Where a Firefox default behaviour is overridden: the override should be plain, and documented

[grahamperrin]

For example, from #189:

…
New tab Ctrl-T

…
moz-extension://f263e8e1-bc63-46fb-ad51-c59280fd8252/conex-options-ui.html

– no mention of Ctrl-T (or Control-T), and I assume that on Mac OS X there's no mention of Command-T. Neither does https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/conex/ hint at an override. …

Plainness – in menus, for example

For the use case above, I don't know whether WebExtensions APIs will allow the override by Conex to cause the keyboard shortcut to be:

• not presented alongside New tab
• presented alongside the relevant container in the submenu of New container tab.

A wild guess, without consulting Bugzilla@Mozilla: that's the type of thing that should target 60, but might slip to 62 in Q3 2018.

Menu inconsistencies aside …

Any override should be:

1. documented at the preferences page for the extension; and
2. ideally, documented at https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/conex/ although whilst the extension is experimental :-) I shouldn't expect that page to be comprehensive or up-to-date.

Addressing point (1) should allow #11 to be closed.

Thanks 👍

[grahamperrin]

dc3b963 was:

Make keyboard shortcuts configurable

Works on Firefox >= v60

– and fixed #154 and #155 both with reference to VERIFIED FIXED Mozilla bug 1421811. However we're left with e.g. the inconsistency in the File menu.

From the opening post here:

A wild guess, without consulting Bugzilla@Mozilla: that's the type of thing that should target 60, but might slip to 62 in Q3 2018.

Mozilla bug 1215061 - Better keyboard shortcut support noted that 1421811 was:

… the first bug that will work towards better support for shortcuts and commands.

After that bug has landed and the UX has been finalized we will add support for a user to change any extension's command shortcuts in bug 1303384.

We are currently discussing if we will be able to provide a UI to list and remap all of Firefox's shortcuts. This seems like something that could be very beneficial but we will need to loop in some other teams since it is out of scope for add-ons only work.

Mozilla bugs, P3 normal:

• 1303384 - UI for re-assigning command shortcuts (2016-09-16)
• 1442335 - Include whether a command is "active" or not (2018-03-01)

---

@kesselborn should the blocked-by-mozilla-bug label apply here?

[kesselborn]

mmm ... I don't really understand that bug description. But it has something todo with cmd-t being overwritten with opening tabs in the current container as well, isn't it?
Perhaps I should remove this hack and have a dedicated keyboard shortcut? I think it's not possible to override Firefox shortcuts -- I am rather intercepting new tabs. However: that's implementation detail.

[smichel17]

I like the current implementation and it's the main reason I have conex installed right now (I'm not using tab hiding, since I've been using multiple windows instead; the other reason is for the newly added feature of external link interception).

I prefer the intercept implementation of changing new tab behavior, since I am opening tabs using a different extension (saka key), not Ctrl-t.

I'm sharing this so you get a viewpoint, not to try to pursuade you on this issue one way or another; I can always stay on an old version or fork conex and cut all the other stuff out. In general I'd advise not to pick a problem and solve it well, instead of trying to solve everybody's use case and being mediocre (within reason and on a case by case basis, of course; if you can solve additional problems without making the extension too complex, that's even better).

[kesselborn]

@smichel17 thanks, interesting comment and you are probably right.
From what I hear from feedback, it does not work for a bunch of people. Perhaps my current feeling is that conex is totally broken because of all the issues and weird behavior people report (though it works fine for me :D ).

[grahamperrin]

… Perhaps my current feeling is that conex is totally broken because of all the issues and weird behavior people report …

Far from totally broken!

Reality check, the framework within/alongside which you're working. Three aspects, as I see it:

1. a relatively new technology (containers)
2. ten pages of issues for Mozilla's extension
3. a set of APIs that's somewhat gappy (WebExtensions).

That's, like, a potentially challenging triangle :-) so don't beat yourself up.

For Conex: occasionally consider each issue in isolation (probably easier said than done); and occasionally prioritise.

Cheers

[kesselborn]

so ... the only action item that survived this discussion is the documentation of the override which I added to the options ui