1299322 - Option to keep toolbars visible

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox for iOS :: Browser, defect)

Description

[Gerald Squelart (he/him) (not at Mozilla since 2022-09-15)]

I'm guessing hiding toolbars when scrolling was done for behavior parity with Safari.
However, at least for me, hiding toolbars is a pain:
- The animation is distracting.
- It's not obvious to me how to get them back when needed (scroll up I think?)
- Hiding/unhiding happens when I just move a little bit (e.g., to read back one line).
- Hiding/unhiding sometimes happens semi-randomly when I scroll sideways -- I'm guessing because of whatever small vertical movement component; This could probably be another bug to fix.
- On big-enough devices, the gain in real-estate is negligible.

We shouldn't be shackled to whatever Apple rigidly thinks is best.
So I think we should at least offer the option to always keep the toolbars visible.
I've prepared a POC patch, now I'll need to learn this new-fangled "pull request" stuff...

Comment 1

[Stephan Leroux [:sleroux]]

Hey Gerald,

Thanks for working on a patch for this. I can definitely see this being a useful option. Have you seen the latest work on master with the new minified URL bar? I landed it last week and it helps a bit with the URL bar disappearing act by transitioning into a smaller bar so it's not completely lost to the user. I still think having an option would be a needed feature though. Let me know if you want any help with setting up a pull request or reviews.

Comment 2

[Gerald Squelart (he/him) (not at Mozilla since 2022-09-15)]

Attachment: Pull request

(In reply to Stephan Leroux [:sleroux] from comment #1)
> Hey Gerald,
> 
> Thanks for working on a patch for this. I can definitely see this being a
> useful option. Have you seen the latest work on master with the new minified
> URL bar? I landed it last week and it helps a bit with the URL bar
> disappearing act by transitioning into a smaller bar so it's not completely
> lost to the user. I still think having an option would be a needed feature
> though. Let me know if you want any help with setting up a pull request or
> reviews.

Thank you for the encouragement Stephan.

The minified URL bar is a nice touch (I saw it when I tested my patch), but for me it still doesn't address my concerns (mostly: distraction due to movement, and not knowing exactly how to get toolbars back), so I went ahead with my change.

Here's my pull request, hope it's not too terrible -- I don't know Swift nor git!
So please let me know if there's anything wrong with it.

Comment 3

[Stephan Leroux [:sleroux]]

Comment on attachment 8787928 [details] [review]
Pull request

Thanks for the patch. Looks like a good start! Just a couple of minor things. I left my comments on Github in the pull request. 

I can see the option 'Keep Toolbars' being a bit ambiguous at the level of 'General' settings. I wonder if we should create a new page of settings for 'Browser' settings as it's starting to get cramped or maybe rename it?

Robin any thoughts?

Comment 4

[Gerald Squelart (he/him) (not at Mozilla since 2022-09-15)]

Comment on attachment 8787928 [details] [review]
Pull request

Thank you for the review/feedback so far.
Sorry for submitting an unfinished patch, I don't know where the working code has gone. :-(
I'll resubmit a full patch next time I can redo the work...

Comment 5

[Gerald Squelart (he/him) (not at Mozilla since 2022-09-15)]

No time for me to work on this.
Good luck!

Comment 6

[:garvan]

I have a branch where I hacked this in for testing, I'll turn it into a PR

Comment 7

[Justin D'Arcangelo [:justindarc]]

We may be able to use this feature to help debug Bug 1416849 as showing/hiding toolbars *might* be related to the cut-off rendering issue.

Comment 8

[:garvan]

Attachment: Pull request

Comment 9

[:garvan]

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1436797 is for adding a test case for this if it lands

Comment 10

[:garvan]

thanks for speedy review! landed on master and v11.x

Comment 11

[Simon Basca [:SimonB]]

Verifying as fix on 11.0 (9002) and master 0f746ddb. The option has been added to the "Settings" menu. Toggling the option "On" keeps the toolbar in view while scrolling any page on iPad.

Comment 12

[Gerald Squelart (he/him) (not at Mozilla since 2022-09-15)]

Thank you garvan for implementing this.

Unfortunately for me, I'm mostly using FF on my iPhone.
Please consider removing the iPad restriction (I've opened bug 1437196 for that, if you/someone can make this happen).

Comment 13

[:garvan]

Consider removing due to quick access provided by bug 1427903 landing. Swing of UX gavel pending.

Comment 14

[Gerald Squelart (he/him) (not at Mozilla since 2022-09-15)]

That's one more action than is now necessary thanks to this option. :-(

Why are we restricting ourselves to what Safari does?

Comment 15

[:garvan]

Due to upcoming UX changes in toolbars a revert has been requested, and marking this a won't fix

Comment 16

[:garvan]

Attachment: Pull request

Revert commit.

Comment 17

[:garvan]

revert landed on master and v11.x

Comment 18

[:garvan]

Due to new UI work related to toolbars, this is not going to be fixed. It is possible it will get re-opened if the toolbar UX changes don't improve the discoverability/ease of show toolbars, or if we add an advanced (a.k.a. UI Tweaks) section to the preferences.