1893318 - FF wastes space with download button/toolbar for local PDF files

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(GeckoView :: PDF Viewer, enhancement)

Description

[moz20]

Steps to reproduce:

Open a local PDF file on Android when Firefox is set as the default PDF viewer (URL is content://com.google.android.apps.nbu.files.provider/...).

Actual results:

Firefox for Android displays a large "Download" button on an otherwise-empty toolbar, which takes up valuable screen space for no good reason.

Expected results:

The "Download" button and toolbar should not be displayed because the file is already in the local storage. Really, any time Firefox for Android displays a PDF file (local or remote), it would be more usable (in terms of allocating available screen space to the actual document) if Firefox did not waste so much space with the toolbar. A floating menu button, or adding options to Firefox's existing three-dot menu button at the top of the screen, would allocate more space to what the user (most likely) really cares about (namely, viewing the document).

Comment 1

[Cathy Lu [:calu]]

Makes sense we should remove the Download button and toolbar for local PDFs. Is this something on the Android side or the pdf js side?

Comment 2

[Marco Castelluccio [:marco]]

Note we are planning to add editing tools, if we do that, then the toolbar will be useful also for local PDF files.

Comment 3

[Cathy Lu [:calu]]

Gotcha, we should keep the toolbar, but wondering why the download button is showing for local PDFs.

Comment 4

[Marco Castelluccio [:marco]]

Yeah I agree, I don't think we need to show it. WDYT Ryan?

Comment 5

[moz20]

Thank you for working toward removing the button.

I would also like to encourage you to eliminate the toolbar (if you add edit features, again, making them part of a floating menu button or the existing 3-dot menu would conserve scarce screen space). On my device, in landscape mode (which is best for viewing most PDF documents), I have 68mm vertical space. Of that, the toolbar and its bottom border occupy approx 6.5mm, which is almost 10%. Add to that, the regular FF address bar takes up about 9mm, and the Android status bar about 3.5mm. In total, these items take up 28%--more than 1/4!--of real estate that would better serve the primary purpose, namely, reading the PDF document.

Perhaps this deserves a different ticket, but it would also be helpful if swiping down in a PDF document caused the FF address bar to scroll off the top of the screen the way it does for a web page.

Perhaps the "best" overall solution would be to scroll BOTH the FF address bar AND the PDF toolbar off the top of the screen when swiping down in a PDF document. In that case, it would also be "best" if swiping down first caused the address & tool bars to scroll off the top before causing the top of the PDF file to disappear. This way, the top of the PDF document would be able to take up the entire screen (with the possible exception of the Android toolbar, but since other apps are capable of making that go away, then FF should be able to as well).

Thank you again for working to improve the usability of FF as a PDF viewer by allowing the PDF contents to occupy as much available space as possible!

Comment 6

[moz20]

Note that in the above, when I refer to swiping "down" I really mean swiping to cause the later parts of the document to appear. Perhaps that is considered swiping up instead? I really mean the touchscreen equivalent of scrolling down on a screen with a mouse pointer and scrollbars. Apologies for any confusion.

Comment 7

[Marco Castelluccio [:marco]]

(In reply to moz20 from comment #5)

Perhaps this deserves a different ticket, but it would also be helpful if swiping down in a PDF document caused the FF address bar to scroll off the top of the screen the way it does for a web page.

Perhaps the "best" overall solution would be to scroll BOTH the FF address bar AND the PDF toolbar off the top of the screen when swiping down in a PDF document. In that case, it would also be "best" if swiping down first caused the address & tool bars to scroll off the top before causing the top of the PDF file to disappear. This way, the top of the PDF document would be able to take up the entire screen (with the possible exception of the Android toolbar, but since other apps are capable of making that go away, then FF should be able to as well).

Yes, bug 1809173 and bug 1836299 would definitely help!

Comment 8

[Ryan Casey]

I agree for local PDF files, the download button is not needed and taking up space. As we move forward with adding more functionality to pdf.js, we will look into and test solutions that maximize screen real estate while affording the ability to access tools and functions. I understand the toolbar taking up lots of space, especially when viewing a PDF in landscape. Hiding navigation/tools on_scroll is definitely something we will look into.