Unified add-ons UI improvements

[kremlinbot]

The current menu, although being Mv3-compatible, is very basic and simply shows all active add-ons without any option to anyhow customize it. Furthermore, this update removed an option to pin add-ons in the overflow menu, effectively making it useless, which obviously will not be welcomed by the users.

So, what can be done?

• Re-add an option to pin add-ons in the list; all the add-ons that were pinned in the overflow list before will be re-pinned in the add-ons list after the update. It'd be also nice to have an option to change their order, although I'm not sure how this can be implemented (perhaps strip the overflow menu completely and replace it with the new one in the "Customize..." page?)
• The "Add-ons" button will only show the pinned add-ons list first, and require an additional click to expand it to see the full list. If none of the add-ons are pinned, the button will only show the full list (like it does right now)
• If some add-on needs new permissions, or requires permission to run on website, it will be shown on the top of the list in both of the lists, except if it was pinned by user before. It will also feature additional outline to draw the user's attention.

So, what do you think?

[Jon]

Hey all,

Here with an exciting update…

Your idea has quickly received a great deal of votes (kudos) and support here in the Mozilla Connect community, so we are upgrading the status to “Trending idea.” This means it’s now one step closer to reaching our internal teams for review—learn more about The Idea Journey.

Please keep the conversation going (the more details, the better) and stay tuned for updates 😃

-The Community Team

[uws]

Hi.

What happened to the overflow menu? Has it been permanently removed? Because not even

extensions.unifiedExtensions.enabled to false

works now which is very annoying.

FF 111.0b1 (64-bit)

[kremlinbot]

@uws, IIRC there was a note this feature will be removed in a few releases, and it seems the key is now scrapped entirely, so probably it's gone now.

[leegregory4367]

I don't want the overflow tab at all. Period. I LIKE being able to see all of my extensions, because sometimes, just like icons on my desktop or phone, I forget which ones I have unless they are visible.
I put my most used app buttons on my pc taskbar so I can get to them more easily instead of leaving them in the start menu. 
That's another thing. I don't mind the look of having them all visible on the taskbar. I DO resent having to click yet ONE MORE button to get to where I wanna go. I already have to change settings on 20-30 items in 'settings' and 'about:config' to get it how I like it after a reset just to kill everything Mozilla keeps adding so their employees feel relevant. Make them sweep the floor or empty the garbage, but KEEP THE APPS AWAY FROM THEM, PLEASE!

[m4a4]

If only something less half baked like this wasn't rammed into the live build. Or if they didn't ignore "extensions.unifiedExtensions.enabled"...

[SenileOtaku]

Playing around with the sort/display order of the Extensions Button, pinning extensions there, etc still doesn't fix the problem that the menu is too big, fat and cluttered.  The Overflow Menu didn't have this problem.

[chris-vecchio]

I agree with @leegregory4367. I LIKE seeing all of my extension icons on the toolbar not hidden away in a menu. I understand you can add icons to the toolbar by right clicking in the new menu but Firefox keeps erasing my icon preferences after updates so all of the icons are back in the new menu. Thankfully I made a backup of the browser.uiCustomization.state about:config option or I would have to waste time re-adding all of the icons I want on the toolbar. If I remove icons from the new menu, please leave them on the toolbar.

I also agree with the main message of this post that we should be able to hide the unified menu if we want to. I'm a Firefox fan for life but taking away such a simple option from users makes me question development decisions. Want to make the unified menu a default for new installs? Fine. But let users remove it if they want. Preferably in toolbar options not in an about:config setting.

[Leonaru]

Amazing how Firefox allows you to remove the URL bar from your interface, but no, the extension button is too special to be even moved properly.

[BelFox]

@LeonaruYou can't remove the URL bar, at least not on Windows. Please tell me on which platform you can?

[Reader]

I don't know whether I missed Object Permanency class as an infant or what, but if I can't see my extensions, I forget I have them.  If I can see them, they're very useful.  I agree with everyone who would like to show their extensions in the overflow toolbar.

[NaruZkurai]

my guy i have like the exact same x amount of extensions and i know their properties n stuff can you please just allow us to hide/unpin / stash in the toolbar icon editor until we want to do it or even better just put it in the settings menu. its annoying to look at, its just wasting space when i put the window in thin vertical mode. and its useless to some / allot of people. I know what im doing. and the extensions.unifiedExtensions.enabled set to false method doesn't work. if i want to add another addon in the future i want it to be auto pinned. if i want to check its perms i want to be able to just go to the addon itself or to the settings. i do not like the button. its cool in theory if i were to actually need it. but i don't again its a nuisance.

[PPill]

Could the extensions menu not just become searchable? Just give it a auto-focused search bar at the top whenever you open it.

Because a lot of times extension have their own special menus that control them, so it would be awesome to have a completely keyboard-only way of navigating them:

1. Shortcut to open the extension menu
2. Start typing to get to the extension you want
3. Press Enter to open the extenion's specific sub-menu

[BelFox]

Any update on this @Jon?
With a few tweaks, the user experience of the unified extensions menu could be greatly improved.

Also: the icons of extensions are hidden in the extensions menu by default. Novice users that just installed their first add-on possibly won't find the button because it was put in the extensions menu without clear notification.

A notification that the button is to be found in the extensions menu is one of those little tweaks that could make a big difference.

[TLHighbaugh]

I think that the unified extensions menu is fine and all, but am exceedingly irritated with: 

• I should still be able to use overflow and do more than pin a couple extensions that have to stay on the main bar but be otherwise stuck with unified extensions
•  Why is the list single column? It makes accessing certain extensions exceedingly painful when having multiple columns would not be quite so painful (easy modification in userChrome.css but that shouldn't be necessary and about:addons should also be multi-column)
  • I should be able to hide extensions from the list as well
• Why do I have to reset the toolbar overflow every time I use a new profile/version/reinstall, this should be saved to my Mozilla account's synced preferences.
• why is there no means of turning off the annoying, "thanks for installing" pages when an extension is installed, it makes the reinstall/new profile/new version process exceedingly annoying.
• Mozilla needs to stop with this anti-user nonsense, yes I want to customize my browser and yes I realize it means more work for developers but this is your flagship product and its not like you are enriching yourselves greatly off of the users who you constantly ignore the requests of.
• I don't use Chrome for a reason, stop making a chrome clone. There are enough of those as is.
  
  As always, Mozilla is lucky it lacks viable alternatives and its forks are as painful to use as Chromium based browsers.