1822991 - Unified toolbar should be below the main menu bar

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Thunderbird :: Toolbars and Tabs, defect)

Description

[Peter Weilbacher]

I'm using TB (currently v112.0b1) on Linux and am using systems where there is a real window manager (fluxbox or similar and XFCE4) and basically all apps that I use also have a real menu bar.
So having the supernova toolbar above the menu bar is unexpected and irritating. Even in newest Firefox betas the menu bar is always at the top of the window when it's switched on. (There, customize even allows to place toolbar items within the menu bar.) This should be the same on Linux or at least customizable. Ideally, the toolbar should be below the tabs (since they are different depending on the tab) but in between menu and tabs would be a lot better than being forced at the top of the window.

While bug 1817673 discusses a similar issue on Mac I am opening this one since I don't find one for this particular issue and on Linux.

Comment 1

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Same problem on Windows. Thunderbird is the only application that I've ever seen in my life where the main menu bar is no longer on top. While this doesn't cause any real issues, it's definitely pretty weird and breaks long-standing UI paradigms/expectations as well as muscle memory.

This is probably owed to implementation-level reasons: It might be harder to have the menu bar on top, because then the window controls need to be sometimes on the unified toolbar, and sometimes on the menu bar.

Comment 2

[Alessandro Castellani [:aleca]]

Our layout is desktop agnostic as much as possible and we needed to remove the complexity of having different layouts per OS.
We're not moving the menu bar above the toolbar as that would mean creating many different variations in the layout and window controls.
Sorry but we're not changing this.

Comment 3

[Peter Weilbacher]

Sorry, Alessandro, I don't get it. If it's only Linux that is affected by the unusual UI that is currently (as of v114.0b5) visible in betas I would understand. But Thomas said that it affects Windows, too. And IIRC Mac has menus elsewhere anyway. So for which platform do you need the menu bar below the toolbar, if it is activated at all?

Comment 4

[Alessandro Castellani [:aleca]]

Unfortunately Linux is not a single cohesive platform and different DEs handle the menubar in different ways.
Also on Windows, especially Windows 11, there's so much inconsistencies between native applications native none, that a lot of them rely on a titlebar just to have the menubar in the same location.
Having the menubar above the toolbar also means introducing the visual exception of moving the window controls up and down depending on the visibility of the menubar. The location of the window controls changes based on the OS and the DE, its ordinal position and style, adding more and more visual exceptions to make everything compatible.

Comment 12

[Peter Weilbacher]

With all these duplicates do you not think it makes sense to reconsider?

Given that the workaround is so easy (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1422908 -- finally found that, too) is it really so difficult to let users have this choice of a CSS flag in the UI?

Comment 13

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

With all these duplicates do you not think it makes sense to reconsider?

With almost 600k users on version 115, 7 duplicates isn't overwhelming, even if you consider (as always) that some users won't report the issue.

Comment 16

[Christian Riechers]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #13)

With all these duplicates do you not think it makes sense to reconsider?

With almost 600k users on version 115, 7 duplicates isn't overwhelming, even if you consider (as always) that some users won't report the issue.

How many more duplicates do you need to re-consider this unfortunate design choice? There are also quite a few complaints about this in the support forum.

Comment 20

[fantasai]

How many more duplicates do you need to re-consider this unfortunate design choice?

Happy to file a duplicate instead of commenting here if that would help. :) I found https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1850564 first, +1 to that reporter's comments.

Comment 25

[Peter Weilbacher]

As far as I can see there are only 8 bugs filed for Thunderbird with more than 15 duplicates that are unresolved. This is one of them. Still no reason to reopen? What else would you need to reconsider?

Comment 26

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Peter Weilbacher from comment #25)

As far as I can see there are only 8 bugs filed for Thunderbird with more than 15 duplicates that are unresolved. This is one of them. Still no reason to reopen? What else would you need to reconsider?

Comment 4 is still the overriding principle.

I'm not a decider, but as an update to comment 13 ... with almost 4 million users on version 115, 8 duplicates isn't overwhelming, even if you triple that number (or 10x if you consider postings in support), or consider that some users won't report the issue.

Comment 32

[Anje]

Just to offer some idea of how many people are searching for a solution to this bug report because let's face it the majority will never post a bug report.
The link below offers people a fix to this issue.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1422908
As I type this, that particular question with it's solution has over 4207 views in such a short time, so clearly that question is being searched for by a lot of people. Often people find a solution and just use it, they may never comment or say 'me too' and many do not have a Firefox Account so cannot make a comment, they just use the info. There are several support forums with answers to this problem, but in just our own Thunderbird Support forum the number of people seeking a solution continues to rise as more people upgrade to Supernova.

The issue of putting Menu Bar at the top is a lot bigger and has a greater importance than it seems to be perceived by developers.
The 'WONTFIX' needs to assessed again as I think this was set too prematurely.

Comment 35

[chrizilla]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #26)

with almost 4 million users on version 115, 8 duplicates isn't overwhelming, even if you triple that number (or 10x if you consider postings in support), or consider that some users won't report the issue.

IMO this severly underestimates the number of affected users. I'd rather put the percentage at 1 reporter in several thousands of users.

Think of it the other way round: How many bugs are there with more duplicates ?

As Peter pointed out above:
(In reply to Peter Weilbacher from comment #25)

As far as I can see there are only 8 bugs filed for Thunderbird with more than 15 duplicates that are unresolved. This is one of them. Still no reason to reopen? What else would you need to reconsider?

This bug currently has 21(!) duplicates.
This puts it among the top 20 most duplicated Thunderbird bugs ever in history, tied at 19th place:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?query_format=advanced&product=Thunderbird&v1=21&o1=greaterthan&f1=dupe_count

And it's tied in 2nd place of most duplicated currently OPEN Thunderbird bugs (i.e. there is only 1 single open thunderbird bug with more duplicates):
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?query_format=advanced&v1=21&f1=dupe_count&o1=greaterthaneq&resolution=---&product=Thunderbird

Whatever argument you want to put forward, I don't think saying the number of duplicates of a bug with a record breaking number of duplicates "isn't overwhelming" is not a legitimate argument to make, when literally only 1 single other currently open bug has more duplicates. (Although in fairness, the statement was made when the duplicate number count stood at 8, which IMO was still al lot though, as Peter Weilbacher has also emphasized above.)