Firefox gets a new add bookmark prompt
If you run Firefox Nightly right now, you may have noticed that the particular version of Firefox comes with a modified add bookmark prompt.
While the prompt itself has not changed, the key change is that Firefox displays a thumbnail of the actual page when you click on the add bookmark icon in the Firefox address bar.
If you have used Firefox before you know that you can add any site to the bookmarks of the browser by clicking on the star symbol in Firefox's address bar.
Firefox displays options to change the name of the bookmark, add tags, and change the location in the bookmarks hierarchy the bookmark is saved to as well but all of these are optional.
The addition of the page's thumbnail adds a visual component to the bookmarking dialog.
The new bookmark prompt grows in size because of this as it needs space to display the page thumbnail at the top of the dialog.
The same thumbnail is displayed when you click on the icon on a bookmarked page. Firefox displays an option to remove the bookmark from the browser using the dialog so that you don't have to do that in the bookmark library instead.
Firefox does not display the thumbnail in the bookmark library at this point in time. I cannot say if it saves the thumbnail but does not display it, or if it does not save it right now.
It does not really make much sense to display a thumbnail of the bookmarked page without doing something with it. Considering that you see the page underneath the bookmark prompt, you gain nothing from it when it is displayed in the dialog.
Mozilla could have plans to add a visual component to Firefox's bookmark library. The library is one of the last elements of Firefox that open in extra windows and not in tabs in the browser. It is possible that Firefox will display thumbnails next to bookmarks in an upcoming redesign of the bookmarks manager but that is pure speculation.
Firefox Beta is moved to version 62 today and it will be interesting to see whether the new bookmark prompt is available in the beta version as well. If it is, it is a clear indicator that Mozilla plans to go ahead with the release in Firefox 62 or another version of Firefox that is released soon.
Mozilla modified Firefox's bookmarking functionality in 2016 the last time.
Now You: What is your take on the new prompt?
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WHY CHANGE IT! Can they just leave my existing firefox alone! How do I change this back to the old bookmark styles? They’ve ruined the intuitive easy drop down nature of it and I do not want to see photos, I want to see the long lists of bookmarked links, sometimes 30 or more per folder, I need to use the hover over tree move this new hamburger menu for bookmarks is the worst!
The FF62+ thumbnail feature is a completely silly idea and it does NOT WORK AT ALL on a netbook.
Just remove it, and tell us a way in about.config. – I am kind of sick about this, and am presumably not the only one!
I found the thumbnail useless too, so I’ve removed it.
Is there a way (via about:config or editing userchrome.css) to also remove the tags box from the prompt?
My PC screen is small, and I use bookmark folders for sorting & search anyway.
Yes, available in Dev Edition (currently 62)
They removed “description”.
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Mozilla is unreliable, unstable, disrespectful, greedy and corrupted. Like Google.
Huh, I use Bookmark OS which uses bookmark thumbnails as icons, wonder if they are going to do something similar
I don’t like the thumbnails. I do not like the removal of descriptions either.
Useless. I have my Add Bookmark panel show Description and Keyword fields (probably with CSS, can’t remember if this is the default on FF52,) which look to have been removed in the name of progress, replaced by an image of the page that is already opened in the browser below, way to go.
Its been this way before the “chromification”.
Ctrl-H opens sidebar
Ctrl-Shift-H opens the window
If you put ‘about:library’ in the url bar you can see that it is “under construction”
This looks likes a much smarter/smoother presentation when you’re saving your new bookmark because it looks like easier (smoother search) to look for the right branch to put the bookmark in, except for the bookmark thumb part I really can do without that.
The thumbnails are in main opinion even a not so smart idea.
The relevant IDs are #editBookmarkPanelImage and #editBookmarkPanelFaviconContainer if you want to “display: none” them in your userChrome.css
(I replied to another commenter with a more complete snippet, but the comment seems to have gotten eaten.)
Look also at this:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1459907
Bookmark confirmation, you know, because you don’t see star icon turning blue. And when library button is moved out of toolbar then this will alert you that something is happened with you hamburger menu.
They silently take away the useful bookmark description field, but then go and add this useless thumbnail. I made extensive use of the bookmark description field and will be sad to see it go.
It’s getting Chromified, that’s for sure, but one thing that really bothers me is when I press Ctrl+H it opens the history in a stupid sidebar… They need to update it so it opens like Chrome and other normal browsers in a separate tab page dedicated solely to history. Like this: chrome://history
If they are copying Chrome, they better start copying right or hire some Chinese advisors, since Chinese are professional copycats.
>I cannot say if it saves the thumbnail
Oh, man, I hope it doesn’t. Imagine the thumbnail massacre with 9000+ bookmarks O.O
Can you think of another reason why Firefox would display the thumbnail?
There is new trend to make things less ergonomic!
Besides of:
>Considering that you see the page underneath the bookmark prompt, you gain nothing from it when it is displayed in the dialog.
now buttons are moved away from star icon – more mouse movements.
Here’s some userChrome.css to get rid of it again.
/* Remove pointless thumbnail in the Bookmark popup */
#editBookmarkPanelImage, #editBookmarkPanelFaviconContainer {
display: none !important;
}
Thank god, the large blurred picture thumbnail was blocking folder selection and inputs so being able to remove the useless waste of space to revert back to the clean dialog format is a great solution to a problem the update created. After all I can already see the page being bookmarked it is right there.
My guess is they want to make it like a preview near the mouse pointer. Like the one you see when you move a tab around. Or a redesigned Library with a “thumbnail view” option (like you see a folder with images in Explorer). But I hope there will be a way to disable this. Right now, my entire Fx profile backup is 5,6MiB (7z archive). I’d like to keep it small.