Thoughts on Scotch Bonnet / Urlbar Improvements

[ffffff]

Hey folks,

Searched around the internet and couldn't find anyone talking about this, so I might as well start a thread.

Scotch Bonnet, however that name came about, seems to be a project around implementing a set of usability improvements to the urlbar and related search functionalities. Note that I'm not affiliated with Mozilla, and could be totally missing the mark.

You can try a preview by setting "browser.urlbar.scotchBonnet.enableOverride" to true in about:config.

Changes I've gathered include:

• Quick searching on current website / secondary actions (e.g. when on YouTube, search videos straight from the urlbar in two taps)
• Dropdown search button on the urlbar (lets you pick a method for a one-time search)
• Search keywords/aliases (e.g. type @history to search browser history)

I think there's other stuff, but it doesn't affect user experience as much as these.

Who else tried Scotch Bonnet? Any thoughts you'd like to share on it? Anything I got wrong?

For example, here are mine:

I really like the secondary actions—Ctrl+L has never seen so much use. Didn't know so many websites provided whatever interface Firefox uses to get search functionality, but it's a lovely thing. While I don't use the keywords that much, I think they're a nice addition, spares me from having to memorize more symbols (I only ever remembered ^ for history). Ironically, the only thing I'm not a fan of is the search button because it... looks a bit ugly. The DDG logo is a weird splash of orange in my otherwise monochrome urlbar, which bothers me a little, silly as that sounds.

[OutlawHusbando]

Honestly I dislike this change, it's very slow for multi-tasking, like switching between searcha and tab search, it makes the search tab/bookmark/history features less intuative

[ffffff]

How so? I didn't think any functionality got removed, there are just more ways to do things now.

[eric_blanco]

I hear you on the potential slowdown with multitasking. Maybe specific use cases could be highlighted in the settings or documentation, along with drainfield solutions for resource-intensive tasks, to help users adjust?

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

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@ffffff wrote:
the only thing I'm not a fan of is the search button because it... looks a bit ugly. The DDG logo is a weird splash of orange in my otherwise monochrome urlbar

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For information purposes https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/address-bar-updates-now-live-in-firefox-nightly/m-p/77329... userChrome.css

[ffffff]

Hey, thanks for the suggestion.

Since posting this, I've found a Bugzilla thread tracking the removal of brand icons when the user isn't actively interacting with the urlbar or searching, and showing a generic loupe icon instead. Not only will that make more sense and fit better with mobile behavior, I imagine it'll also fix or at least lessen my issue with it, so I've decided to wait and see a bit longer.

[phonics8226]

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• Quick searching on current website / secondary actions (e.g. when on YouTube, search videos straight from the urlbar in two taps)

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How?

[ffffff]

With the feature enabled and a compatible website open (e.g. YouTube), clear the urlbar and start typing. Normally, the top options would search what you typed on your preferred search engine, but with SB there's an additional sub-option that searches for it in the current website. It looks like a button floating in the dropdown list. I often use it since it's quick and (almost) universal: Ctrl+L to select the urlbar, type whatever, then press tab twice and enter to search. No mouse, no fuss.

Hope that helped.

[phonics8226]

It did, thanks! What other sites besides YouTube have you found to be compatible?

[ffffff]

I think it works with any page that provides this attribute (OpenSearch plugin). I haven't looked into it further to know if there's anything else. Empirical testing—good old trying and seeing if it works—has shown GitHub, Twitter, and an assortment of tech communities' websites.

[Jon]

@ffffff 

Thanks for the feedback and starting this discussion thread - I'll be sure to pass it along to the team working on the feature.

Also, that same team kicked off a discussion thread here on Connect inviting feedback on the changes. Check it out here and feel free to share any additional thoughts:

Address Bar Updates - Now Live in Firefox Nightly