GUI Request: Combine Activity Indicator & Reload Button

[Fuziwuzi]

Whether something is arbitrary or makes sense is entirely up to the beholder. To some, having the refresh button and throbber combined makes sense (I like the idea as well). To some it is not so good, perhaps because it has never been done that way before or because no other browser does it or just because. It is like other "features" such as the ridiculous (to me) virus scan of downloaded files in the download manager. We had to scream repeatedly to finally get the ability to turn that blasted thing off, but some people think it is necessary (it isn't, it is only to placate some sense of doing something, even though that doing something doesn't actually do anything productive).

Perhaps an extension or theme that does this button/throbber combination would be appropriate.

[Siemova]

The two are fundamentally, functionally related.

No they aren't. Clicking links, opening bookmarks and clicking the "Go" button also trigger the loading of pages. Aside from the fact that making the Refresh button a status indicator would be completely inconsistent with the other toolbar buttons - do people even use Refresh? It has to be the least used button in the GUI.

But there are other reasons as well. For one, it would eliminate the need for a separate throbber on the navbar, thus saving space.

A 16 pixel horizontal saving is irrelevant next to having a GUI that makes sense. If reducing GUI was a goal of Firefox, the browser could probably have nothing but a URL bar and a "Back" button and still satisfy the majority of use-cases. However, I think we can all agree that this would be somewhat silly.

The status bar offers a loading indicator as per every other browser. If anything, we could have progress bars built into tabs or the location bar. Making an arbitrary button spin is not the answer.

I'm sensing a little animosity here. If you don't like the idea, that's fine. Please don't jump down my throat over it, though.

Something occurred to me at the end of your comment. If "making an arbitrary button spin is not the answer," why did we come up with the throbber in the first place? That's exactly what it is: an arbitrary button created to denote loading status. (Its function on click is even more arbitrary!) Reload, on the other hand, wouldn't be an arbitrary place to denote that, because it's inherently involved with page loading.

Many of us do use Reload. I often employ it when testing changes I make to websites via CMS built-in editors, among other things. Of course, there are plenty of other folks who never use it, and you appear to be one of them. That's just fine, but it does make me wonder why you even care whether the two are combined.

Anyhow, to address your first point: I didn't say Reload and the throbber are interchangeable; only that they both relate to the same function, and are therefore compatible and combinable. You may not see the sense in that, but nevertheless there is some sense and a decided lack of arbitrariness to the proposal.

[BenBasson]

Something occurred to me at the end of your comment. If "making an arbitrary button spin is not the answer," why did we come up with the throbber in the first place? That's exactly what it is: an arbitrary button created to denote loading status. (Its function on click is even more arbitrary!) Reload, on the other hand, wouldn't be an arbitrary place to denote that, because it's inherently involved with page loading.

The reload button is inherently involved with page reloading, not loading. The throbber should never have been a button, and as far as I know, hasn't been since 2.0 (a release for which UI common sense happened in abundance).

Many of us do use Reload. I often employ it when testing changes I make to websites via CMS built-in editors, among other things. Of course, there are plenty of other folks who never use it, and you appear to be one of them. That's just fine, but it does make me wonder why you even care whether the two are combined.

I use the refresh button, but like I said, I imagine it has to be one of the least used buttons by people in general, apart from maybe "Stop", which I'm struggling to think of an actual reason for in this day and age.

I care because I think it's a weird idea that makes no sense to me in terms of general UI design. I don't think others will make the link you have between "reload" and "loading...", and I think it would be completely at odds with every other application I've used. I'm not opposed to new status indicators, I just don't see why the refresh button is a good choice. I'd much rather see the location bar "fill up", as per the status bar loading indicator, at least that gives some idea of progress.

[Siemova]

Oh, by the way, I was just thinking about the claim that "making the Refresh button a status indicator would be completely inconsistent with the other toolbar buttons," and I realized that's not actually the case. Back, Forward, and Stop all indicate status by disabling in appropriate situations (Back when there's nothing to go back to, Stop when nothing's loading, etc.). The location bar, especially in its new incarnation, indicates multiple statuses: the security of the current page (via color), and whether it's bookmarked (via star), and also whether the address has been visited yet (by only displaying the Go arrow when a new URL is entered). Even the search bar indicates whether the current page is Open Search compatible.

So, of all the default navbar icons, Reload is the only one that <i>doesn't</i> indicate some sort of status. Interesting!

EDIT: Then again, Reload <i>is</i> disabled before you visit anything. But I think we can see that navbar buttons do already indicate a variety of statuses, which was my main point.

[Siemova]

Sorry, Cusser -- I still had the tab open from earlier, so I didn't see your reply until I'd submitted my last comment. Didn't intend to ignore what you said! ^_^

*shrug* I think the difference between "load" and "load again" is negligible enough to combine their active representation (loading is loading), but that's just my opinion. I appreciate the discussion -- might as well contend for our positions a bit before throwing in the towel, wot? -- but I'm content to agree to disagree in the end.

[BenBasson]

So, of all the default navbar icons, Reload is the only one that doesn't indicate some sort of status. Interesting!

The back, forward and stop buttons are disabled when you cannot use them - very different to showing that something is loading. The same goes for showing a slightly different coloured search bar menu button.

The location bar isn't a toolbar button, so whether or not it displays status is barely relevant to this discussion - the functionality it includes is somewhat strange and from what I know fairly unique in the world of software. I personally think that showing status there is a good thing, and that we could have a load indicator there - perhaps in place of the favicon while a site is loading, perhaps as a progress bar that sits comfortably behind the url, or both.

All the time Firefox still has a status bar, I'm not convinced there's really a need to do anything, but anything that helps users is a good thing. Perhaps the status bar should be completely scrapped.

[alterna]

Perhaps the status bar should be completely scrapped.

In 2.0.0.12, I use Fission and have hover links in the location bar, progress meter in the location bar (and never display throbber), waiting and transferring announcements in the location bar.
The only use I have for the status bar is when an extension hardcodes it's icon to it.
I have it hidden and use a custom button to display it on those rare occassions. I sure wouldn't miss it.

[Diago]

As web developer I found the combination of the "Combine Stop/Reload buttons" and "Stop Button as Throbber Indicator" styles from Stylish an excellent way to clean up my toolbars a bit. Combined with tabmix tab loading status I personally find it easy to find these activity things more centrally on my screen.

Applying the styles to non-tech users like my parents and neighbors did not result in usage complaints at all. More so, I found that they did not use the reload and especially the stop button that much at all. So it's cluttering up space without adding much to the end user's functionality and way of browsing wise.
Maybe it's because in this country broadband connections are widely spread and there's often no chance/need to click the stop button. Nowadays there's just not so many unresponsive pages over here

Would be nice to have these OOB, saves me some customizations and I can focus more on evangelization.

[ndixon]

I think the justification for <b>not</b> combining Stop and Reload was the possibility of users aiming for the Stop button <i>just before</i> the page stops loading - by the time they get the pointer over there, the icon has changed and they click on what is now a Reload button, which is not what they intended.

I don't know how often that happens in practice, but the potential nuisance value was considerered a good enough reason to keep the two functions on separate buttons.

[Stifu]

ndixon: yes, that was one of the reasons advanced. But people suggested a workaround for this problem: disable the refresh button for x seconds after the page is done loading, to prevent this scenario from happening.

[UrbenLegend]

I think one potential problem with combining reload and throbber together could be that when you want to reload a page that's currently loading (like if a page gets stuck in loading and you have to reload), suddenly your reload button is GONE!...or seemingly gone. I don't think many users would associate a throbber button as a reload, unless somehow the throbber resembled a reload sign (a spinning reload icon maybe?).

[Siemova]

Yes, I think that was the idea, UrbanLegend: the arrow on the Reload button would spin while loading.

[a;skdjfajf;ak]

To put this debate to rest, or start even more... there was a proposal to move the throbber into the location bar, but later it was decided not to do that.
From comment 39 in bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=402968
3) Get rid of the existing throbber, but leave the favicon area in the urlbar
alone.
The above bug was marked WONTFIX and bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=400398 was reopened.
Comment #3 of that bug stated:
I think it's worth noting that the discussion which prompted this was the
suggestion that the throbber should be invisible when not actually active. I
think I'd prefer a disappearing throbber (empty space) next to the search field
than a throbber that appears when the tabbar isn't visible.

So, how this ultimately falls out - remains to be seen, but I think its a pretty good bet that the Throbber will be invisible when not in use, and only when loading. The arugments also went along lines of doing away with it entirely because the Throbber is shown on the tab when loading.