Fundamentally, the question is about whether or not the menuitem immediately 
under Bookmarks menu should be:
  * Add Bookmark
  * Bookmark this page

Scenarios
---------

Alice wants to bookmark the current page and continue browsing. There are 
numerous examples of this and it is the most common use case.

Bob wants to bookmark some page *other* than his current page and continue
browsing. This is a less usual use case.

Carl wants to bookmark a slightly cleaner URL from his current page and
continue browsing. This can happen, especially with the results of search
queries and the like.

Dennis wants to bookmark the current page and then immediately bookmark some
base page (eg. http://www.php.net/manual/en/ and then http://www.php.net/).
This can happen when searching for documentation, or otherwise after something
specific on a site.


Bookmark this page
------------------

The principle here is that the action immediately under the Bookmarks menu
should relate just to the current page. This principle can be desirable from
the conceptual view of "we bookmark a page, we don't create a bookmark", and/or
because it makes the concept of what will happen simple and clear.

Certain things are implied by this. For example, when selecting "Bookmark this
page" on a page that is already bookmarked, the user should not be allowed to
create a new bookmark. Also, the user should not *in theory* be able to edit
the bookmarked URL, as this breaks the above behaviour (eg. if I was able to
bookmark http://my.home.page.com/index.html and edit it to
http://my.home.page.com/ then [a] I have bookmarked the same page but [b] I
am able to re-bookmark it). The option remains to permit editing of the URL on
creation, but it will encourage users to use the "Bookmark this page" action
in circumstances where it won't always work.

Alice
 - Just "Bookmark this page"
Simple, easy, clean. Will be warned if a bookmark already exists.

Bob
 - If he can edit the URL, he would try "Bookmark this page" and edit, but
   would fail when (and only when) he's currently on a bookmarked page.
 - Would alternatively open "Manage Bookmarks" and then "File/New bookmark" to
   create a blank bookmark to edit.
 - Or would open a new tab, browse to the site (if possible) and use "Bookmark
   this page" from there.
If you can edit the URL of a bookmark on creation then it is likely a user
would think they can create the bookmark first before being blocked from making
duplicates. If you are unable to edit the current URL then it seems a little
long-winded for a user to open "Manage Bookmarks" and find the file menu, etc.

Carl
 - Would "Bookmark this page", unless he knows that he can't edit the URL.
 - Otherwise must open "Manage Bookmarks" and then "File/New bookmark" and edit
   a blank bookmark from scratch.
 - Alternatively can "Bookmark this page", close the bookmark, find the bookmark
   somehow, open properties, and edit the URL *anyway*.
Frustrating if you can't edit the URL of a page. Simple and clean if you cn.

Dennis
 - Would "Bookmark this page" for the current page (the manual).
 - Then must follow Bob's routine, except that this time "Bookmark this page"
   is guaranteed to fail if he tries.


Add Bookmark
------------

The principle here is that a bookmark is created and pre-filled with the
information from the current page. As the default use case would be "bookmark
the current page" we would expect users to not modify the URL most times. So
a dialog notifying the user that a bookmark already exists for this page would
be useful, but shouldn't block the user if they want to edit the pre-filled
contents.

This does create a problem that the dialog notifying the user looks like:
  http://home.exetel.com.au/harvey/epiphany/t3c.png
If the user has the concept "we bookmark a page, we don't create a bookmark"
then it is problematic to have "Create new" there. The common response by users
with that concept would be "But why?".

Alice
 - "Add Bookmark". If the bookmark exists then will be warned. She might be
   confused by the "Create new" option, but as the dialog is informational
   and the message seems to only tell her that the bookmark already exists
   the "OK" option is clearly the choice to take.

Bob
 - "Add Bookmark" and edit.
 - If the current page is already bookmarked he will be presented with an
   information dialog telling him that he already has a bookmark for the 
   current page. He can tell that Epiphany has erroneously thought that he
   wanted to bookmark the current page, and would be in the frame of mind where
   he knows exactly what "Create new" does.

Carl
 - Exactly the same as Bob.

Dennis
 - "Add Bookmark" for the first page.
 - Exactly the same as Bob, except that he might be fully aware of the dialog
   that will present itself.


Review
------

Bookmark this page, with URL editing:
 - Encourages users to think the dialog can be used in all circumstances
 - Functions like "Add Bookmark" in *most* circumstances, but...
 - Completely blocks the user in some circumstances, forcing them to find
   a different path (through "Manage Bookmarks") to achieve their goal.

Bookmark this page, without URL editing:
 - Encourages users to think of bookmarks for pages, not links
 - Prevents the user from touching up the URL, or using current page as a
   template to create similar bookmarks (eg. google.com, google.com.au).

Add Bookmark:
 - May confuse Alice if she has the notion of "we bookmark a page, we don't
   create a bookmark"
 - Explcitly admits that a bookmark may be duplicated (this can happen anyway,
   we just didn't really want the users to be so aware of it


My opinion
----------

To my mind the idea of "Bookmark this page" is broken. It wants to ensure that
a user can only bookmark a page once, but is flawed when:
 - two URLs give the same page (undetectable/unenforcable)
 - a user wants to modify the URL before clicking "OK" on the bookmark
 - a user modifies the URL later anyway

I can understand Epiphany being *helpful* in some circumstances. It can detect
duplicate URLs at least and notify the user. But to block the user completely
doesn't ensure no duplicate bookmarks. And it complicates the other use cases.


Peter Harvey.
24th Nov, 2005.


