Mouse gestures AHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[rommi]

Why is Mouse Gestures a plug in ?

Its simple:

right mouse button hold, left mouse button single click = backwards
left mouse button hold, right mouse button single click = forwards
double click on blank page = go to home page

god damn it

even the K-Meleon folks complain about this. come on dev guys, we all wanna ditch Opera for Phoenix, but its brain dead things like this that stop alot of us folk moving over. code the gestures right in there, and copy Operas perfect implementation (from a user perspective)

[Gunnar]

Why is Mouse Gestures a plug in ?

Its simple:

right mouse button hold, left mouse button single click = backwards
left mouse button hold, right mouse button single click = forwards
double click on blank page = go to home page

I don't think it's that simple. i.e. adding three mouse gestures != adding three lines of code. The add-ons entire core would need to be added.

even the K-Meleon folks complain about this. come on dev guys, we all wanna ditch Opera for Phoenix, but its brain dead things like this that stop alot of us folk moving over. code the gestures right in there, and copy Operas perfect implementation (from a user perspective)

IMHO, more features = more bloat and more potential errors. What is wrong with the current situation? If you want the feature, get the add-on.- The one thing that should be improved is getting add-ons to users. They could add a "get add-ons" buttons, just like there is one for themes.

Gunnar

[rommi]

I think mouse gestures are almost as fundamental as HTML rendering IMHO.
Imagine being asked for a plug in for JPG, or a plug in for GIF,, yeah it works, but its so CORE to browsing.

I wonder if someone could host a "vote" somewhere, so we can see how many people use gestures?
The other thing is that the plugins aren't as snappy as native code.

Ive tried the mouse rocker plug in, which does the right hold, left click etc, but there is like a 0.5 second delay on every page move, its annoying. Opera is smoother than a cashmere codpiece in this regard.

If everything stays add on and sluggish, you may as well use IE, its slow but it works.

The 4 main reasons for moving from IE are:

1) Security (the main one for alot of people)
2) Speed , IE is slow compared to Phoenix/Opera/K-Meloen
3) Tabbed browsing
4) Mouse gestures

Most of the rest is fluff. Themes are lovely to look at, but not essential. The above 4 ARE essential.

Mouse gestures should be FAST, BUILT IN and work like OPERA as this is very intuitive and very fast.

A vote on this though would clear this up.

[laszlo]

I think mouse gestures are almost as fundamental as HTML rendering IMHO.
Imagine being asked for a plug in for JPG, or a plug in for GIF,, yeah it works, but its so CORE to browsing.

[...]

The 4 main reasons for moving from IE are:

1) Security (the main one for alot of people)
2) Speed , IE is slow compared to Phoenix/Opera/K-Meloen
3) Tabbed browsing
4) Mouse gestures

Most of the rest is fluff. Themes are lovely to look at, but not essential. The above 4 ARE essential.

Mouse gestures should be FAST, BUILT IN and work like OPERA as this is very intuitive and very fast.

A vote on this though would clear this up.

Since Opera is the only browser that has Mouse Gestures built in, I think one can hardly say that they are "almost as fundamental as HTML rendering". You're making yourself a web surfer role model, aren't you? I don't deny that a lot of people are enthusiastic about this, but I for myself would vote to keep them as an extension.

[old jasonb]

I agree - keep it as an extension. I don't use mouse gestures and have no desire to do so, so I'd rather not have the code taking up space in my downloads.

[johann_p]

I dont see why something like this shouldn't go into the trunk after careful consideration.
I think extensions are more of a proof of concept and if something is good and reasonable it
should eventually get into the trunk, maybe stripping off some unnecessary geek-features and
restructuring some UI issues.

Honestly, I can't hear the word "bloat" anymore. This is just such a silly term to bash what
software is all about: provide functionality that makes the life of users more easy.
When I listen to some of the "bloat" rants we would still use ed for editing and we would
probably surf using telnet on port 80 (hmmm what is this reminding me of...?).

If you want to argue reasonably, tell why a feature should be added or omittet in terms of
usability. From a developer's POV you can argue about design, architecture and how to do it better.
But, please, spare me the "bloat" sermon.

[bdeonline]

Tabbed browseing was once an extention only. So why not include mouse gestures? Take opera for instance lots of features in a much smaller package. When Phoneix gets more devlopment time it will do the same have more features in a small package. And I think mouse gestures should be one of those features.

[Gunnar]

Honestly, I can't hear the word "bloat" anymore. This is just such a silly term to bash what
software is all about: provide functionality that makes the life of users more easy.
When I listen to some of the "bloat" rants we would still use ed for editing and we would
probably surf using telnet on port 80 (hmmm what is this reminding me of...?).

If you want to argue reasonably, tell why a feature should be added or omittet in terms of
usability. From a developer's POV you can argue about design, architecture and how to do it better.
But, please, spare me the "bloat" sermon.

Sorry that the word "bloat" upsets you, but I still think it applies. Of course, you could try to be all things to everyone, but what would the product look like and how large would the program be? There are many add-ons that should be included in Mozilla because there is a rather sizeable group of people who would enjoy it. However, there are two different kinds of addons: The ones that provide a gui for functions that already exist (e.g. Policy Manager), and which could be added with minimum impact to the program's size, and then there are those that add entirely new functionality, like e.g. mouse gestures, but that at the same time would add a lot of new code.

One good example of what can happen when you want to be all things to everyone is Pontiac's Aztech: It was supposed to be an SUV, Coupe, Sedan, and who knows what. In the end, it appealed to almost no-one because it didn't do a single thing well. There were simply too many trade-offs, and the same thing could happen to Mozilla.

IMHO, make a key component (browser like Phoenix, or browser suite like Mozilla) that does very well what it is supposed to do. then, create add-ons /plug-ins that extend functionality. This way, the core program stays simple and those involved in coding and quality assurance can stay focused on one thing. As for plugins, make them available in one place (Mozdev.org), but also make them available from the browser ("Get more add-ons"). this way, everyone can customized Mozilla to their hearts' content.

[bdeonline]

There is another way around this if someone is willing to do it. By simply taking a version of Phoneix Installing the more popular extentions and themes in one package. Then zip it into a zip file and place it on the web. Due to open source anyone can create there own version of Phoenix or Mozilla and distrbute it freely.