There's a bug filed for this.

"Bookmark toolbar items are harder to touch in the new megabar redesign"

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1628243

Why not just middle click (or Ctrl click if you don't have a middle mouse button) on the link to open it in a new tab directly and skip a step?

Can't answer for parent post, but I do my living room browsing on a 1360x768 dumb TV and having the bookmarks toolbar open in any tab other than a blank new tab eats a noticeable amount of screen real state, so I default to new tab & click on bookmark.

It's a bummer that Firefox is not respecting its own compact layout by needlessly enlarging the address bar while on focus, but the shadow dropped from the new monstrosity obscures the bookmarks toolbar in my desktop with default layout, too, and that's a real usability concern.

How does this work for you? The only thing I miss about Chrome is it's default exposure of the bookmarks bar on new tab page.

Until FF 72, adding the following to userchrome worked fine to mimic this behavior, but now it is broken:

https://github.com/Timvde/UserChrome-Tweaks/blob/master/tool...

I think I'm using a tweaked version of this one:

https://github.com/MrOtherGuy/firefox-csshacks/blob/master/c...

I changed it into "transform 125ms linear 43ms" and removed the "transition-delay" lines because it felt too slow.

Because GUIs have have more then one workflow since their invention. Same reason that there are multiple designs of physical tools, user preference.

Sure, but in this case this is the intended workflow, and works so well that if another, alternate workflow is affected it's not much of a problem.

well for me, because I had no idea.

That's interesting, it doesn't auto-expand for me. When I make a new tab, the URL bar is active, but it doesn't expand the dropdown thingy. If I start typing, or click on the URL bar, then it shows the dropdown. Maybe it's a platform difference (I'm on Linux), or some configuration tweak (I use the "compact" layout option), or buggy for one of us :)

On Linux with FF 75 for me, clicking in the URL bar (or Ctrl+L) sets focus to the bar (as it used to), but also causes the bar to expand downwards (open) with suggestions.

FF 74 didn't use to do this, neither does Chrome for me.

The dropdown list of suggestions/search results is not the expanding thing that people are complaining about. The URL box itself expands. Maybe you wouldn't have been so dismissive of people's complaints if you had fully understood what this change does.

I don't think I've been dismissive of anyone's complaints?

You've called people rude for feeling strongly about their objections to this change, you've denied that Mozilla would have shipped a negative change, you've accused the detractors of this change of not understanding that it could pose a maintenance burden to keep it optional, and you've asserted that said maintenance burden outweighs the usability benefit of letting existing users keep the existing behavior.

You've done everything except provide an actual argument in favor of why Mozilla should introduce this new UI behavior that breaks existing conventions and interferes with other features in ways that are as-yet unresolved.

And you're doing similar stuff elsewhere in the thread about other questionable Mozilla UI decisions.

My URL box does not expand. I'm on MacOS with FF 75. Very odd. There must be settings that affect the behavior of the new address bar

Can you provide a screenshot? For me, the address bar partly overlaps the bookmarks bar but not the actual bookmarks. Also, the increased size of the address bar is purely visual and the clickable area of the bookmarks did not change at all. You can verify that by hovering the bookmarks while moving the mouse pointer inside the address bar. The bookmarks are still clickable even when the pointer is visually within in the address bar.

It partially hides the bar, you can still click the bookmarks but it makes it uncomfortable.