Re: Removing Firefox Version Number

Ron Hunter wrote:
> 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.
>

Yeah. The pasting isn't as good as I'd like it to be either. I wonder if 
we have a bug on file.

- A