14 DAY TRIAL // Mozilla engineers are currently working on a cool new feature for Firefox, an autofill profile functionality that will let users automatically enter pre-determined information inside web forms.
If you're confused as to why this is a "new" feature, let us explains. For almost a decade, if not even more, Firefox shipped with a default setting that remembers the text users enter in form fields.
Whenever users filled in a similar form field, labeled in the same way, Firefox would detect the field's similar purpose and allow the user to select from a list of previously entered details.
This action is time-consuming, though, since it requires users to review each past entry and find the one they like.
Autofill feature will work using user profiles
According to a Mozilla Bugzilla entry, the development team is working on an autofill profile-like system for Firefox.
This new functionality will let users create "profiles" with predetermined content for various types of form fields, such as first name, last name, company, street address, country, city, postal code, and so on.
When the user accesses a page that includes a form with these kinds of fields, the browser will ask the user if he/she wants to autofill the form. If the user says yes, they'd be prompted to select a profile that holds the data that Firefox will insert into the form fields.
Autofill profiles are ideal for users with multiple online personas
Users can set up different profiles for each of their online personas: gamer, social media, work-related, hacker (if you're up to no good), and so on.
The feature had been proposed two years ago, but only at the end of August did Mozilla start working on early UI & UX (user interface & user experience) drafts.
You can check out an Invision presentation for more details on how the feature will be integrated into Firefox. Since an earlier version of the Invision demo was removed, we pulled some of the key photos and embedded them below for your viewing pleasure (click to start slideshow).
