Re: Removing Firefox Version Number

On 8/16/2011 5:57 PM, Asa Dotzler wrote:
>
>
> Kai Engert wrote:
>> On Aug 16, 8:05 pm, Asa Dotzler<[email protected]> wrote:
>>> Kai Engert wrote:
>>>> Having the version number available simplifies the diagnosis of
>>>> problems.
>>> For those diagnosing problems, how is Help->Troubleshooting, which
>>> contains the version number right at the top, not a better tool?
>>
>> Because it's a non-standard location.
>> Because the menu entry "Help->Troubleshooting" doesn't include the
>> name of the application.
>
> You haven't looked have you. You're just making wild guesses. If you'd
> looked at Help->Troubleshooting any time recently, you'd see that it
> includes the Name, the version, the user agent string, then a full list
> of extensions installed, links to see which plugins and plug-in versions
> are installed, a list of modified preferences, the graphics card
> information and the rendering mode Firefox is using and much much more.
>
>
>> I'm not talking about the power users, who understand how to help
>> themselves.
>> It's about the mass of people who are thankful to have a working
>> computer, and if running into trouble, are thankful they can call
>> someone for help.
>
> When they call that someone for help, that someone is presumably the
> kind of power user who does understand how to help themselves and that
> person will say "Go to Help->Troubleshooting and, copy that info and
> give it to me."
>
>> In my understanding, it's a standard across operating systems and
>> across software products that this piece of information can be found
>> in an about dialog - and inside this dialog, the version number is
>> probably the only number shown - making it very easy to locate.
>>
>> Problem (a)
>> Support staff has a more complicated task - because they must remember
>> that Firefox/Thunderbird are an exception - that the version
>> information must be looked up elsewhere.
>
> Firefox is already the exception. Or rather, all browsers are already
> the exception. Help->About is located in a different place on IE6, IE9,
> Firefox 3.6, Firefox 4+, Chrome, Opera, and Safari. Support staff must
> already provide custom instructions for finding Help->About.
>
>> Problem (b)
>> Language. A user might be sitting at a computer that uses a foreign
>> language. Or, the support person doesn't know the exact wording of
>> "troubleshooting" in the language the user is using.
>
> The support person can tell the user to go to help about and the user
> can tell the support person they are indeed running on the latest
> version of Firefox (like pretty much every other Firefox user on the
> planet) and the support person can use that information to help diagnose
> the problem.
>
>> Problem (c)
>> The user is overwhelmed with the information seen on screen. Too many
>> numbers. Which one is ist?
>
> The Troubleshooting page has even clearer labels than the about dialog
> does. It's far easier to understand what part of that information is
> important than it is in the about dialog. Also, if the person helping
> them needs more information, like what extensions the user has or what
> prefs are set or whether or not the user has hardware accelerated
> rendering turned on, then that information is all lower on the page and
> easily accessible.
>
It is easily accessible, but copy to clipboard, and paste into TB in 
plain text doesn't format too well.