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f33e652
(Get the code!)
(In reply to comment #10)
> (In reply to comment #9)
> > That's at least more likely to be what they want than some
> > arbitrary default we provide that they haven't set at all.
>
> Its more likely, but can also be spectacularly wrong. It also means that if
> you searched with Amazon last, you need to change the searchbar in order to
> context search with Google. This was the concern that led us to switch from
> the current engine to the default engine. It was incredibly annoying, to be
> honest.
That doesn't seem *more* spectacularly wrong than if the default is something you didn't want to use for anything. I completely accept that it won't be right in cases, but I don't see why the default we give is ever going to be "less bad" in some way.
I also don't really see how switching the context search engine with the dropdown is hideous. That's what my trunk install seems to do for me right now. Do we really think we can provide awesome UI for someone who wants to use one search engine in the search box but a different for context searching, at the same time?
> > BTW, where is the "search manager" where this new UI can be exposed?
>
> Its in the engine selection dropdown.
Ah... well, how will that be helpful in this case then? The case where we're expecting people to use it is the case where they've removed their search box, so they can't get at the manager.
If our answer is "they should have changed it before removing/they can re-add the bar", well, then they could re-add the bar to just switch the drop-down search engine too, so it doesn't seem like the manager would be an improvement, unless you've already accepted that having two different prefs is necessarily better. Even then it's still clunky to switch this.
If we must do separate prefs, it seems like we should set the "default" to the empty string, which means it should use the search box' last-used engine. If someone then changes the default to something non-empty, context-search and Tools->Web Search always use this. This allows people to set a different context search than their dropdown if that really ticks them off, while still doing a best-guess behavior for other users. In that case I'm not sure I would expose any UI to change the "default" beyond about:config; if we also must expose UI, then something accessible from (at least) the prefs window a la:
Web searches from outside the search box should always use:
(o) The engine I last selected in the search box
( ) This engine: | Google |v|
This would at least be modifiable when the user had removed their search box.