Browser-laptop: Allow empty titles on bookmarks

[tschf]

Did you search for similar issues before submitting this one?

Yes

Describe the issue you encountered:

For some of my bookmarks, the favicon is enough. In my bookmark bar, I leave a few without titles. Others still need a title (I note the settings allow to just use favicons, just titles or both - but I don't want a blanket rule for all bookmarks, so I leave some without a title).

If I try to update the bookmark entry with no title, it will just revert to the previous value.
Or, if I import bookmarks with no title, the URL is displayed instead of the title.

note: I'm mindful of the fact that you allow favicons to be turned off (default) may cause issues as nothing will be displayed in the default configuration when no title is there (favicons are switched off in a fresh install).

Expected behavior:

Removing the title property should keep it that way - blank.

• Platform (Win7, 8, 10? macOS? Linux distro?): Linux, Ubuntu 16.04 x64
• Brave Version: Brave: 0.11.1
• Steps to reproduce:
  
  
  
  1. Import bookmarks
  
  
  2. Any bookmark with no title will show the URL instead of leaving it blank - falling back to the URL field
  
  

(Perhaps a solution is to show URL only when favicons are set to not display and title is blank)

One work around is to save it with a single space (to force a blank title to save).

• Screenshot if needed:

Section from Chrome:

After importing into Brave

After specifying title with a single space

• Any related issues: #2672

[bsclifton]

This would be easy to do; @bradleyrichter, what do you think? @tschf makes a great point about the bookmarks disappearing if favicons are turned off

[cndouglas]

+1 from #8957 (Impossible to add bookmark with empty name)

[eljuno]

+1 from community https://community.brave.com/t/bookmark-naming-favicons/5781?u=eljuno

Allow us to name a bookmark ‘nothing’, as in have no characters in the name. Right now at least one character is required.

+1 from community https://community.brave.com/t/tool-bar-suggestion/5790?u=eljuno

[luixxiul]

Do they really want to name nothing to bookmarks or display only favicons? Some of them look that they simply do not know about that option: https://community.brave.com/t/bookmark-naming-favicons/5781/2

[cndouglas]

From the first comment in this issue (https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/issues/2972#issue-169525969):

For some of my bookmarks, the favicon is enough. In my bookmark bar, I leave a few without titles. Others still need a title (I note the settings allow to just use favicons, just titles or both - but I don't want a blanket rule for all bookmarks, so I leave some without a title).

So some users want a mix of bookmarks with and without titles.

[eljuno]

+1 from community https://community.brave.com/t/bookmarks-toolbar-cannot-just-leave-icon-removing-text/10962?u=eljuno

[ashrafhadden]

+1 For allowing import of empty titles on bookmarks leaving only the favicon. Editing the code to include a space when the parser runs into a blank sounds like an easy temp hack. Leaving an actual blank with no space on import would be ideal since that would conserve the most space on the bookmarks toolbar and would be a truer import.

I myself also enjoy using both blank (leaving just favicon) and text bookmarks (text + favicon) on Chrome. Also seeing as most users will be coming from Chrome it would be helpful if "Text and Favicons" was the default option in the Brave General>Bookmarks Bar preferences.

[eljuno]

+1 from community https://community.brave.com/t/allow-empty-names-in-bookmarks/14867?u=eljuno

I know, there is the option to only show the favicons, but I’d like to be able to remove the title of specific bookmarks. The reason for that is some favicons are “unique” in my bookmarks so I know what page will be navigated to. However, for some bookmarks like youtube videos I’d like to see the title too as they all have the same favicon.

[revelt]

I was about to create an issue about this - that's a must and no-brainer. Reasons why we need this feature shipped:

• User knows his/her most-used bookmarks anyway, title is redundant, visual picture-only does reduce the cognitive load since there's less info surrounding the bookmark button
• Saves space
• Differentiates from folder-bookmarks - I keep my top-bookmarks on the leftmost edge and they don't have titles. Whatever has titles is a folder. This way I differentiate the two and optimise the space.

👍 👍 👍

[eljuno]

+1 from community https://community.brave.com/t/bookmarks-bar-favicons-and-text-selected-problem/17259?u=eljuno

In other browsers if I delete the title text I can have the favicon only. I can also have text if I leave the title. In Brave if I delete the title it shows a snippet of the url instead.

[MargarytaChepiga]

What if the website doesn't have a favicon?

[bsclifton]

@MargarytaChepiga we currently default to a document icon when a favicon is not available:

For the bookmarks toolbar itself, see:
https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/blob/5d58f8d9d4057c8adb37694ab6430179a9272034/app/renderer/components/bookmarks/bookmarkToolbarButton.js#L266-L278

For the bookmarks manager, see:
https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/blob/5d58f8d9d4057c8adb37694ab6430179a9272034/app/renderer/about/bookmarks/bookmarkTitleCell.js#L35-L44

[MargarytaChepiga]

Thank you @bsclifton! I will look into this!

[eljuno]

+1 from community https://community.brave.com/t/suggestion-bookmark-titles/26063?u=eljuno