Ask HN: How many years are required for Mozilla to implement a simple feature?

[ibobev]

Simultaneous spell checking of multiple languages is a feature available in Google Chrome web browser form a long time. There is such feature request for Mozilla Firefox web browser also from a long time. But it is still not implemented. There are several related open issues in the Mozilla's bug tracker:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=69687

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=616108

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=676500

Despite the fact that the oldest of them is more than 19 years old, no real progress is made. Manual language switching is required and this is a usability nightmare for everyone who uses a more than one language simultaneously. For example, for me is a common practice to write messages in my native language and to mix English terms in them. The lack of this feature is the main reason for me switching back to Chrome, after I had returned to Firefox when Firefox Quantum was released. I suspect that only the lack of this feature is the main reason for many other people to not use Mozilla's browser and that this is a huge damage on their user base.

After all, for the feature to work the same way as in Chrome, does not look very difficult. The algorithm can be simply:

  function check(word, active_dictionaries):
    for dictionary in active_dictionaries:
      if word in dictionary:
        return true
    return false

Of course there can be some complications related to Firefox internals, which do not allow such a simple implementation, but 19 years are really a long time. I suspect that the reasons this not happen until know are not technical, but purely political?

[wakeywakeywakey]

Take a second to reflect on what you're actually saying:

> "I requested this feature X years ago. (Also, I'm not doing the work of actually writing any code, but it must be super easy to implement, here's some pseudocode. You're welcome.)"

Your implementation is useless; anyone can hand-wave and scribble something on a napkin over their lunch break. It's the details that surface the complexity.

Either way, it's moot. It's not like they can't figure out a for-loop on their own. It's about portioning dev resources for "your favorite feature" and justifying the maintenance cost of this feature later on.

You are not asking for Open Source™. You are being Openly Selfish™

[mtmail]

I see 500+ reported issues for Firefox just with the words 'address bar' in the title. This feature request is important to you, the others are important to their respective reporters. Mozilla doesn't have enough people and volunteers and never will.

> I suspect that only the lack of this feature is the main reason for many other people to not use Mozilla's browser

Unlikely. It sounds like you used Firefox for months (Quantum was released 18 months ago). It might be a factor but the other 10000 features of the browser also had to work fine to make the daily use enjoyable.