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Bug 105983 - Proposal to change default toolbar layout
Proposal to change default toolbar layout
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: epiphany
Classification: Core
Component: Interface
unspecified
Other Linux
: Normal enhancement
: ---
Assigned To: Marco Pesenti Gritti
Marco Pesenti Gritti
Depends on: 105935
Blocks: 110664
 
 
Reported: 2003-02-13 14:28 UTC by Dave Bordoley [Not Reading Bug Mail]
Modified: 2004-12-22 21:47 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---


Attachments
So can I commit this, have i convinced you yet? (1.33 KB, text/plain)
2003-03-07 13:13 UTC, Dave Bordoley [Not Reading Bug Mail]
  Details
And updated patch (784 bytes, patch)
2003-04-21 18:52 UTC, Dave Bordoley [Not Reading Bug Mail]
none Details | Review
another patch (898 bytes, patch)
2003-04-28 16:11 UTC, Dave Bordoley [Not Reading Bug Mail]
none Details | Review

Description Dave Bordoley [Not Reading Bug Mail] 2003-02-13 14:28:51 UTC
Issues with the current chrome layout (stolen from mpt's analysis of moz
once again, what can I say he makes some good points...)

---------------------------------------------------------------
from: http://mpt.phrasewise.com/stories/storyReader$35

For these people, Navigator’s current toolbar layout is fundamentally
broken. The root cause is the Toolbar and Address Bar being welded
together, leaving no room for any buttons besides the standard four (Back,
Forward, Stop, and Reload)

Even for advanced users, the toolbar layout is annoying. The shortened
address field doesn’t show as much of a URI, and the auto-completion menu
doesn’t show as much of an auto-completion’s title, as it does in competing
browsers.

also see: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=65067&action=view 
which is mpt's old moz layout proposal
---------------------------------------------------------------

**********************
Dave's Proposed Layout
**********************

Toolbar 1:
Back Forward Stop Reload | Home History Bookmarks | Find Print    Spinner

*note: I'm not so convinced about Print, but none of the other available
toolbar items seem anymore reasonable, and we have the space.

Toolbar 2:
Favicon           Location(address) entry                              Go

Adavantages of this layout
---------------------------
The proposed toolbar layout has a few advantages over the current layout.
1. Clear seperation of location information (icon, address) from tasks (ie.
navigation)

2. Better use of toolbar area. The current layout is sub par in this
respect, only providing the bare minimum of the available toolbar items.
This forces the user to delve into the menus to access some important and
commonly used items, slowing them down.

In contrast, this proposal provides the user with fast access to commonly
used web browser items, including history and bookmarks. Given that we do
not have a bookmarks menu or easy access to history (as other browsers do
via their sidebars), making these default toolbar items will drastically
increase access speed to these important dialogs. Similarly find and print
are also commonly used tools for which high speed access is preferable.

3. The propose layout works better with the various different style of
toolbar layouts, specifically priority text style (well assuming we
supported priority text), and text + icons (the gnome default). When using
these toolbar styles, the location(address) bar becomes very small with the
current layout. The proposed layout eliminates this problem.

4. Similar Layout to IE and nautilus (for better or worst). I don't
advocate copying, but IE is the most widely used web browser in the world.
By providing a similar ui, we make the switch to epiphany easier for new
users (who are a large part of our target audience of non technical users).

Disadvantages of this layout
---------------------------
The main disadvantage of the proposed layout is the use of slightly more
screen realestate. However imo, the amount of extra toolbar space added by
a second toolbar is far offset by the benefits of more default toolbar
items that provide easier access to commonly used tools.

Here's a screenshot of how ephy would look with this layout:
http://www.msu.edu/~bordoley/screenshot.png
Comment 1 Dave Bordoley [Not Reading Bug Mail] 2003-02-13 14:30:15 UTC
marking as dependent on bug 105935, "Go button needs to be a text only
button all the time."
Comment 2 Xan Lopez 2003-02-23 17:44:41 UTC
FWIW, I agree 99% with dave's proposal and I think we should change
the default toolbar layout before next release (which could be out RSN
maybe). The 1% of disagreement is because I think we should not add
every button to the toolbar just because we have the space to do so. I
propose a toolbar 1 with:
Back Forward Stop Reload | Home History Bookmarks 
as an optimal solution.
If 105935 can't be fixed before next release, I propose to let the go
button temporary out.
Comment 3 Dave Bordoley [Not Reading Bug Mail] 2003-03-07 13:13:39 UTC
Created attachment 14833 [details]
So can I commit this, have i convinced you yet?
Comment 4 Dave Bordoley [Not Reading Bug Mail] 2003-03-07 13:26:23 UTC
Oh i should add that I was pretty much convinced by xan that print
shouldn't be a default toolbar butto. I would like to add "bookmark
page" but due to the fact that egg toolbar buttons are homogenous
currently, it leads to toolbars looking like crap.
Comment 5 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-03-07 23:53:58 UTC
I think the only way you guys have to convince me is to get seth
saying it's the way to go ;)
Another thing I dont like very much of it, is that the tbe would be
almost empty by default (guess that could change later ...).
Oh, and we are going to get bad reviews by Eugenia ;)
Comment 6 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-03-11 20:02:35 UTC
Dave, I'll reply to your mail at some point :/ Sorry but I had already
tbe and bookmarks these days.
Comment 7 Dave Bordoley [Not Reading Bug Mail] 2003-03-12 00:04:00 UTC
yeah i figured you had a limit on the number of flame wars you can
handle per week :) I'll comment on the bookmark thread tonite too :)
Wow we've resorted to communicating via bugzilla....
Comment 8 Gregory Merchan 2003-04-19 12:16:11 UTC
I don't know if this is of any consequence, but I'd feel out of
character just voicing emphatic agreement. ;-)

With so much space left open on the top toolbar, there might actually
be some use for the "text beside icons" setup. It would make the
buttons a little bigger than without text and not take away more space
from the page. The few times I've seen IE in use at the university,
that's more or less the setup.
Comment 9 Dave Bordoley [Not Reading Bug Mail] 2003-04-19 18:23:37 UTC
I should just mention that lately i've been using "Bookmark" instead
of "Print," since it more useful in general. Though I do think one
could argue that it might be confusing to have both "Bookmarks" (noun)
and "Bookmark" (verb) on the toolbar at the same time. Is this only a
problem in english, or would other locales have similar problems.
Comment 10 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-04-20 00:21:45 UTC
In italian it's a pain. The shortes string I can think to is "Aggiungi
segnalibro". That means something like Add Bookmark, so it even suck ...
This is because bookmark is a noun only, not a verb.
Comment 11 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-04-21 18:38:53 UTC
Dave, would be nice to have a patch for this. So I can test how it
looks ;)
Comment 12 Dave Bordoley [Not Reading Bug Mail] 2003-04-21 18:52:54 UTC
Created attachment 15881 [details] [review]
And updated patch
Comment 13 Dave Bordoley [Not Reading Bug Mail] 2003-04-21 19:03:56 UTC
ok so this patch changes the toolbars to:

back forward stop reload | home history bookmarks | find      spinner
favicon location go

reasoning:
toolbar one is divided really into 3 sections (ignoring the spinner).
1. navigation actions:
   These follow the hig standard
2. Places (these are all nouns)
   Access to commonly used sites.
3. Actions (verbs),
   Things that can be performed upon the current view. 
   Find sort of fit the lowest common denominator here. See reasons
below for excluding bookmark and print. I could probably be pursuaded
to remove this section and go with the only the first two sections.
   In my personal setup i include "Bookmark" as well. I've decided
that including it for the default might be bad for a few reasons:
Confusion with bookmarks, localizing reasons, makes toolbar to wide to
fit onto a 640x480 screen in the english locale (and to the best of my
knowledge probably other ones too). 
   As for print, including it could be useful for situations such as
an internet cafe (mpt mentioned that some users at his cafe some times
find printing difficult as they are unfamiliar with the harder to use
windows style menus), however in the general case I think we are
better including it as option instead of a default.
   

toolbar two provides information about the current location
1. favicon, the locations image
2. location, the location's address
3. go, mostly there to provide a convenient way to activate a copy and
pasted address using the mouse only.


RE: The Spinner
Always contravertial, for the time being I think we should keep until
we can do more testing. In my experience, I have to admit I do find
the extra visual information helpful.
Comment 14 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-04-27 12:01:36 UTC
Patch need to be updated ... I'm a pain sorry.
Comment 15 Dave Bordoley [Not Reading Bug Mail] 2003-04-28 16:11:31 UTC
Created attachment 16078 [details] [review]
another patch
Comment 16 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-04-28 18:53:17 UTC
Please commit ... Thanks.