1199200 - The network activity icon in the status bar causes other icons (eg silent mode icon) to jump around

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox OS Graveyard :: Gaia::System::Status bar, Utility tray, Notification, defect)

Description

[Ed Morley [:emorley]]

With a foxfood device, that:
* has no SIM in it, is connected to a wifi network, is in silent mode (so there are lots of icons in the status bar)
* is running the latest OTA update (16/08/2015)

1) Open any app where the search input field gets moved to the status bar (ie the mini search field) - eg marketplace, or the settings app
2) Either wait for network activity (happens just by opening marketplace, or when in the settings app do a "check for updates")
3) Observe the icons on the status bar (the black bar at the top of the screen that contains things like the battery meter and wifi icon)

Expected:
Icons in the status bar don't jump around / switch places rapidly in a distracting manner.

Actual:
The network activity icon (the one that looks like "<>" but at an angle) appears on the status bar, and displaces some of the other icons (eg the silent mode icon) and causes flickering as it continually switches places with them. Even worse, since it doesn't take the same spot that the now-hidden icons were occupying, it causes all of the icons to shuffle down a spot, making the visual effect even more distracting.

I'm presuming this is because the status bar is overflowing, and so some icons have to be hidden.

Any of the following would help:

1) Add a delay so the icons don't flicker. ie: the network activity icon should stay visible for N seconds after it is made to appear, to prevent constant churn.
2) Getting rid of the "bug" icon that is present on my foxfood device and taking up space in the status bar.
3) Being cleverer about which icons to hide temporarily, when more space is required (eg at the moment the "silent" icon is hidden but the "bug" icon remains - the latter seems like it should be hidden first, since it's less important IMO).
4) Being cleverer about the icon ordering in the status bar. eg: icons that are prone to being hidden should be on one side (eg the left), and when a new icon (eg the network activity icon) is made to replace one of them, then put it in the _same_ place as the icon that was temporarily hidden, so it doesn't cause all of the existing icons to have to move down a place.
5) Stop showing the network activity icon for wifi traffic - and only show it for cellular data communication, so there are fewer icons in the status bar.

Thanks :-)

Comment 1

[Gregor Wagner [:gwagner]]

Rob, anything we should change here?

Comment 2

[Tiffanie Shakespeare [:tif]]

From UX triage: 

We aren't able to replicate the exact issue - we don't see anything icons jumping around though the silent icon (speaker with an x) does get replaced by the data icon temporarily, it doesn't jump (i.e. moving side to side).

Adding Eric to double check that this looks correct. 

Thanks pinging the UX team!

Comment 3

[Ed Morley [:emorley]]

> 2) Getting rid of the "bug" icon that is present on my foxfood device and taking up space in the status bar.

This bug icon is now no longer present. Either this or some other change has made the problem not *quite* so bad - in that at least icons aren't seen to disappear (well, be pushed out to overflow). However the icons still jump around.

eg: Put the phone in silent mode, connect to a wifi network, and then perform an action that causes data transfer and thus the weird "<>" icon to light up. As it lights up, the silent icon jumps places a bit.

Comment 4

[Eric Pang [:epang] UX]

(In reply to Ed Morley [:emorley] from comment #3)
> > 2) Getting rid of the "bug" icon that is present on my foxfood device and taking up space in the status bar.
> 
> This bug icon is now no longer present. Either this or some other change has
> made the problem not *quite* so bad - in that at least icons aren't seen to
> disappear (well, be pushed out to overflow). However the icons still jump
> around.
> 
> eg: Put the phone in silent mode, connect to a wifi network, and then
> perform an action that causes data transfer and thus the weird "<>" icon to
> light up. As it lights up, the silent icon jumps places a bit.

Hi Ed, this is based on the priority the icons are shown (because of the limited amount of space).
Thinking maybe we can always have the data icon shown to the left of all the other icons present.  Or if no space in the left most position).  Rob, what do you think?  This will help with icons jumping but if full will cause the furthest icon to disappear when the data icon appears.