mozconcept – Ideas for Firefox

mozconcept – 1: Hint to remember a password *after it succeeds* (Taken Care in Firefox 3.5)

Current state:

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At present Firefox asks to remember a password – when you are at the page asking for the password.

On sites that I visit less often, I need password remembered.

These sites are also the ones for which I usually don’t remember the password.

So, I have to ask Firefox to remember the password “Not Now” because I am trying out some passwords.

Say one of the password hits and I am redirected to the application inside the site.

At this point I usually don’t care whether the browser remembered my password or not.

After a few months I revisit the site and alas! I am back guessing the password and asking Firefox not to remember now.

Possible Solution:

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Let the browser ask whether to remember the password or not on “(successful) page exit” rather than “page entry” for any such page.

mozconcept – 2 : Let users port and/or exchange plug-in and search engines settings (Somewhat taken care by extension FEBE)

Present state:

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I have a set of plug-ins at home and another at my work. Often I can’t synchronize them and can’t browse efficiently.

Sometimes I can’t advocate for Firefox effectively because I can’t export all my plug-in settings to a friend.

Suggestion:

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Please keep the registry of plug-ins, search engines and their settings exportable, importable and sharable.

After all, pluggability is one of the most powerful features of Firefox!

mozconcept – 3 : Automatically add “search selection in <search engine>” in the right click (Taken care in Firefox 3.5)

Current Status:

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I have to select a portion of text, copy it, paste it across the browser window in the search engine window, select the search engine and press Enter.

phew!

Suggestion:

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“If a section of text is selected and right click,

for all search engines,

append search engine to the “search from list”

dump the list into context (right click) menu”

mozconcept – 4 : Provide a plug-in for table handling

Current State:

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A table is shown but there is no way to search, sort, filter or group the data.

“Copy-paste” to a spreadsheet sometimes work, sometimes not.

… and worse, it needs spreadsheet programs!

Suggestion:

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Please provide a plug-in (not in core) in the line of Linky plug-in.

It must list out tables that can be searched, sorted, grouped or filtered; preferably with history and exportability of data as well as settings.

Once we select the tables, it may pop up convenient interface to achieve the operation

mozconcept – 5: Let user store sessions with names

Current State:

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Session saving is not a glorified or popular way of browsing.

However, for busy people, time for firing a search and getting a few most interesting pages in tabs is different than the time to go through them. Such people also search for such information multiple times in a day.

Yes, history works – but is extremely jumbled and cumbersome.

Suggestion:

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Let users have a tab of “books” or “sessions” – and let them save, load and EDIT various sessions. Great going for research!

mozconcept 6: An “Oops!” button

current state:

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It is worth noting how we browse to a new link in a new tab, without moving our eyes on the article we are reading. It is cumbersome:

1. Find the link we want to click
2. Right click and select “Open in new tab”

Say while browsing, someone clicks the link rather than “Open in new tab”, he says “Oops!”. Now he has to undergo the following operation:

1. Press “Back”
2. Find the link he clicked
3. Right click and select “Open in new tab”

Suggestion:

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Implement an “Oops” button add-on in FF

The button does something very simple.

1. If history is not empty
   1. Opens a new tab in the *foreground*
   2. Looks back a step in history
   3. Load that site in front
2. Else do nothing – or just say “Oops!” back 🙂

This can be a smash hit new habit of browsing.

mozconcept 7: A Browsing Secretary

Current State:

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1. You are reading something on the computer and come across a concept that you should search and learn about

2. You either note it down or try to remember (but you don’t jump to web surfing because you don’t want to break the flow of work)

3. Most probably the note is lost or the curiosity is forgotten

Suggestion:

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1. You are reading something on the computer and come across a concept that you should search and learn about

2. You highlight the text and right click it and submit it to a Browsing Secretary and specify “Search using …” [a dictionary, an encyclopedia, Google, …]

3. When you start the browser, the Browsing Secretary detects the events and loads appropriate search pages in tabs

mozconcept 8: Data entry through a musical keyboard

current state:

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Searching the web for a tune in my brain? What is that?

Suggestion:

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1. Allow a UI control (in Western and Indian notations) that interfaces with a MIDI and/or an onscreen musical keyboard
2. The input gets converted into MusicML and is filled into the form
3. Poor rhythm instruments will be left out – but they can wait 🙂

mozconcept 9: Remember Searches across clicking along (could become a security issue)

current state:

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1. Search for ‘x’ on the web through a search box in Firefox or on Google/Yahoo!/MSN web page
2. A bunch of links open up
3. Select a link
4. That link opens up
5. Search for ‘x’ in that page – or at least maintain a thought link on what you were looking for

Suggestion:

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1. Search for ‘x’ on the web through a search box in Firefox or on Google/Yahoo!/MSN web page – Firefox remembers the search
2. A bunch of links open up
3. Select a link
4. That link opens up – with the “Find” functionality of Firefox already passed the string – and all searches highlighted

mozconcept 10: from History to Bookmarks

current state:

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1. Browse some page and move away from that
2. After a few minutes realize it was fantastic
3. Alas! It is lost to the cumbersome history files!

Suggestion:

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1. Install a plug-in called “History to Bookmarks”
2. When you open the browser, it marks time
3. When you stop browsing and try to close the browser, it marks time again
4. And instead of closing the browser just like that, it pops up the recent history between these two times and asks which of the sites should be bookmarked (or Delicioused)
5. User may select none, some or all
6. The plug-in moves those links in bookmarks
7. The browser closes

mozconcept 11: Here, now and me

current state:

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1. Time: for example, Ameriprise website says “Call between 8 AM to 6 PM CDT <when?> for assistance.”
2. Space: “The asteroid struck Russian Ural mountain region in the town of … <where?>“
3. Confusing nouns/pronouns: “She/Mrs. Walker <who?> added that the valuation of the company …”

Suggestion:

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1. Time: A simple geo-location Javascript can sense the client’s timezone, current time and add way more convenience to the end user – for example, “Call after n hours, that is, 8 AM to 6 PM CDT or 18:30 to 06:30 IST, your current time zone”
2. Space: the location extracted and shown on Google maps as a pop up
3. Pronouns/nouns traced back to Linked-In or whois kind of services, displayed picture with each reference; preferably with showing Linked-In distances from the reader

Why don’t they do this?