115185 - Sidebar Hard to Open and Close

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 84689

(SeaMonkey :: Sidebar, defect)

Description

[Eric Murphy]

Hi, I am the developer of Jabberzilla. My app primarily runs in the sidebar
area. I've been working in the sidebar area with my development of over a year.

The current problem is that the only way to open/close the sidebar is to click a
thin, short little image on the splitter. IMHO, this needs to be fixed before
1.0 simply because it's a huge usability problem.

How this can be fixed (I suggest implementating all of them):

1. Make sidebar splitter clickable the whole vertical length to open/close it.

2. If the cursor stops and hovers over the sidebar splitter for .5 seconds, it
will open/close. This seems very reasonable... especially since it is such a
thin area anyway.

3. Put a button on the toolbar to toggle the sidebar open/close. Internet
Explorer does somethign similar, only it does it for specific things... Like a
bookmarks button will show the bookmarks tab in the sidebar. A generic one would
be good enough for Mozilla though.

4. Keyboard shortcut for opening/closing it. F9 only adds or deletes the sidebar
from the display... which is not what I am talking about here.

I want to restate that it is HARD to toggle the sidebar open and closed. I do it
dozens of times a day, and it gets very tiring.

Please, please fix this by 1.0! Thanks.

Comment 1

[R.K.Aa.]

related: bug 84689

Comment 2

[Samir Gehani]

> The current problem is that the only way to open/close the sidebar is to click
> a thin, short little image on the splitter. IMHO, this needs to be fixed 
> before 1.0 simply because it's a huge usability problem.

Try a latest-trunk build and you'll see the close button (bug 33420).

> 4. Keyboard shortcut for opening/closing it. F9 only adds or deletes the
> sidebar from the display... which is not what I am talking about here.

Do you mean expanded/collapsed when you say open/closed?  That is, does your
"closed" state refer to the grippy and splitter still being present but the
sidebar contents not displayed?  I'm not sure I understand why F9 doesn't meet
your needs.

Marlon is planning on addressing item 3.  Over to him for a look.

Comment 3

[Eric Murphy]

Yes, I mean expand and collapse.

If I have the sidebar collapsed.. press F9, it disappears (like it should). If I
press F9 again.. it comes back still collapsed. This F9 functionality is
different than what I am talking about.

Personally, I think that new X button for the sidebar is unnessessary. If
anything, that button should mean to collapse the sidebar, not to get rid of it.

---

The main point I am trying to make is that it is easier to add and remove the
sidebar (which people will not do often simply because they either like the
sidebar, or they don't), than it is to expand or collapse it, which people will
do much more often if they have the sidebar enabled.

Comment 4

[Samir Gehani]

> If I have the sidebar collapsed.. press F9, it disappears (like it should). If 
> I press F9 again.. it comes back still collapsed. This F9 functionality is
> different than what I am talking about.

Ah, there's a bug (bug 70126) scheduled for us to expand the sidebar when
unhiding it (if it was collapsed before being hidden) which should address your
main concern.

Comment 5

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

please report one bug (request) per report. Thanks. Each of these requests is
already reported seperately. bug 64136, bug 84689, and bug 88725 (probably
several others too)

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 84689 ***

Comment 6

[sujay]

verified.