1512757 - Consider removing file type icons, or improve their design

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(DevTools :: Netmonitor, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Florens Verschelde :fvsch]

So we added file type icons in the "File" column of the network monitor. Right now those icons represent two categories of content:

1. "text/*" responses
2. everything else

There are a few UX issues that stem from that change:

- We are inconsistent with the file type icons used in the Debugger, e.g. for JS responses
- Those icons are a bit hard to understand, for instance we get a "blank or generic document" icon for image responses, web fonts, etc.; we also get the same "document with text lines" icon for HTML, CSS and JS.

My personal conclusion is that right now these icons take up much-needed space and mental focus, without adding clear value. So I would suggest removing them.

Alternatively, we could improve that feature so that it provides better value. One way to do that is to have better icons and one for each type available in the filter list (HTML, CSS, JS, XHR, Fonts, Images, Media, WS, Other). Though I'm not sure categories like "XHR" and "WS" (web socket?) are content-types, so maybe it doesn't fit precisely.

Comment 1

[Florens Verschelde :fvsch]

Matt, any preference on that?

Comment 2

[mcroud]

I'm happy to see them go until we have something more meaningful to add in their place.
As you say, no real value is added in their current state (Having HTML represented by a text document icon, but SVG is represented by a blank document etc.) not that I can fathom anyway? But with more meaningful icon variety it is an idea worth pursuing and would help visualise for users the distribution of file types on a page.

Comment 3

[Mrigank Krishan]

Attachment: Bug 1512757 - Remove icons from file column. r=honza

Removed the icon class from file column. I kept the css classes in RequestList.css so that we can easily add icons later.

Comment 4

[Jan Honza Odvarko [:Honza] (always need-info? me)]

See my comment in Phabricator.
Honza

Comment 5

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/93eed744e864
Remove icons from file column. r=Honza

Comment 6

[Natalia Csoregi [:nataliaCs]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/93eed744e864