Improve usability for firefox on unity

[scoopex]

The fact that unity pushes me always(!) to the existing firefox window if i hit the firefox icon is a usability nightmare.
I often group windows on a certain desktop for a certain task - therefore it would be great to have the possibility to raise
a new window.

The following changes improve the situation - in my opinion this should be the default:
----
cat /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop > ~/.local/share/applications/firefox.desktop
cd ~/.local/share/applications/
patch -p0 <<EOF
--- firefox.desktop.orig 2011-10-08 10:56:11.000000000 +0200
+++ firefox.desktop 2011-11-01 06:43:34.844685893 +0100
@@ -124,7 +124,8 @@
 MimeType=text/html;text/xml;application/xhtml+xml;application/xml;application/vnd.mozilla.xul+xml;application/rss+xml;application/rdf+xml;image/gif;image/jpeg+;image/png;x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https;x-scheme-handler/ftp;x-scheme-handler/chrome;video/webm;
 StartupWMClass=Firefox
 StartupNotify=true
-X-Ayatana-Desktop-Shortcuts=NewWindow;
+X-Ayatana-Desktop-Shortcuts=NewWindow;Private;Safe;ProfileManager;
+TargetEnvironment=Unity

 [NewWindow Shortcut Group]
 Name=Open a New Window
@@ -154,3 +155,18 @@
 Name[zh_TW]=開啟新視窗
 Exec=firefox -new-window about:blank
 TargetEnvironment=Unity
+
+[Private Shortcut Group]
+Name=Private Mode
+Exec=firefox -private-toggle
+TargetEnvironment=Unity
+
+[Safe Shortcut Group]
+Name=Safe Mode
+Exec=firefox -safe-mode
+TargetEnvironment=Unity
+
+[ProfileManager Shortcut Group]
+Name=Start Profile Manager
+Exec=firefox -ProfileManager
+
EOF
---

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

Sorry, but we don't just want to stick every possible option in to the quicklist menu, and the "-safe-mode" and "-Profilemanager" options are not used often enough to justify such a prominent place in the UI.

Firstly, the profilemanager option will always fail if you already have another Firefox instance open anyway (unless you use -no-remote, but we certainly do not want that in any option by default as you will then get errors about the profile being locked if you try to open a new instance without realizing one is already open).

Secondly, the -safe-mode option will always fail to do the right thing unless you close all running instance. The -no-remote option won't help you there either (specifying it will just lead to errors about the profile being locked).

In addition to that, we don't want an entry for private-browsing mode until Firefox supports the ability to have a mixture of private and non-private windows. Having a quicklist entry which closes all of your current windows to switch mode is not really acceptable.