1605975 - sites no longer vertically centred on the blank page

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: New Tab Page, defect, P2)

Description

[Sollace]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:73.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/73.0

Steps to reproduce:

First revert the new tab page to default. Then disable "Search", "Highlights", and "Snippets" so there is only "Top Sites" enabled. I did this with "Top Sites" set to display 3 rows, although the same can be seen with 2 or 1 row just as well.

Actual results:

The site grid appears aligned to the top of the page. (screenshot below)

Expected results:

I expected it to be aligned (vertically) at the center of the page, as in previous versions. (screenshot below)

Comment 1

[Sollace]

Attachment: expected.png

Comment 2

[Sollace]

Attachment: actual.png

Comment 3

[Ciprian Muresan [:cmuresan], Formerly of Ecosystem QA - please needinfo @mcoman for things regarding the team]

As I thought, this was caused by bug 1601756. @scott, is there something that we can do in this case as this behavior can be seen as a regression from our user's perspective?

23:21.46 INFO: Last good revision: c7842b0d5e8a0d24734b48659808efc36e90a7be
23:21.46 INFO: First bad revision: c2915b6d5c8e2f6877b08c4bea134d894bd2fa6d
23:21.46 INFO: Pushlog:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/pushloghtml?fromchange=c7842b0d5e8a0d24734b48659808efc36e90a7be&tochange=c2915b6d5c8e2f6877b08c4bea134d894bd2fa6d

Comment 4

[Scott [:thecount] Downe]

Yeah we should fix this. It's probably a DS vs not DS thing but for anyone just getting it on for rest of world it's going to seem like a regression.

Comment 5

[Scott [:thecount] Downe]

Still probably fixable, but moving to p2.

Also tracked down the regression, and it's there to ensure stable loading of content with DiscoveryStream.

DiscoveryStream loads in content top to bottom as content fetches finish, so the above the fold content can be visible faster.

This also means as content loads in, the search bar would jump around a bit. In most cases, the content loads in immediately though so the fix is pretty marginal. it's only when content is loading a bit slow where it's noticed.

I think I can live with the bar moving around if that's the case, so we can revert the change if we want.

The other option is a transition on the margin as it loads. Probably a reasonable compromise.

Comment 6

[Scott [:thecount] Downe]

Attachment: Bug 1605975 - Fixing vertical center of newtab content

Comment 7

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/b955c17a0548
Fixing vertical center of newtab content r=gvn

Comment 8

[Scott [:thecount] Downe]

To test:

1. Turn off pocket stories by going to about:preferences#home
2. Turn off highlights on the same page.
3. Open a new tab.

Expected: content should be vertically centred.

To test loading jank is still gone.

1. Ensure pocket is back on.
2. Go to about:config
3. Set browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.asrouter.devtoolsEnabled to true.
4. Go to about:newtab#devtools-ds
5. Open a newtab, and set them up so you can see the newtab and about:newtab#devtools-ds
6. Toggle "expire/Refresh cache" on and off.

Expected: as you toggle step 6 you should see the newtab reloading. Ensure the search bar isn't jumping from centre to top of page.

Comment 9

[Scott [:thecount] Downe]

[Tracking Requested - why for this release]:

Comment 10

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

Since the status are different for nightly and release, what's the status for beta?
For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Comment 11

[Andreea Pavel [:apavel]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/b955c17a0548

Comment 12

[Marius Coman [:mcoman], Ecosystem QA]

I have verified that this issue is no longer reproducible with the latest Firefox Nightly (74.0a1 Build ID - 20200113204142) installed, on Windows 10 x64, Ubuntu 18.04 x64 and Mac 10.15.2. Now, the in-content "Search Bar" and the "Top Sites" sections are displayed in the center of the page if the "Recommended by Pocket" and "Highlights" sections are not displayed. Also, I can confirm that the search bar isn't jumping from the center to the top of the page if the cache is refreshed.