • Text copied from the browser view never retains fonts, sizes, or styles.
  • Dragging column headers in the Bookmarks Editor gives no visual cue other than making the column header's text white (which should not happen anyway).

Window Toolbars
  • Whitespace around toolbar items is inconsistent with other Mac apps. Firefox's custom toolbars appear to use much narrower spacing.
  • The toolbar's background is not an Aqua background, not a "unified" background, and certainly not a brushed metal background.
  • The special "Preferences" toolbar also uses the wrong background colors.
  • The toolbar items in Preferences shouldn't change on hover.
  • Command-drag of items does nothing. This should rearrange (or remove) items.
  • Display type (Icon & Text, Icon Only, Text Only) is missing from the context menu.
  • Use Small Size option is missing from the context menu.
  • Remove Item is missing from the context menu.
  • Keep Item Visible is missing from the context menu.
  • The customize "sheet" is still not a proper sheet. It lacks transparency, shadow, and the general behaviors of a sheet.
  • The customize sheet is not modal over the window. You can still manipulate the window's contents while the sheet is open.
  • When dragging items off, they are only removed if dropped into the sheet.
  • Dragging of toolbar items is not WYSISYG. Instead, Firefox creates an ill-fitting marquee box with the cursor at its x and y midpoint.
  • cmd-clicking, shift-cmd-clicking, opt-clicking, and cmd-opt-clicking the toolbar widget does not function properly. It should cycle forwards and backwards through the display types and sizes, toggle all window toolbars, and open the customize sheet, respectively. Instead, these all act as regular clicks, toggling all toolbars.
  • Modifying toolbar item arrangement does not affect all opened windows. Modifying display type and size does not affect all opened windows.
  • Option-return in the address bar opens a new tab. The Mac convention for using the option key is to initiate a file-saving download.
  • The "go" button appears disabled unless the mouse is hovering over it.
  • The magnifying glass icon in the search field has an inconsistent behavior compared to its use elsewhere in Mac apps and the OS. In Firefox, it goes to the selected search engine's home page. In other apps, it either simply puts the cursor in the search field or it shows a list of recent search queries. Also, the icon is typically on the left side of the search field, not the right side.

Text Entry, Navigation, UI
  • The "Special Characters" palette cannot be opened in Firefox even though it can be invoked from another app and used in Firefox.
  • Fonts do not degrade gracefully for handling special Unicode characters.
  • System services are not supported at all (ie. native spell-checking, Services menu items)
  • The built-in spell-checking feature is inconsistent with the native spell-checking service. Firefox use its own built-in primary dictionary, but it also imports your custom spelling additions from the system dictionary upon launch. However, if you change your default system dictionary to a non-English language, Firefox ignores that change. Also, adding custom words to the dictionary from within Firefox does not add them to the main system's dictionary.
  • Double-click and drag does not select whole words at a time.
  • Double-click does not select the whole word if it includes any punctuation like an apostrophe.
  • Option-left/right arrow (and shift-option-left/right arrow) does not consistently skip words. It works better than in previous versions, but it still stops incorrectly at some punctuation marks like apostrophes inside words.
  • Option-up/down arrow is inconsistent with standard Mac text behaviors. It should jump to the beginning of the line after the previous line break or the end just before the next break. Instead, Firefox mimics page up/down and moves the cursor to a new position.
  • Similarly, shift-option-up/down arrow is inconsistent.
  • The cursor sometimes stops blinking or disappears completely from text fields/areas on web pages. Changing tabs makes it appear where it shouldn't.
  • Drag and drop of text is not WYSIWYG. Instead, Firefox creates a large marquee box with the cursor at its x and y midpoint.

User Accessibility
  • Tabbing through the "native" Aqua widgets in the Preferences and other areas creates an oddly-shaped, jagged halo around the selected element. Sometimes the halo lingers on items that no longer have focus.
  • Tabbing through selectable web page elements uses a 1-bit dotted outline instead of the standard Aqua selection halo.
  • Tabbing between text fields does not give any halo or outline to indicate selection.
  • Changing tabs often does not put the keyboard focus in the view. So, scrolling with the keyboard (page up, page down, arrows, etc.) does not work until the user clicks again in the view.
  • Text-to-speech is completely absent.
  • Firefox appears to completely ignore the Full Keyboard Access option in System Preferences.
  • Spoken User Interface is nonexistent except in the main menu bar and window titles. Note that this ability in menus and window titles is a feature of the default menu and window classes; so, Firefox developers have effectively done nothing.

Sound like a lot? Now also consider that this list is probably far from complete since this is just a compilation of issues that I, a single user, have experienced in the few hours here and there when I'm test-driving Firefox for Mac. I'd welcome feedback and pointers to any additional issues that I haven't uncovered yet.

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Windowsrookie
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2006-11-05, 22:49

Is it still slower than Safari?
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Brad
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Join Date: May 2004
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2006-11-05, 22:51

Quote:
Originally Posted by windowsrookie View Post
Is it still slower than Safari?
In some areas, yes. In others, no. It's a mixed bag.
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Windowsrookie
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2006-11-05, 22:59

Another question, How much RAM does it use versus safari?
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MBHockey
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2006-11-05, 23:07

:desperately awaiting the official release of Shiira 2.0:

That's quite a list, Brad
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Brad
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2006-11-05, 23:16

Quote:
Originally Posted by windowsrookie View Post
Another question, How much RAM does it use versus safari?
Both of your questions are very difficult to answer. The way browsers handle memory is a complicated matter and cannot easily (and fairly) be benchmarked.

That said, here are some very basic tests. Please don't draw any major conclusions from these numbers.

A "clean" start of Safari with no InputManager plugins, one window open, and no content loaded uses 9.96 MB of real memory on my PowerBook. A "clean" start of Firefox with no extensions or themes, one window open, and no content loaded uses 31.89 MB of real memory on my PowerBook.

Then, clearing the cache, restarting the browser, and loading www.google.com in a tab, www.apple.com in a tab, and forums.applenova.com in a tab, in that order, make Safari's memory usage jump to 20.29 MB and Firefox's usage jump to 38.67 MB.

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Majost
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Join Date: Nov 2004
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2006-11-05, 23:56

One of my biggest beefs is the non-native HTML forms and buttons. Neil Lee's Bon Echo is a slightly modified version of Firefox that uses native widgets and is specifically optimized for each Mac processor.

Gets rid of at least a bit of the ugly.
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Brad
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2006-11-06, 00:18

Quote:
Originally Posted by Majost View Post
One of my biggest beefs is the non-native HTML forms and buttons. Neil Lee's Bon Echo is a slightly modified version of Firefox that uses native widgets and is specifically optimized for each Mac processor.
Some of the nightly builds of Firefox 3.0 ("Gran Paradiso" or "Minefield") have that same option enabled for using Aqua in HTML forms. Unfortunately, "FF with Aqua" is so far making the same mistake (IMO) that Camino and the current version of Safari are making: they apply the Aqua theme to everything and wholly ignore CSS-specified customizations. This makes some forms look horrible. Personally, I think the nightly WebKit builds are going in the right direction. WebKit is using the Aqua widgetry as the default, but it also allows CSS to override and use custom styles where necessary.

Safari 3.0 for the win!

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autodata
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2006-11-06, 00:58

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad View Post
Unfortunately, "FF with Aqua" is so far making the same mistake (IMO) that Camino and the current version of Safari are making: they apply the Aqua theme to everything and wholly ignore CSS-specified customizations.
That's not entirely true. It ignores many but not all, and it actually recognizes some custom form elements, such as file select controls, better than safari.
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Kickaha
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Join Date: May 2004
 
2006-11-06, 01:20

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad View Post
Basically, I have serious reservations about using Firefox on Mac OS X because it feels like a shoddy, half-assed attempt at a port. Yes, it has some great extensions and features. I won't argue against that because that's irrelevant. I actually use Firefox at work on my Linux box with the Firebug, Web Developer, and HTML Validator extensions. However, when I am using a Mac, I want to use an app that feels like it was made for running on a Mac, not like it's being shoehorned into a Mac window when it really belongs in Linux-land or Windows-land.
Could be worse. You could be using Eclipse. *GOD* I hate that UI.

It's almost as bad as Lotus Notes. And Sametime.

Guess which three apps I'm locked into using at work now? :P
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Brad
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2006-11-06, 01:29

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kickaha View Post
You could be using Eclipse. *GOD* I hate that UI.
I had to use it for my senior design project. Some folks I know still swear by it.
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drewprops
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2006-11-06, 06:38

Brad that's an amazingly long list for having used the apps for only a few hours. As a developer you're more sensitive (and knowledgeable of the tech) than the general user. As I'm the latter, it's interesting to go through your list and realize why FireFox feels so strange, point by point. To refer to it as a port is probably the most apt description I've seen.

Steve Jobs ate my cat's watermelon.
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Eugene
careful with axes
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Hillsborough, CA
 
2006-11-06, 07:42

A long list to be sure, and many of them are probably correct. However some bullet-points are erroneous. I'll just mention one example for now...

Quote:
Whitespace around toolbar items is inconsistent with other Mac apps. Firefox's custom toolbars appear to use much narrower spacing.
The amount of white-space is determined by the length of the text label beneath the icon. Anybody can confirm this by going into Safari's Preferences and checking the spacing between the "Tabs," "RSS" and "Autofill" icons. It's not like Firefox's devs went "Haha, let's screw with their heads and reduce the icon spacing by 2 pixels!"

And more to the point, Firefox is a multi-platform 3rd-party application developed primarily by geekoids who have no sense for human-interface design. For that I have lowered my expectations with regard to Firefox's look and feel. Flaws based on opinion or deviation from Apple HIG in homegrown Apple apps are far more deserving of this type of scrutiny. I mean using Firefox is a choice, but we are pretty much locked into using monstrosities such as the OS X Finder.
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Yonzie
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Join Date: Sep 2005
 
2006-11-06, 07:45

Since it seems to fit in well here:
I'd like to switch from FF to Safari. I really would. There are however two little things that I can't live without:
* No warning when closing windows with multiple tabs.
* No Web Developer toolbar.

Converted 07/2005.
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Eugene
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2006-11-06, 08:06

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yonzie View Post
Since it seems to fit in well here:
I'd like to switch from FF to Safari. I really would. There are however two little things that I can't live without:
* No warning when closing windows with multiple tabs.
I don't understand why this is a problem. Cmd-W closes windows. Hitting that chord or clicking the red widget means you are done with the window. There shouldn't be an exception just because you might have multiple tabs open within that window. Or maybe we should just take everything one-step further and create a meta-widget that changes function based on what it thinks you might want to do...
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autodata
hustlin
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2006-11-06, 08:50

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yonzie View Post
Since it seems to fit in well here:
I'd like to switch from FF to Safari. I really would. There are however two little things that I can't live without:
* No warning when closing windows with multiple tabs.
There is actually a plugin that will do this for safari: taboo
  quote
Yonzie
Mac Mini Maniac
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
 
2006-11-06, 08:53

Don't you sometimes miss? The minimize, back and close buttons are quite close together...
Cmd-W closes windows, or, if multiple tabs are open, tabs. What if I missed the W and hit Q instead? Or I hit W but brush Q hard enough for it to register a press... They are right next to each other after all.
I'm not advocating an "are you sure you want to do this" box on everything, but closing 10-20 tabs by accident is... a bit annoying.
In FF, you can disable the warning easily if you don't want it. In Safari, Camino, Shiira, etc. it's just missing, which IMHO is a huge folly.

Quote:
Originally Posted by autodata View Post
There is actually a plugin that will do this for safari: taboo
Sweet! I never realized there were addons for Safari. Thanks!

Converted 07/2005.
  quote
Brad
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Join Date: May 2004
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2006-11-06, 09:13

Quote:
Originally Posted by Eugene View Post
The amount of white-space is determined by the length of the text label beneath the icon.
What about when the text labels are off? I can recognize a button by its icon; so, I often have the toolbar as icon-only. That's the circumstance under which I made that comment.

Using the same icons, Firefox has much tighter spacing:

Name:  ShiiraScreenSnapz005.png
Views: 167
Size:  5.2 KBName:  FirefoxScreenSnapz005.png
Views: 168
Size:  5.7 KB

Oddly enough, when switching to "Icon & Text", Firefox's spacing is tighter vertically but otherwise wider between icons:

Name:  ShiiraScreenSnapz004.png
Views: 168
Size:  7.2 KBName:  FirefoxScreenSnapz004.png
Views: 169
Size:  6.3 KB

(I'm excluding Back and Forward since Firefox appends the "arrow" to make them even wider.)

So, actually it does seem like Firefox's devs went "Haha, let's screw with their heads and changing the icon spacing by 2 pixels, but narrower or wider in different places!" even if that wasn't the intent.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Eugene View Post
And more to the point, Firefox is a multi-platform 3rd-party application developed primarily by geekoids who have no sense for human-interface design.
I realize that, but does that entirely preclude a better UX/UI?

Glancing through my apps, though, I only see two or three open-source apps that have a "good" UI. So, maybe you're right.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Eugene View Post
Flaws based on opinion or deviation from Apple HIG...
I didn't mention the HIG and I'm pretty sure some things like tab-closing behavior and text editing aren't covered by the HIG. The rubric I'm using is the user experience that is provided by most Mac apps that share a common set of UI behaviors, mostly because they simply "inherit" the standard behaviors. They set the standard for what a user expects from an app. If it was commonplace for every app to redefine how all of its widgets work, I wouldn't be here making an example of Firefox.

Besides, yes, these criticisms are all my opinions. I already acknowledged that others may not share my views as these as serious problems in Firefox.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Eugene View Post
I mean using Firefox is a choice, but we are pretty much locked into using monstrosities such as the OS X Finder.
You're welcome to count the ways that Apple needs to FTFF.

The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting.
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rollercoaster375
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2006-11-06, 09:42

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad
# Text copied from the browser view never retains fonts, sizes, or styles.
That's the only one I disagree with. I find that "feature" to be one of the most annoying things that was ever invented. Why on earth would they think that I want to use the site's crappy formatting?

(Basically, since that wasn't clear, I'm saying that I'm glad that's not included in Firefox because it's probably one of the most annoying things ever.)

I really have nothing to put here, but I feel it's rather strange to not have one.
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Eugene
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Join Date: May 2004
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2006-11-06, 09:48

Quote:
Originally Posted by rollercoaster375 View Post
That's the only one I disagree with. I find that "feature" to be one of the most annoying things that was ever invented. Why on earth would they think that I want to use the site's crappy formatting?

(Basically, since that wasn't clear, I'm saying that I'm glad that's not included in Firefox because it's probably one of the most annoying things ever.)
That's actually an interesting point. There are times where I do want to copy the styles in a block of text, but not usually. I've never seen an app that gives you a choice. This is a small precedent for implementing a sort of "Exact Copy," but is it really worth bothering?

And even though I usually don't want to copy the font styles, it's the times I do that make the behavior worthwhile. It's better to be able to do it than not have the capability at all.
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chucker
 
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2006-11-06, 09:53

Quote:
Originally Posted by rollercoaster375 View Post
That's the only one I disagree with. I find that "feature" to be one of the most annoying things that was ever invented. Why on earth would they think that I want to use the site's crappy formatting?
To copy lists and tables properly, for one.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Eugene View Post
That's actually an interesting point. There are times where I do want to copy the styles in a block of text, but not usually. I've never seen an app that gives you a choice. This is a small precedent for implementing a sort of "Exact Copy," but is it really worth bothering?
You mean like "Paste and Match Style"? Many apps already have that.
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rollercoaster375
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2006-11-06, 10:00

Quote:
Originally Posted by chucker View Post
To copy lists and tables properly, for one.
"fonts, sizes or styling" don't include lists and tables

(And might I add that with all the people using tables for formatting, even they may not be a good idea. I've found them very hard to get rid of.)

I really have nothing to put here, but I feel it's rather strange to not have one.
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chucker
 
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2006-11-06, 10:23

Quote:
Originally Posted by rollercoaster375 View Post
"fonts, sizes or styling" don't include lists and tables
Yes, it does in this context.

Quote:
(And might I add that with all the people using tables for formatting, even they may not be a good idea. I've found them very hard to get rid of.)
This is about tables for what they are for; tabular information. Not about incompetence in web design

Let me give an example: the Graphic novels table on Wikipedia's Heroes article.

Try copying it in Firefox, then pasting it into TextEdit. You will end up with a tab-separated piece of plain text. Better than nothing, but a lot of useful formatting is gone. Try resizing the TextEdit window, for instance: the tabs won't resize automatically.

Now try the same with Safari. When pasted in TextEdit, you end up with a table! Resizing the window will resize columns accordingly! Even the links are intact. Want Firefox's behaviour instead? Fair enough, you can do that as well, with Paste and Match Style — there.

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Eugene
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Join Date: May 2004
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2006-11-06, 10:23

Quote:
Originally Posted by chucker View Post
You mean like "Paste and Match Style"? Many apps already have that.
Yeah, so it seems most Apple apps have this and Word has "Paste Special..." Even stuff like Colloquy also has a "Paste as Rich Text" option, which is similar. So yeah, rollercoaster375, blame the app devs that don't include the special Paste functions.
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drewprops
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2006-11-06, 10:26

Most of the apps that I use provide an option to "paste without styling", so I do like that feature though I have to admit that I often find myself emitting an expletive, undoing the paste then going in to find the "paste without styling" feature. My own work style would make it better to have the "copy styling" feature optional.


Other annoyances:

I'm surprised at how long it takes for FireFox to start up on my machines. What's up with that?

There's no visual cue that you can create a new tab, as there is in Safari. But, if you double-click to the right of an existing tab you'll be rewarded with a new one. Good to know, wonder what other hidden features there are in FF.

Why does FireFox crash when I try to log into my MediaTemple.net for administering the company website? I would have thought that FF was the better, platform agnostic browser to do that.



EDIT: First part of post was beaten to the punch, with an example no less, by Chucker.

.

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BarracksSi
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2006-11-06, 10:38

Quote:
Originally Posted by Eugene View Post
That's actually an interesting point. There are times where I do want to copy the styles in a block of text, but not usually. I've never seen an app that gives you a choice. This is a small precedent for implementing a sort of "Exact Copy," but is it really worth bothering?

And even though I usually don't want to copy the font styles, it's the times I do that make the behavior worthwhile. It's better to be able to do it than not have the capability at all.
It's frustrating when I copy text and past it into iChat, and I have no idea how badly the extra style screws with the formatting at the other end.

Maybe adding a cmd-opt-C command for "Exact Copy" (or the other way around, cmd-opt-C doing a "Plain Copy") would be something for Apple and other developers to do.
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2006-11-06, 10:41

Quote:
Originally Posted by BarracksSi View Post
It's frustrating when I copy text and past it into iChat, and I have no idea how badly the extra style screws with the formatting at the other end.

Maybe adding a cmd-opt-C command for "Exact Copy" (or the other way around, cmd-opt-C doing a "Plain Copy") would be something for Apple and other developers to do.
I really don't think cmd-opt-shift-V is a big issue once you get used to it. *shrug*
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2006-11-06, 10:59

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Originally Posted by chucker View Post
I really don't think cmd-opt-shift-V is a big issue once you get used to it. *shrug*
Funny -- I didn't even know that that key command even existed.

Which makes it even stranger that a simple cmd-V pastes text including its style and formatting. Sounds more like a bug to me.
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Eugene
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2006-11-06, 11:04

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Originally Posted by BarracksSi View Post
Funny -- I didn't even know that that key command even existed.

Which makes it even stranger that a simple cmd-V pastes text including its style and formatting. Sounds more like a bug to me.
Nah it makes sense if you think about it. Copy should be a simple function...you want to copy as much information as possible...all the time. It's when you apply the data elsewhere that you want to alter it. So the normal paste function should paste everything it is capable of.

A) I want to copy this.
B) I want to copy this, but leave out that.
C) I want to paste this.
D) I want to paste this, but leave out that.

Action B ends up being superfluous. Action D is a modified behavior so it shouldn't be default.
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BarracksSi
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2006-11-06, 11:26

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Originally Posted by Eugene View Post
Nah it makes sense if you think about it. Copy should be a simple function...you want to copy as much information as possible...all the time. It's when you apply the data elsewhere that you want to alter it. So the normal paste function should paste everything it is capable of.

A) I want to copy this.
B) I want to copy this, but leave out that.
C) I want to paste this.
D) I want to paste this, but leave out that.

Action B ends up being superfluous. Action D is a modified behavior so it shouldn't be default.
D) is what cmd-V in iChat is, though -- C) is what should happen with cmd-opt-shift-V.

(btw, I'm talking about copying text from Safari and putting it into an iChat window, so it may or may not be related to this Firefox thread).

Simply put, if I copy some text in Safari, then cmd-V paste it into iChat, it pastes with the original font, size, style, etc, including its color, if applicable. Why would it do that when there's the cmd-opt-shift-V command?

99.5% of the time, I don't want weird formatting. I just want the letters & numbers. If I want to change it around later, let me choose what to do.
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