Closed Bug 1338423 Opened 7 years ago Closed 5 years ago

Option to move address bar to the bottom

Categories

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, enhancement)

Product:
Firefox for Android Graveyard
Component:
General
Type:
enhancement
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED WONTFIX

People

(Reporter: billdillensrevenge, Unassigned)

References

Details

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; CPU iPhone OS 10_2_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/602.1.50 (KHTML, like Gecko) CriOS/56.0.2924.79 Mobile/14D27 Safari/602.1

Steps to reproduce:

Chrome for Android phones will soon give users the option of moving the address bar to the bottom of the screen (it's called Chrome Home in flags) and I decided to use this for a few weeks and I must say, Firefox for Android (and iPhone too) NEED to also have this option, possibly even by default. I simply can't go back to having the controls at the top, and I didn't really just how stupid it is to have the bar and controls at the top until I tried going back today. Apparently the Windows Phone browser as well as others have the URL bar, tab button and menu at the bottom, so Firefox for Android phones and iPhone getting this option would just be catching up to competitors
Interesting. Although there's no indication that this is becoming the default or a setting. Seems like Chrome has this flag since last October?
I think it's highly likely that they will follow through and ship it, they are polishing it and improving it as if it's a high priority feature. Try it yourself, it's fantastic. at the moment it works best on the Dev build. I read somewhere that the thinking is, once it's ready, it will be default only on new phones for a while, they won't be switching everyone over to bottom bar overnight
(By "new phones" I meant phones that are literally new and being turned on for the first time)
Previously wontfixed 3 years ago. bug 953076 We would need an overhaul of our address bar design to make this work/look good.
See Also: → 953076
Shouldn't this be re-opened because of the new Photon for Android phones GUI? The new Photon for Android phones GUI would look great at the bottom instead of the top, and it's worth mentioning that "Chrome Home" is getting officially announced soon
They did a surprisingly poor job with Chrome Home and if they eventually enforce it (and they probably will, they always remove flags after a few months) that is a great opportunity for Firefox. Giving users the option to have the bar at the bottom wouldn't be too difficult would it? Phones are getting bigger and longer (taller aspect ratios), one-handed browsing is impossible on many modern phones, this seems like something that we need
Especially when you have device screen larger than 5 inches, moving fingers to reach address bar at the top can be painful.
Although it may be better to provide it in about:config, it will be nice to see it in about:preferences.
it's worth mentioning that the new Android app guidelines say that controls should be at the bottom of the screen, so not only should this be done, but it should probably be the default
(In reply to Will from comment #9)
> it's worth mentioning that the new Android app guidelines say that controls
> should be at the bottom of the screen, so not only should this be done, but
> it should probably be the default

Can you link to where it says that navigation _SHOULD_ be at the bottom of the screen?
You've misinterpreted the design guidelines wrong. Check out the page on UI structure: https://material.io/guidelines/layout/structure.html#structure-ui-regions
(In reply to Paul [pwd] from comment #12)
> You've misinterpreted the design guidelines wrong. Check out the page on UI
> structure:
> https://material.io/guidelines/layout/structure.html#structure-ui-regions

But Google has moved the bar to the bottom with their own browser (Chrome), so that would mean that Google has misinterpreted their own guidelines
just thought it's worth noting here that Chrome stable just updated to version 64 on my work phone and the address bar is now at the bottom, it looks like they're rolling it out to the general population
quick update, Chrome Home was cancelled (though strangely I still have it on my work phone, Chrome Stable 64...) but I'm confident it was cancelled because Google was determined to stick with this strange 'pull-up/swipe-up' experience, which was extremely flawed for 2 reasons. 1: frequent accidental/unintentional pull-ups during scrolling and 2: Apple discourages pull-up/swipe-up elements in their app guidelines, especially now with the iPhone X. 
Many phone browsers have the bar at the bottom and it's a great experience. As long as Firefox doesn't try to implement any pull-up silliness like Chrome Home, it will be fine.
Marking as a new enhancement. This isn't the first time I've seen this requested.
Severity: normal → enhancement
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
Version: 52 Branch → Trunk
Is it likely or unlikely that this feature would happen in 2018?
And what are the cons against a bottom address bar? (Apart from "it is at the top on desktop as well"). 
Most of this year flagships (and smaller devices as well) has ~6" screens with weird screen ratios like 18:9 and I am sure that on such tall screens it is way more easier to tap something at the bottom than at the top. While Chrome cancelled Home, Opera just made a new browser (Flow) which can be controlled from the bottom. It is a different perspective based on swipes but still it is just easier to control.
I second this. Due to all the recent performance improvements in FF for android I would really love to go back to it, but after a year using Opera and its bottom bar I just can't. It makes complete sense that the address bar is closest to the thumb.

I noticed that although Fenix has the bar at the bottom, it's making the exact same mistake as "Chrome Home": it has a swipe up gesture. Not only does this make scrolling down a frustrating experience (users will accidentally swipe up Fenix's options), but Android now has a swipe-up gesture for going to the home screen, just like newer iPhones, and you'll have a a situation where people will end up on the home screen when the meant to swipe-up Fenix's options and vice versa. Lastly, surely Androids guidelines say apps should avoid having a swipe-up from the bottom gesture because of this issue, so Fenix would be going against Androids guidelines...

If you have a moment, please read this issue on Chrome Home https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=726437

And what? 3 years and nothing? I want really this option on android, and many peoples too, whats wrong with this?

If you really want address bar on bottom, use Firefox Preview. Old Firefox for Android won't receive this option.

Firefox preview doesn't have extension support

Firefox Preview does have the toolbar on the bottom but amazingly, they also included the frustrating swipe-up behavior that ruined Chrome Home. I filed this in on Fenix's github but they seem to have dismissed it, even though iOS and Android guidelines say you should not do this. Swipe-up from bottom is a system gesture (and even for those that opt for the traditional 3 button layout, the swipe-up behavior of Fenix and Chrome Home is still a horrible user experience, see https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=726437 )

https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/1021

Firefox for Android is on ESR builds new features such as this will not be added to it.

Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 5 years ago
Resolution: --- → WONTFIX
Restrict Comments: true
Product: Firefox for Android → Firefox for Android Graveyard
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