GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 321970
Drop-down list/combo box at location address box reimplementation request
Last modified: 2006-12-15 08:14:51 UTC
I understand this has been a feature that's intentionally removed two years back according to this post: - http://mail.gnome.org/archives/epiphany-list/2003-October/msg00050.html But I do hope that epiphany developers can look this request again to reconsider putting in this feature again. The removal of the combo box from the location bar is based on the idea that it is a bad ui and also because few users will use the drop down box for the browser history. I believe that the purpose for the combo box might had been misjudged. I do not remember how it had been implementated before 2003. But the from I saw from other browsers like internet explorer, opera and firefox. The combo box serve to allow users easy access to the url that they had typed in previously and chosen not to bookmark. This is very different from using the combo box to browse history, for the combo box does not display addresses that had been got on to through links, it only display addresses that had been typed into the address bar or copied and pasted into. The idea from I got from the post justifying the removal is that users can type into the location box to access the list of items he need. But if the user have to be forced to switch from using the mouse to typing in the location bar to identify and go to the address that's need, isn't that a ui bug in itself. Very often, users will need to transcript addresses from hard sources or from computer output to the address bar without bookmarking them for future references. The need to move the hands to the keyboard again to get it back can be very annoying, the ability to access them easily with the mouse is very handy. I must say that this is strongest edge that other major browsers had over epiphany so far which beat everyone of them in terms of speed and ui. Other information:
The reasons exposed in the link above are very acceptable. I don't think that the combobox is useful. I have experience helping people with their internet experience and I can tell you that people only use the dropdown for looking for Hotmail :). And most of time they spent eons reading through the list... finally they always write www.hotmail.com :). Check bug #318459 for related things.