Firefox 4 status bar

[DaCypher]

I know there is some discussion about changing the status bar (possibly hiding it by default) for a future version of Firefox. Is any of this work going to be happening for Firefox 4? What are the relevant bugs (my bugzilla searches haven't come up with anything)? I know this is a controversial change so I don't want to start a flame war, I'd just like to follow the development process.

On a side note, I think there is also some changes planned for the theme where there will no longer be dedicated stop and reload buttons, instead there will be a new button for stopping/reloading in the address bar itself. Does anyone know anything more about this change (bug numbers welcome)?

Thanks...

[mistertwol]

Combined stop/go/refresh:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=544816

That's the only one I can find. There are tons of mockups around though.
Here's the link to the ones about the status bar:
http://jboriss.wordpress.com/2010/04/29 ... rt-1-of-2/

there are four parts.

[Tiago Sá]

As far as I know, no solution has been found/decided on as to how to display hovered links and page loading progress. So before that solution is found/decided on, the status bar will remain as is. I do know that the intent is to hide it by default and as soon as the user or an add-on places a button or icon or whatever there, it's displayed, but always with a "minimize" button... But work on it is at an early stage.

[Terepin]

page loading progress

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=544818
Status Bar will be replaced by Addons Bar.

[Tiago Sá]

I was talking about the text, really. The thing where it says textually what it's doing and where it's getting things from, but with the new heads up display, it may not be really necessary to have it always visible. After all, no user ever needs it for all sites... That said, the heads up display, as it stands now, despite having some awesome functionality, doesn't really replace the page loading text...

About the progress line, I would be more than happy if they had the pie chart only. It's more than enough, to be honest. But it's very good, in any case, that the loading progress indicator(s) is(are) now tab specific, and not on the main UI.

:EDIT:
I just read that they're NOT going to include the pie charts in the final release and are sticking to the loading bar. That's better... I guess... I would have preferred the pie charts, since they will also work on the app tabs, but whatever.

Usability be damned! We just want bonkers stuff!

[Cheekeh Munkeh]

About the progress line, I would be more than happy if they had the pie chart only. It's more than enough, to be honest. But it's very good, in any case, that the loading progress indicator(s) is(are) now tab specific, and not on the main UI.

:EDIT:
I just read that they're NOT going to include the pie charts in the final release and are sticking to the loading bar. That's better... I guess... I would have preferred the pie charts, since they will also work on the app tabs, but whatever.

Usability be damned! We just want bonkers stuff!

The more and more I see of the UI changes planned for 4.x, I wonder whether any of the designers ever considered use cases where more than a handful of tabs are open.

Compare the progress information conveyed by a pie chart vs. the progress line when the number of tabs open dictate that each tab progressively shrinks to its minimum width. Oh, but the latter gives the illusion of being faster!

Similarly, without a title bar, the ability to quickly ascertain the descriptive title of a tab is lost without doing a mouseover and waiting for the popup.

There is already a mechanism in place for those who wish to save a few pixels by turning the status bar off. Of course, that's not good enough, so they instead choose to compromise the function for those users who do like its function by having it do a popup and disappearing act or hacking it to pieces.

Firefox's Extension and Thematic capabilities seem to be changing from merely enhancements to means for salvation. Are users that desperate to sacrifice useful information for the sake of simplicity and a minimal increase in vertical content space?

[Terepin]

I'm not finding any useful information in status bar. Furthermore, once title bar will be fully customizable, I'll put all addons icons there.

[makondo]

... After all, no user ever needs it for all sites...

Some exts. put their icons in the statusbar. Plus, there exts. that allow you to do so yourself. That and text info is useful to me. So, if they'll hide it, i'd like an option to un-hide it.
EDIT: yes, a customizable titlebar gives more space to put buttons, however, i like some of them not to be in my face and sit in the statusbar. So, if you put useful ones into the titlebar, you can eliminate some other bar and still use the statusabar ... all the same but by your choice.

[Tiago Sá]

I was talking about the page loading progress text specifically, not the status bar. There's absolutely no logic hiding the status bar, and if you ask me, they're not going to do it (even if they're planning to). There's just too many usability problems. It's not gonna work, and that's good! No one need the lower part of the screen anyway! It's a blind spot.

I think much of what is said in this forum doesn't really reflect what's going to be. But I may be wrong... For example, the Fitt's law thing for the tabs on the titlbar. As far as I know, tabs won't be on the titlebar when maximized (by default) for the simple fact that Fitt's law doesn't apply when there are OS toolbars on the top. That alone is a blocker there and then. And then there's all sorts of conflicts with the profile manager, and add-on icons on the titlebar and whatnot. Nah nah nah, it's not gonna happen, not the tabs on titlebar, and not the hidden status bar. They'll have a hard time making it a normal toolbar, as is, to go for animations and ifs and whiles, nah, not happening in my opinion.

[b.pwned]

I'm not finding any useful information in status bar. Furthermore, once title bar will be fully customizable, I'll put all addons icons there.

Do you have a bug id or anything to follow the progress on this? I have to occasionally re-enable my status bar just for Firefox Sync's status messages. Annoying :-/

[ajnauron]

About the progress line, I would be more than happy if they had the pie chart only. It's more than enough, to be honest. But it's very good, in any case, that the loading progress indicator(s) is(are) now tab specific, and not on the main UI.

:EDIT:
I just read that they're NOT going to include the pie charts in the final release and are sticking to the loading bar. That's better... I guess... I would have preferred the pie charts, since they will also work on the app tabs, but whatever.

Usability be damned! We just want bonkers stuff!

The more and more I see of the UI changes planned for 4.x, I wonder whether any of the designers ever considered use cases where more than a handful of tabs are open.

Compare the progress information conveyed by a pie chart vs. the progress line when the number of tabs open dictate that each tab progressively shrinks to its minimum width. Oh, but the latter gives the illusion of being faster!

Similarly, without a title bar, the ability to quickly ascertain the descriptive title of a tab is lost without doing a mouseover and waiting for the popup.

There is already a mechanism in place for those who wish to save a few pixels by turning the status bar off. Of course, that's not good enough, so they instead choose to compromise the function for those users who do like its function by having it do a popup and disappearing act or hacking it to pieces.

Firefox's Extension and Thematic capabilities seem to be changing from merely enhancements to means for salvation. Are users that desperate to sacrifice useful information for the sake of simplicity and a minimal increase in vertical content space?

The additional information is minimally useful and in most cases reproduced elsewhere. For example:

1. Titles are on the tabs, mouseovering will reveal the full title.
2. page loading progress can be displayed on a tab per tab basis with the tab progress bars feature.
3. Mouseovered links can be temporarily placed in the addressbar and removed when no longer mouseovered.

This saves a great deal of space and I'm sure most users would rather have more screen real estate for looking at their content rather than the browser's chrome. Also, netbook screens, where vertical space is essential. Enough said.

[Tiago Sá]

1. Which means it's a pain for users who only use one tab, since tabs don't have high max-widths.
2. Which means App Tabs won't have any progress indicators at all. The pie chart would be a much better solution, I believe, and it looks faster too.
3. Which is a huge security problem, since I can think of at three different ways to reliably fool the browser into telling the user he's seeing a site he's not. It would be mighty easy to create sites that would display a, say, www.google.com url, and be somewhere else: phising paradise!

They're definitely not going for that. It would be an absolute nightmare. From what I've read from planet.mozilla feeds, there is no decision as to what to do with the hover links.

[ajnauron]

1. Users who only use one tab know what they're looking at.
2. I've encountered this, but I believe that a tab progress bar feature can still be implemented across the top of the apptab.
3. Can I get an example of one such site that does this?

[Terepin]

There's absolutely no logic hiding the status bar, and if you ask me, they're not going to do it (even if they're planning to). There's just too many usability problems. It's not gonna work, and that's good! No one need the lower part of the screen anyway! It's a blind spot.

Wrong. There won't be any status bar. It will be addons bar for those addons, which don't require active using of it's icons. For the rest there will be title bar.

1. Which means it's a pain for users who only use one tab, since tabs don't have high max-widths.
2. Which means App Tabs won't have any progress indicators at all.

Wrong. Again. Only background AppTabs won't have PL.

[Tiago Sá]

3. Can I get an example of one such site that does this?

It's not present in any browser, is it? Why would there be a site that does it? An easy way is to have the entire site be an a href for google, or a Google site, and then have onclick javascript to replace what actually happens when that a href is clicked. It could be easily used for password stealing of Google accounts.

Wrong. There won't be any status bar. It will be addons bar for those addons, which don't require active using of it's icons. For the rest there will be title bar.

Bugs please? Or are you just talking about what's planned? Because I know what the plan is, as I said, I just don't believe it will ever make it to final release (not because of the time it takes to implement, but because of the feedback that will appear).

Wrong. Again. Only background AppTabs won't have PL.

Oh, that's not so bad then, is it? I guess that part is covered, I think... For the most part... I think...