1709036 - Remote control robot icon should be visible on all pages

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(DevTools :: General, defect, P3)

Description

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

When the browser starts under remote control, a Robot icon is displayed in the urlbar.
However it's missing on some pages, eg about:newtab.

If we want to use this icon to convey more information about the current remote control setup, it would be great if it was visible in most cases.

This icon is part of the #identity-box container.

It is explicitly hidden at https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/083983b7f09b00cdfe4f70396e39ea4f8a1735e1/browser/themes/shared/identity-block/identity-block.inc.css#45

#identity-box[pageproxystate="invalid"] #remote-control-icon {
  display: none;
}

Together with a few other icons. It would be great to be able to always show it.

Comment 1

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

Which pages do we actually miss? I assume it's just about all the privileged in-content about pages?

Comment 2

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

Seems to be a bit more complicated than that:
https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/083983b7f09b00cdfe4f70396e39ea4f8a1735e1/browser/components/urlbar/UrlbarInput.jsm#1745-1761

It's about the "proxy state" of the URL bar.

For instance, when you are on about:newtab, but the URL is actually empty (eg starting page), there is a mismatch between the displayed URL and the loaded URL, and the icon is hidden.

The same happens if you start typing in the URL bar. See the comment I linked to for more info.

I guess the idea is that all icons that relate to the actual URL should be hidden.
Because if the URL no longer matches the loaded URL, the info might be wrong (or even misleading)

For our remote control icon however, it's always relevant to show it, so I hope we can simply update the rule.
Or maybe the icon should be somewhere else?

Comment 3

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

Ah, good to know. Maybe we should get a UX person involved to find the right place then.

Comment 4

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

(In reply to Julian Descottes [:jdescottes] from comment #2)

It's about the "proxy state" of the URL bar.

For instance, when you are on about:newtab, but the URL is actually empty (eg starting page), there is a mismatch between the displayed URL and the loaded URL, and the icon is hidden.

For our remote control icon however, it's always relevant to show it, so I hope we can simply update the rule.
Or maybe the icon should be somewhere else?

Hi Victoria. For this particular issue we would need some input from the UX team given that it is unclear to us how to actually solve this problem. As such your input would be appreciated. Thanks a lot.

Comment 5

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

For this particular issue we would need some input from the UX team given that it is unclear to us how to actually solve this problem.

In a first step we can propose to always show it despite the fact that it's in the #identity-box container? And file a follow up bug to move it somewhere else?

Also I don't know if we need to move it from a UX point of view.
I was thinking about moving it outside of the #identity-box container, but roughly keeping it in the same spot?

Comment 6

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

Attachment: Bug 1709036 - Always show remotecontrol icon in URLBar when browser is under remote control

Comment 7

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

Thanks Julian. Do you have some screenshot that show how this would look like in the different scenarios?

Comment 8

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

Attachment: about_newtab.png

about:newtab with the robot icon.

I was concerned that forcing the display of the icon would lead to show a "clickable" container.
However the hover text doesn't show up when moving the mouse cursor on the icon. This comes from another rule:

https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/27722db2f164add7047d7db03169966cb806e927/browser/themes/shared/identity-block/identity-block.inc.css#49

This really makes me think we would benefit to use another container for the icon. Maybe desktop-theme-reviewers will be able to suggest something.

Comment 9

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

Attachment: Bug 1709036 - [remote] Move remotecontrol visual cue to dedicated container

Comment 10

[Victoria Wang [:victoria]]

Hi Julian! If there's a solution to always show it, it does seem ideal to keep it in the address field, as in the screenshot, to connect it with the warning colors.

Comment 11

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/a1f86626a0c9
[remote] Move remotecontrol visual cue to dedicated container r=desktop-theme-reviewers,harry

Comment 12

[Andreea Pavel [:apavel]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/a1f86626a0c9