Fenix: Sync collections (restore in Fenix)

[jawadalkassim]

Description
Save collections to Firefox Account to access sites and collections order when i sign in again with a new device .
benefits
When signing in with Firefox account
should got a choice to restore Collections backup from the server,
add new sync option in Firefox preview to sync collections with bookmarks and history.

[ViktorZhurbin]

Reinstalled the app and my collections were gone. This was very frustrating

[yoasif]

Hit another user in the wild: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/ehkbj0/i_deleted_firefox_preview_nightly_and_installed/

[ghost]

Please bring this feature as it takes a lot of effort curating all those collections and not having a way to restore them if I reinstall the browser or on a new phone is really frustrating!

[madb1lly]

Hi @SS1113,

I completely agree, now that tabs are synched I'll probably keep using those rather than use collections.

Cheers 🙂

[liuche]

There's currently some work going on in terms of redefining how/what collections are, will that affect this work? Or need to be taken into account? Collections will probably still be urls-based, but may include things like scroll position, history, etc.

[liuche]

Okay, got some answers here, and summarizing them for @vesta0

There are 4 main options for the underlying Sync Collections foundational work:
1) write a new sync engine specifically for Collections [not being considered]
2) write a generic sync engine that could be used in the future, and make an instance for Collections (will a good deal of AS time to design, architect)
3) Piggyback off of Tabs Sync
4) Piggyback off of Bookmarks Sync

Only 3 and 4 are currently being considered for a "short-term" solution, especially since Desktop will get them "for free" because they're piggybacked off of existing engines. However, there are some tradeoffs, that have some implications for what is easy/possible with Collections in the future, and thereby result in some wasted eng work.

If we follow option 3) and reuse tab sync (with +/-):

• + easy to have history (since tabs sync this)
• - is more work, bc requires implementing interleaving when different devices update Collections (since tabs are per-device) (OR could have "collections per device", similar to Tab Sync UI where each set of tabs is associated with a device - but this doesn't really match with what collections is)

Option 4) reuse bookmarks sync (with +/-):

• + matches with current idea of collections (basically, a synced bookmarks folder)
• - don't need to additionally implement reconciling, since bookmark folders are already "global" and not per-device
• - would need to additionally implement collection item state like history, scroll position, other session state

The question is, what is the better fit for collections? Some things to consider:

• If we keep the design of Collections as-is, there is probably still a good deal of work to be done
• If we change what Collections are (e.g. automatic collections), we may need to either throw away some eng work, or layer on additional eng work
• it would be easier to choose between 3) & 4) if we knew what format Collections was going to be

[madb1lly]

Hi all,
Where is this ongoing discussion about Collections? Is it here #11967?

Of the above options from @liuche I prefer option 3. To me, Collections offered the promise of saved sessions which I could swap between, like tab groups on desktop, and unfortunately that promise hasn't materialised yet. I don't think that the disadvantage of interleaving needs to be considered, as this is optional - collections could remain per device (like they are at the moment, because they're not synced). If you _could_ make Collections be global across all synced devices then that would be great! But could also have unwanted side effects, e.g. the user might need to store different collections for mobile and desktop (would still be less work than currently though).

Option 4 would seem like little more than bookmarks with a privileged position on the homescreen, so I don't see the point; I'd rather have all my bookmarks folders on the Fenix homescreen if that's the way collections are going.

Cheers 🙂