1441772 - ESC key doesn't exit reader view.

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Toolkit :: Reader Mode, enhancement)

Description

[skaunov]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:58.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/58.0
Build ID: 20180208173149

Steps to reproduce:

When you press ESC Reader View doesn't close like when you click exit button.


Actual results:

No visible response.


Expected results:

User expects that Reader view will be closed to switch to regular.

Comment 1

[:Gijs (he/him)]

I'm... not convinced about this. Bram or Philipp, could you weigh in?

Comment 2

[Bram Pitoyo [:bram]]

Visually, browser makers have implemented their reader modes using two distinct UI metaphors:

1. As a modal overlay that sits on top of the content (e.g. Safari). The animation usually makes it pretty clear. To close reader mode, you can click on the icon. You can also do it by tapping esc or clicking outside of the text area.

2. As a page that sits separately from the content (e.g. Edge, Firefox). There’s usually no animation, because loading a new page doesn’t have an animation. To close reader mode, you can click on the icon (or “Close Reader View” button on Firefox). You can also do it by tapping backspace or clicking the back button, because the browser sees it as just another page that you can navigate to and from.

The “page” metaphor that we chose for our reader mode affords different kinds of interactions than the “modal” metaphor that browsers like Safari has. On Firefox, you may not have the escape key to close, but you get the backspace and the back button instead.

In conclusion, it would be confusing to make the “escape” key close our reader view, unless we change our metaphor.

Clearing Philipp’s needinfo request (but feel free to re-add it if my answer isn’t satisfactory).

Comment 3

[:Gijs (he/him)]

(In reply to Bram Pitoyo [:bram] from comment #2)
> Clearing Philipp’s needinfo request (but feel free to re-add it if my answer
> isn’t satisfactory).

Nope, I'm happy with that. Going to close this as wontfix, then. I had a gut sense this wouldn't really make sense, but the reasoning in comment #2 is really helpful. Thank you!