Gareth

I've created this post on the Mozilla support forums: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1261750

Would very much appreciate your support in contributing to the thread to help ensure that the developers provide a more robust solution than the current workflow (which requires occasional browser restarts in order to remain current) or at the very least, the safety of the "export bookmarks as HTML" option.

Thanks

13 hours ago, Justin Aiken said:

> So, having to use a workflow to search their bookmarks clearly didn't put people off using Chrome.

 

I was using a workflow for Chrome bookmark search before, but after the native search was introduced it fast became my favorite part of Alfred; it would be painful to go back to a workflow after using native bookmark search a few hundred times a day for months..

The Firefox workflow works really well. It's taking a little time to get used to the command (I changed it from "ff" to "bm" for bookmarks so that if I ever switch browsers again I won't have the same problem with muscle memory that I'm having after previously used "ch") but with time that will resolve itself I think.

2 hours ago, deanishe said:

 

You said you didn't get an error earlier, just no results…

 

Try the new version. It's more careful with unusual URLs.

Gonna have to disagree with you on that: "ff <empty space>" does return an error though about how a string cannot be concatenated with a None object.

I tried the latest version though and that does seem to work! That's great. Thanks! I am now one happy camper.

6 hours ago, deanishe said:

 

It’s commented out because it’s unused. It doesn’t really work in the mode the workflow is run in.

Well no, I also re-introduced the usage that you had commented out (the method alone would have been pointless after all) and that's how I got the error that I supplied earlier.

I just ran the script with the logger open and this is what I got:

[16:44:15.039] Logging Started...
[16:44:19.068] Firefox Bookmarks[Script Filter] Queuing argument '(null)'
[16:44:19.298] Firefox Bookmarks[Script Filter] Script with argument '(null)' finished
[16:44:19.301] ERROR: Firefox Bookmarks[Script Filter] Code 1: .
0.001s ⧗ load profile
profile=Profile(name='default', path='/Users/gareth/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/4oaj3zyd.default', default=True)
0.083s ⧗ load bookmarks
[ERROR] cannot concatenate 'str' and 'NoneType' objects
-------------------- TRACEBACK --------------------
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/gareth/Library/Application Support/Alfred/Alfred.alfredpreferences/workflows/user.workflow.457253BC-9A7E-49D9-B6E4-3E4F1AED7AEB/bookmarks.py", line 200, in <module>
    code = main()
  File "/Users/gareth/Library/Application Support/Alfred/Alfred.alfredpreferences/workflows/user.workflow.457253BC-9A7E-49D9-B6E4-3E4F1AED7AEB/bookmarks.py", line 186, in main
    match=bm.title + ' ' + urldomain(bm.url),
TypeError: cannot concatenate 'str' and 'NoneType' objects
------------------ END TRACEBACK ------------------

The profile location is correct, and the bookmarks.html document is in there as expected.

Unfortunately that workflow doesn't seem to work. My bookmarks.html file is there just fine, but "ff" followed by any bookmark I know is in there yields 0 results and falls through to default handlers. I opened the Python file and uncommented out the error handlers and they didn't return anything, so I think there are just 0 results. "ff <empty space>" does return an error though about how a string cannot be concatenated with a None object.

I see you're logging the number of bookmark items but given I have zero Python and zero Alfred workflow experience, where is this log output to?

7 hours ago, Andrew said:

To make it clear about how we deal with feature suggestions in general to anyone who is reading this.

 

This forum is a place for friendly interaction and not arguments. It constitutes a single channel of input which helps us paint a much bigger picture of the shape of Alfred's future. We read every single post on here (and all other channels) even if we don't respond to them. When we do respond, the opinion is carefully considered and definitive.

 

In this case, my response to the thread is summarised as:

1. Firefox provides no official way to integrate with their bookmarks, requiring fudges and hacks of sorts, something which I don't do in Alfred's framework.
2. The weighting of users wanting this feature is significantly lower than other features which have been added. It's easy for people to spew statistics, but only Vero and I get to see the ACTUAL statistics of both usage and demand within Alfred.

My full response to this thread is here:
https://www.alfredforum.com/topic/11724-firefox-bookmark-search/?do=findComment&comment=63324

 

The closest I can find to being able to read Firefox bookmarks is to activate their legacy bookmarks.html support, with no guarantee that this feature will remain in Firefox in the future, or to manually export a backup json. The info about this is here:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Bookmarks

 

This is why the feature, for now at least, is better suited to a workflow. Generally if there is high demand for a feature, a workflow is created very quickly by the community, and this is something which hasn't really happened in this case.

 

@Gareth I understand your frustration, but I'd really appreciate if you could dial down your levels of hostility a little. It'd make me much more willing to work with this feature request (perhaps with a 1st party created workflow for now), regardless of the low levels of interest. Could you also link me any of the feature requests you've made with Mozilla regarding official 3rd party integration of bookmarks so I can potentially chime in on them.

 

Thanks,
Andrew

Hi Andrew

Your suggestion would be a welcome one.

I realise Mozilla haven't made your life easy with the current bookmark storage implementation they have in place, and I appreciate the reluctance to introduce a workaround into Alfred's codebase. So a workflow that was as smooth as native support, even if it wasn't actually native, would be more than acceptable.

My frustration in this thread stems firstly from the friction I've experienced with your admin as you already know, but also from the fact that to date the response to this request was along the lines of "do it yourself and share the results with the community" which was the wrong answer for all kinds of reasons.

If you can find the time to put together a workflow, using your obvious advantages as someone who knows the workflow process inside out to produce a solution that works well, then Alfred would literally be perfect as far as I'm concerned.

Thanks

11 hours ago, Jakub Sypiański said:

@Gareth I don't like the way you present your arguments (also, you have no data to claim that people don't want themes, do you?), but you have a good point: the statistics of active browser users are potentially strongly biased. The impossibility to use the browser of choice due to Alfred's limitations definitely influences statistics. It would be interesting to find out which browsers Alfred users USE, but which they WOULD LIKE to use. However, I don't think that "Firefox: 5%" would suddenly become "People who'd love to use Firefox, but can't: 25%". Just because of the bookmarks?

 

@deanishe Thank you for the answer. I can't wait to learn to make my own workflows, especially after discovering how supportive and dynamic is the the community here. So I will try to forget how great it would be to have my Vivaldi bookmarks accessible through Alfred.

If you're referring to my demeanour, I'm afraid it's a reflection of the attitude of a particular admin on here. Let's just say there's at least one thread that Vero has had to delete because of the way he sometimes talks to customers. And I see no reason to behave like a ray of sunshine with such a person.

With regards to themes, yes you're right. There is 1 guy who asked to be able to edit fonts, back on page 3 of the requested features. So it wasn't quite 0 like I claimed. And this 1 guy must be the Sultan of Brunei to have had his wish granted so quickly, I guess, given that everyone in this thread is so blatantly ignored.

> All the same arguments for not supporting Firefox apply

In this day and age, with data privacy what it is and Chrome leaking data like a sieve, you have no valid arguments for not supporting Firefox.

I'd actually respect you more if you just came out and said you're too lazy to support it, rather than trying to justify it with some BS.

Hiding behind usage numbers isn't valid because as others have already pointed out, the lack of Firefox support in Alfred is the 1 thing keeping them from making the switch. They WANT to switch but you are preventing them from doing so. You are part of the reason for the usage statistics.

It's like me telling my wife, "You cannot drive my car because you are not insured on it" and then immediately afterwards, "Oh, there's no point in me insuring you on my car because you never drive it". It's just nonsense.

Stop investing time into useless features that no-one wants like themes, and put some time into adding support into a feature that your customers are actually asking for - which is support for the safest major browser. The usage statistics will follow.

On 5/30/2019 at 5:34 PM, Justin Aiken said:

https://9to5google.com/2019/05/29/chrome-ad-blocking-enterprise-manifest-v3/

 

Is one of many reasons I'd like to switch to firefox... Alfred's bookmark search is the one thing holding me back.

I actually made the switch last year, despite the lack of support in Alfred, because of the performance advantage, the awesome usability tools and most importantly the significantly better privacy features. I missed Alfred's bookmark search a LOT and did find a couple of hacky workarounds, but none of them as smooth as native support. But I refuse to go back to Chrome.

And yet despite having suggested on their twitter feed in 2017 that Firefox support could come, it still nowhere to be seen:

Very, very disappointing.

They've spent time on setting up improved theme support - which I doubt anyone gives a toss about - and have actively ignored Firefox despite the increasing awareness of data privacy in recent years.

The Alfred team really need a wake-up call.

Just installed Alfred 4. I kinda hoped this feature would have been added as one of the benefits of the upgrade, but nope.

I'm a so-called Mega supporter - a decision I made back when I was still using Chrome, before Firefox became the superior browser.

Alfred's upgrade process asked me if I wanted to make an additional contribution towards its development and I'm afraid the answer was no - and will continue to be no - while the feature I want most remains on your ignore list.

I could believe the meme was a joke if it was posted in isolation, but with the rest of the post as context I really don't think so. There is clearly an attitude at play here and it matches what I've seen elsewhere on the forum as well as what I've heard on Reddit. If it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck then it's a duck.

Now he's just messaged me with:

Quote

Hi Gareth,

If you want to insult me, a PM is just fine.

Thanks,

Dean

What I want, Dean, is to be able to post to the "feature suggestions" area of your "user forum" (which I believe is for customers to request new features?) without getting snotty responses from an arrogant, haughty, condescending moderator who seems to think it's his job to piss people off. Since this seems to be beyond you, I kindly ask that you butt out and let one of your more mature colleagues take over.

How on earth someone with your personality characterists is allowed to represent a company is anyone's guess because you're causing it nothing but harm - and so publicly too as a forum moderator! Just amazing!

Please don't message me again. If I could block you then I would.

Umm, what? You write about the SQL database immediately after I just told you that this database is not required?

And then you claim that toggling a boolean in about:config is beyond your users' abilities? So your users are expected to be able to use advanced default results, set up custom web searches and create new workflows, but toggling a boolean in about:config is too complicated? Are you for real? What nonsense!

Andrew said he didn't want to tackle this feature before I suggested using the exported HTML document which would make it a whole lot easier than using the database. As such, I don't think it's too much to expect that changing circumstances might change his mind - unless of course you guys are flatly determined not to implement the feature regardless of any circumstances because you just hate Firefox? Is that what you're saying?

And I find it incredible that you would post condescending memes in a response to one of your customers' requests. Are you honestly that much of a dick? You even said yourself that, "this feature has been requested several times before", so why on earth would you try to make out via meme that I'm the only one asking for it?

I've heard of mods on here having an attitude problem before. And now I see it with my own eyes. @Vero could you please take a look at this?

> If it's as straightforward as you claim, then why don't you write a workflow that does work?

Because I bought and paid for software that not only does it for 2 other browsers - one of which is less popular than the browser in question - and which takes feature requests from its customers. As the saying goes, "You don't get a dog and then bark yourself".

Also, I'm far from the only customer you have who wants this feature.

> I'm sure other Firefox users would be very grateful.

I'm sure they would indeed. But they didn't buy my software to help support me with its future development - they bought yours.

> Especially when there are a number of workflows which can satisfy this feature.

None of those workflows work properly which is why people keep requesting the feature be added to core. This is so obvious that I'm pretty sure you must already know it.

All you need to do is parse bookmarks.html. Firefox bookmarks have been moved in later versions to SQL you say? Then simply require that users enable the browser.bookmarks.autoExportHTML option in about:config and the browser will generate and maintain that file for you.

Given that bookmarks.html has existed since the dawn of the browser's existence, these "complete overhauls" that you mention are irrelevant. Parse that file and you have Firefox support, no strings attached. Easy.

As your own moderator says, "This feature has been requested several times before". Given that it would be easy to add the feature by parsing bookmarks.html, please go ahead and add it.

Thanks

Firefox is about 2x as popular as Safari though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#W3Counter_(May_2007_to_September_2018). It seems to me that usage is no longer a valid reason.

And that "<5%" of Firefox users still paid the same price for their copy of Alfred as everyone else. Perhaps you should offer a discount for Firefox users seeing as they're forced to go without such useful functionality.

Ah, no worries - I just found http://www.packal.org/workflow/chrome-bookmarks-0which seems to work just fine in Alfred 3. I'll switch to that for now and maybe stick with it if it turns out to be better - or at least as good.  

Hi guys

I just installed Alfred 3 and noticed that the mdreizin Chrome Bookmarks workflow I've been using happily for the last couple of years no longer seems to be working. It just returns "No bookmarks found" regardless of what I search for, even though the bookmarks themselves are all intact.

I'm really busy at the moment so I was hoping this is an issue that has already been resolved by someone... is that the case?

Thanks