1717102 - Different icon for synced tabs on desktop vs. Android

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Toolbars and Customization, enhancement)

Description

[BelFox]

Attachment: Different_icons_synced_tabs.png

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:89.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/89.0

Steps to reproduce:

Firefox for Android v89.0 added a panel for synced tabs (see https://www.xda-developers.com/firefox-89-access-synced-tabs/). Great!

In Firefox for desktop, you can also add a toolbar button to have your synced tabs just one click away (tooltips says "Show tabs from other devices").

Actual results:

However, the toolbar button on desktop Firefox (a) uses a different icon, which breaks consistency and (b) uses an icon that doesn't clearly indicate its meaning. A hollow rectangle (tab) doesn't really brings the message across that it concerns synced tabs.

Expected results:

I'd like to suggest that Firefox for desktop uses the same (very nice and clear) icon that is used on Firefox for Android, for consistency and clarity reasons.

Comment 1

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

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Firefox::Sync' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please revert this change in case you think the bot is wrong.

Comment 2

[Mark Hammond [:markh] [:mhammond]]

Sync isn't the right component here.

Comment 3

[Kevin Brosnan [Ex-Mozilla]]

On desktop the icon is used in the Sync sidebar as well.

Comment 4

[BelFox]

(In reply to Kevin Brosnan [:kbrosnan] from comment #3)

On desktop the icon is used in the Sync sidebar as well.

Indeed.

I'd like to add that there is also a one-click search button which uses the generic (desktop) "tab" icon, but which seems to search both within local tabs AND synced tabs. The tooltip says "Tabs". So a logged-in user who uses Sync may now expect this search button to look for synced tabs only (as the icon is the same as for the toolbar "Synced Tabs" button), which is not the case.

So basically there is a need for an icon for

1. ... indicating synced tabs only (Android icon = preferred?) --> usage on toolbar button "Show tabs from other devices" / sidebar "Synced tabs" / Android "Synced tabs" panel
   (-- CHANGE NEEDED ON DESKTOP ON 2 LOCATIONS --)
2. ... indicating non-private tabs opened on the device itself (Desktop icon = preferred?) --> usage on Android "Tabs" panel
   (-- no change --)
3. ... indicating non-private, both local and synced tabs --> usage on one-click search button for switching (but as not every user has sync enabled, icon n°2 could be reused for convenience)
   (-- no change --)

Comment 5

[Timea Cernea [:tbabos][inactive]]

Marking this as new given it is an enhancement/feature request.

Comment 6

[Sam Foster [:sfoster] (he/him)]

I'm adding the proton-icons tag. I agree the new tab shape doesn't lend itself to a very clear "sync tabs" icon. I'm not sure if there are plans yet to re-visit this kind of thing, but if/when there are, this should be on that list.

Comment 7

[Romain Testard [:RT]]

Katie, can you please help clarify if we should rather indeed use the Firefox for Android icon in this instance?

Comment 8

[katieC]

"Synced tabs" is on the icon backlog list. The Android version of the icon is fairly complex visually and doesn't communicate "syncing" (like our circular 2 arrow sync icon does). When the sync tabs icon is updated for desktop, we'll share with the mobile team too, so there is consistency across teams and products.

:) UX agrees with this statement, "A hollow rectangle (tab) doesn't really brings the message across that it concerns synced tabs."