1213395 - Unable to open a regular browsing window with private browsing setting enabled

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox OS Graveyard :: Gaia::Browser, defect, P2)

Description

[Tiffanie Shakespeare [:tif]]

Precondition - Private Browsing setting under Settings -> Browsing Privacy is enabled.

STR: 
1. Tap on Browser icon and observe

STR:
1. Press & hold on home button to get task manager
2. Tap on plus button and observe

Actual
New private window is opened. But there doesn't seem a way to get to regular browsing mode.

Expected
There's a way to get to regular browsing mode.

Comment 1

[Tiffanie Shakespeare [:tif]]

[Blocking Requested - why for this release]: The user isn't able to get to a regular browsing window without navigating to settings to turn the Setting off.

It seems like there are two possible solutions :
a)tapping plus in task manager opens regular window 
b)there's a way to switch from private to regular like there is from regular to private

NI to designers to comment on solution.

Comment 2

[Tiffanie Shakespeare [:tif]]

The decision here may impact if we remove the private browsing button in this bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1211748

Comment 3

[Elizabeth Hunt[:ezoehunt]]

Proposed solution: Do the same thing we do when you tap the Mask icon, but in reverse. So...

If you've used Settings to private browse all the time, when you click the + icon in Task Manager, you see a screen that says "hey you like to browse privately! If you continue here, you'll be in normal browsing mode and we'll store your history/cookies, etc." This screen is basically the opposite of the screen you see when you click the Mask icon. 

User taps continue to open a regular browser window (or cancels).

If your Settings are set to default (normal browsing), when you click the + icon you go straight through to a normal window. 

Are there any technical issues with such a solution?

Comment 4

[Kevin Grandon :kgrandon]

There's also bug 1212736 - that talks about using the overflow menu though, so I'm not sure if it's a dupe. We should decide if the button in the overflow menu should open a normal browsing window.

Comment 5

[Reza Akhavan [:jedireza]]

Yes bug 1212736 does look like a dupe. Elizabeth's idea of having a dialog sounds reasonable. It should also show if the "New window" option is chosen from the overflow menu.

The one change I think we should make to the proposed solution is not to have a cancel button. Currently if we open a new private window and see the dialog for browsing privately, there isn't a cancel button but just an "Ok" button. I'd assume we'd also have a "Don't tell me again" checkbox to suppress the dialog if the user desiers.

To answer Elizabeth's question, I don't think there are technical issues with this approach.

Comment 6

[Elizabeth Hunt[:ezoehunt]]

I've done a UX mockup of the proposal here:

https://mozilla.box.com/s/re4x1x14uqhea5b9ci5489wh4u150i74

Comment 7

[Reza Akhavan [:jedireza]]

Looks good. Thanks for sending this over.

Comment 8

[GitHub Autolander Bot]

Attachment: [gaia] jedireza:new-non-public-window > mozilla-b2g:master

Comment 9

[Reza Akhavan [:jedireza]]

Comment on attachment 8674105 [details] [review]
[gaia] jedireza:new-non-public-window > mozilla-b2g:master

Hi Elizabeth, I have a PR started with the new dialog functionality working. I have not done tests yet, but wanted you to review it for functionality. I followed what was in your UX mockup and put a placeholder image in until we get official assets.

Comment 10

[Reza Akhavan [:jedireza]]

Attachment: New non-private dialog

This is a screen shot of the new dialog. The image is just a place holder until we get an official asset.

Comment 11

[Kevin Grandon :kgrandon]

Comment on attachment 8674108 [details]
New non-private dialog

I think it would be good to have Francis do a UI review here if possible. We don't show this window when you first startup the OS without the setting, so it seems weird to me to start showing it when you turn it on. Arguably users will be able to distinguish a normal window from a private one due to a lack of the icon in the chrome.

Comment 12

[Eric Pang [:epang] UX]

Attachment: Advice Dialog.png

Hey Reza,

I've put together a visual for the screen.  I haven't spec'ed it out since it's so similar to the private browsing one.

But here are the main things that will be different.

- Use the rocket bar from browser 
- Background: #ffffff
- Text Colour: 5f5f5f
- Vertically Center icon between rocket bar and title text
- Ok button should be 1.5 from the soft home button

Icon Assets:
https://mozilla.box.com/s/7xn41cw4924n0f7smbs8aj3ujllm3ckf

Can you flag me for ui-review when ready?

Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks!

Comment 13

[Elizabeth Hunt[:ezoehunt]]

Francis will take a look at this.

Comment 14

[Reza Akhavan [:jedireza]]

Attachment: New non-private dialog (updated)

Eric, PR updated. As you can see with this attachment there is more space between the checkbox and the ok button. Looks like the font size in your graphic is larger. Also I'm using the new image asset.

Comment 15

[Reza Akhavan [:jedireza]]

Kevin, I had to change the height of appWindow iframes in `apps/system/style/window_layout.css`. Before my change, the iframe height was too tall and ran under the software home button, which prevents us from properly anchoring content to the bottom the iframe's content. If you think someone else should be aware, please need info them.

Comment 16

[Reza Akhavan [:jedireza]]

(In reply to Kevin Grandon :kgrandon from comment #11)
> Comment on attachment 8674108 [details]
> New non-private dialog
> 
> I think it would be good to have Francis do a UI review here if possible. We
> don't show this window when you first startup the OS without the setting, so
> it seems weird to me to start showing it when you turn it on. Arguably users
> will be able to distinguish a normal window from a private one due to a lack
> of the icon in the chrome.

I think we're showing the non-private browsing dialog at the right times. People should only see it after they turned on the private by default setting. If you saw this message the first time you used the browser you might dismiss it and later turn on the private browsing setting and never see it again.

However, I think the content of the dialog could make it more clear how they got to a non-private browsing window and how to get back to a private one, specifically mentioning the two different kinds of buttons in the task manager and the browser overflow menu.

Comment 17

[Kevin Grandon :kgrandon]

(In reply to Reza Akhavan [:jedireza] from comment #15)
> Kevin, I had to change the height of appWindow iframes in
> `apps/system/style/window_layout.css`. Before my change, the iframe height
> was too tall and ran under the software home button, which prevents us from
> properly anchoring content to the bottom the iframe's content. If you think
> someone else should be aware, please need info them.

I believe this is to allow scrolling to collapse the rocketbar. That also seems like a pretty scary fix, can we avoid doing it? We can already render the other private browsing dialog ok without changing the height, right?

Comment 18

[Reza Akhavan [:jedireza]]

(In reply to Kevin Grandon :kgrandon from comment #17)
> 
> I believe this is to allow scrolling to collapse the rocketbar. That also
> seems like a pretty scary fix, can we avoid doing it? We can already render
> the other private browsing dialog ok without changing the height, right?

The reason I made the change was to anchor the ok button to the bottom of the content (an ask from Eric above).

We could easily avoid this if design could relax that requirement and let the ok button flow inline under the checkbox, which is what's happening in the private browsing dialog.

Eric, I'd like to avoid positioning this another way since the height of the screen is variable by device and without a solid positioning technique it's hard to guarantee exactly where the button will land.

Comment 19

[Francis Djabri [:djabber]]

(In reply to Elizabeth Hunt[:ezoehunt] from comment #13)
> Francis will take a look at this.

Hi all, 

Sorry for joining in the conversation late and thanks Liz for pinging me about this. The design proposed here doesn't seem to fit in with how Private browsing works. It makes it sound like private browsing is a mode that you switch on or off. But we don't do this - we have windows that are either private or public, and you can have both at the same time. 

From my perspective, if the user explicitly requests to open a private or a public window (either from the task manager, or from the overflow menu) then we should do what the user requests and the setting should not override that. The setting comes into play in those situation where the user is unable to make a choice between a private or a public window - e.g., when tapping on an icon from the home screen, or opening a link from an email or message. 

So I'm in favour of option 1 that Tif outlined in comment 1 - if the user has set "Browsing privacy" to browser privately by default, then the user should be able to open a regular browsing window by explicitly requesting a regular window, either by pressing "+" in the task manager, or by selecting "new window" in the overflow menu.

Comment 20

[Francis Djabri [:djabber]]

(In reply to Francis Djabri [:djabber] from comment #19)
> (In reply to Elizabeth Hunt[:ezoehunt] from comment #13)
> > Francis will take a look at this.
> 
> Hi all, 
> 
> Sorry for joining in the conversation late and thanks Liz for pinging me
> about this. The design proposed here doesn't seem to fit in with how Private
> browsing works. It makes it sound like private browsing is a mode that you
> switch on or off. But we don't do this - we have windows that are either
> private or public, and you can have both at the same time. 
> 
> From my perspective, if the user explicitly requests to open a private or a
> public window (either from the task manager, or from the overflow menu) then
> we should do what the user requests and the setting should not override
> that. The setting comes into play in those situation where the user is
> unable to make a choice between a private or a public window - e.g., when
> tapping on an icon from the home screen, or opening a link from an email or
> message. 
> 
> So I'm in favour of option 1 that Tif outlined in comment 1 - if the user
> has set "Browsing privacy" to browser privately by default, then the user
> should be able to open a regular browsing window by explicitly requesting a
> regular window, either by pressing "+" in the task manager, or by selecting
> "new window" in the overflow menu.

OK, so Reza just showed me that this is in fact what we're doing, but that we're showing a dialog in addition :) But the fact that I got confused I think highlights a problem with this solution - the dialog somehow threw me off and made me think that things were behaving differently from what I would expect.

So I'd be inclined to agree with Kevin in comment 11 - if I open a regular window, even if private browsing is set to on by default, then I would expect the window to open in the same way as normal.

Comment 21

[Elizabeth Hunt[:ezoehunt]]

I think there's a disconnect in this solution overall. The Setting explicitly says "Open new browser windows as private windows by default." This language suggests that private browsing is a mode - the user is saying here "I want to private browse all the time." 

If it is a mode, I would expect there to be only 1 button on the Task Manager/Overflow Menu that says "New window," and I would expect it to always open a private window. If I wanted to browse publicly, I would go to settings and turn off the private browse mode, which would reveal the 2 buttons on the Task Manager/Overflow Menu, from which I could choose the one I wanted.

If it is not a mode, then we don't need the Setting at all. We can have the 2 buttons and let the user choose which one she wants each time.

Since Francis spec'd this initially and I've joined the team only lately, Francis should follow through on this bug to avoid me derailing the team further. Thanks Francis.

Comment 22

[Reza Akhavan [:jedireza]]

With my PR, the private by default setting controls if you get a private browser when clicking on the Browser app icon or if you search/navigate using the Rocketbar. In these two cases you can't control if you're going to be private or regular without the setting. The buttons in the task manager and overflow menu are explicit, no matter what the setting is. 

Taking the new dialog out is easy. We should make that call soon since it'll affect our testing efforts. And test are all that's left.

Comment 23

[Francis Djabri [:djabber]]

> 
> Taking the new dialog out is easy. We should make that call soon since it'll
> affect our testing efforts. And test are all that's left.

I think we should take the new dialog out. I don't think it's necessary and can potentially cause confusion (as you see, it did in my case). 

Reza, what happens in the case of opening links from email?

Comment 24

[Francis Djabri [:djabber]]

(In reply to Elizabeth Hunt[:ezoehunt] from comment #21)
> I think there's a disconnect in this solution overall. The Setting
> explicitly says "Open new browser windows as private windows by default."
> This language suggests that private browsing is a mode - the user is saying
> here "I want to private browse all the time." 

We could make the setting more explicit, but this is a tricky one to explain. The current wording of "by default" is meant to imply that the setting kicks in if the user has no explicit choice in how the window opens. It could be misunderstood but I can't really think how we can improve on it without becoming over-wordy.

Comment 25

[Reza Akhavan [:jedireza]]

(In reply to Francis Djabri [:djabber] from comment #23)
> 
> Reza, what happens in the case of opening links from email?

I'm glad you brought that up. And yes, links from email or sms will open in private windows if your have that setting on by default.

Comment 26

[Reza Akhavan [:jedireza]]

Comment on attachment 8674105 [details] [review]
[gaia] jedireza:new-non-public-window > mozilla-b2g:master

I've added an integration test to the search app and made sure the rest of the tests were green.

Comment 28

[Kevin Grandon :kgrandon]

Comment on attachment 8674105 [details] [review]
[gaia] jedireza:new-non-public-window > mozilla-b2g:master

This looks great. Also, thanks for the test!

Comment 29

[Kevin Grandon :kgrandon]

In master: https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia/commit/59e0c538e2abf294ea839a0233258b1ac2f4f3ab

Comment 30

[Alison Shiue]

Verified on

Test Build:
[Flame]
Build ID               20151022003617
Gaia Revision          1b902ff26547e2a6c896351a6a73b673f65e19b2
Gaia Date              2015-10-21 14:56:32
Gecko Revision         https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/daa7d98525e859d32a3b3e97101e129a897192a1
Gecko Version          44.0a1
Device Name            flame
Firmware(Release)      4.4.2
Firmware(Incremental)  eng.worker.20151021.235526
Firmware Date          Wed Oct 21 23:55:35 UTC 2015
Bootloader             L1TC000118D0

[Aries]
Build ID               20151022003511
Gaia Revision          1b902ff26547e2a6c896351a6a73b673f65e19b2
Gaia Date              2015-10-21 14:56:32
Gecko Revision         https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/daa7d98525e859d32a3b3e97101e129a897192a1
Gecko Version          44.0a1
Device Name            aries
Firmware(Release)      4.4.2
Firmware(Incremental)  eng.worker.20151021.235445
Firmware Date          Wed Oct 21 23:54:53 UTC 2015
Bootloader             s1