1560024 - Consider changing axis locking on mobile to be sticky rather than strict

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(GeckoView :: General, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Botond Ballo [:botond]]

Currently, on mobile, our axis lock mode is strict. That is, you can't break the axis lock without lifting your finger.

On Chrome, it appears to be sticky (that is, you can break the axis lock without lifting your finger if you change direction enough). Jeff thinks we should be more like Chrome.

This decision was most recently evaluated by UX in January 2016, at which time the decision was to keep it strict because that was Fennec's previous behaviour and we don't want to change existing behaviour too much.

Perhaps this is a good time to reevaluate now that we are pivoting from Fennec to new mobile browsers.

Comment 1

[Kartikaya Gupta (email:[e-mail])]

I'm inclined to move this to the GeckoView component since this needs UX input and if the change is approved it's a pref flip in the GV prefs file. Any particular reason to keep it in APZ?

Comment 2

[Botond Ballo [:botond]]

Nope. I just filed it in APZ because it was an APZ pref.

Comment 3

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

We need UX input. Kevin said he will reach out to UX.

Comment 5

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

Tasks and enhancements should have severity N/A.

Comment 6

[Alex Jakobi [:ajakobi]]

Attachment: Bug 1560024 - Use sticky axis locking on mobile. r?botond,dlrobertson

Comment 7

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/66ee38c14258
Use sticky axis locking on mobile. r=botond,geckoview-reviewers,owlish

Comment 8

[Norisz Fay [:noriszfay]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/66ee38c14258

Comment 9

[Alex Jakobi [:ajakobi]]

Asif Youssuff, need-infoing you since you've opened a duplicate to this with bug 1562435.

We have changed to sticky axis locking by default, the change is in release by now. Would be greatly appreciated if you could give it a try and let us know about your experience.

Comment 10

[Will]

Just received an email about this to give it a look since I filed a duplicate of this on github a couple of years ago (https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/23044). First off, thank you so much for fixing this. A bit of constructive feedback to improve this further though: first off, it seems that when the axis lock is broken, it just locks in the other axis now! What I had in mind is, once the axis lock is broken, it becomes fully "free" and is attached to the users finger at that point, any direction without re-locking (until they take their finger off the screen, of course). Another issue I'm experiencing is, I personally tend to pan/scroll diagonally (that's how I first noticed this bug) and it's still too difficult to break the axis locking when panning/scrolling diagonally. If you pan/scroll in a near perfect line in the other way (horizontally while vertical axis is locked or vice versa) it's not too hard to break the lock, but I strongly suspect that is not very common in real world usage. I think a lot of people tend to pan/scroll diagonally and yes it's still too difficult to break the lock in this case.

Comment 11

[Alex Jakobi [:ajakobi]]

Attachment: Bug 1560024 - Change breakout angle for axis locking to 30 degrees. r=botond

Comment 12

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco]]

A patch has been attached on this bug, which was already closed. Filing a separate bug will ensure better tracking. If this was not by mistake and further action is needed, please alert the appropriate party. (Or: if the patch doesn't change behavior -- e.g. landing a test case, or fixing a typo -- then feel free to disregard this message)

Comment 13

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

Please move this patch to a new bug.

Comment 14

[Phabricator Automation]

Comment on attachment 9390781 [details]
Bug 1560024 - Change breakout angle for axis locking to 30 degrees. r=botond

Revision D204366 was moved to bug 1885506. Setting attachment 9390781 [details] to obsolete.

Comment 15

[Alex Jakobi [:ajakobi]]

Moved patch to Bug 1885506.