GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 105983
Proposal to change default toolbar layout
Last modified: 2004-12-22 21:47:04 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
marking as dependent on bug 105935, "Go button needs to be a text only button all the time."
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.
Created attachment 14833 [details] So can I commit this, have i convinced you yet?
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.
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 ;)
Dave, I'll reply to your mail at some point :/ Sorry but I had already tbe and bookmarks these days.
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....
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.
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.
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.
Dave, would be nice to have a patch for this. So I can test how it looks ;)
Created attachment 15881 [details] [review] And updated patch
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.
Patch need to be updated ... I'm a pain sorry.
Created attachment 16078 [details] [review] another patch
Please commit ... Thanks.