253406 - Flash or Blink a hyperlink when clicked for visual feedback like Navigator

Status: RESOLVED EXPIRED

(SeaMonkey :: General, enhancement)

Description

[pepp]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040721 Firefox/0.9.1+
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040721 Firefox/0.9.1+

In Netscape Navigator/Communicator, I think starting from 1.0, when a hyperlink
is clicked on a page the text of the link blinks or flashes once or twice,
giving momentary visual feedback to the user. That feedback is:

1) The user sees that a hyperlink was clicked and following a hyperlink is the
next thing the browser is going to do. (as opposed to opening a dialog box or
perform some menu command)

2) The user sees *which* hyperlink was clicked and knows where the browser is
going to go next. (Follow where that link is linked to)

This is good user interface design. Not having visual feedback to the user like
this isn't really bad UI, but having this is a very good feedback
characteristic. I really missed this when I started using IE a lot, and then I
really missed this when I started using Mozilla a lot. Now I miss it when using
Firefox too. It feels "blank" when I click on a link that does not blink like
this, and it feels "solid" when I click on a link that does blink like this.

Currently it looks like Mozilla (and IE too I think) displays a "current focus"
dotted-line rectangle around the link just clicked, which the user will see for
a moment before the browser navigates away, but that is inferior to blinking or
flashing the text of the entire link as Navigator does.

Note that I'm not talking about an annoying/obtrusive multiple-blink thing here,
just one or two quick flashes. Like how a Macintosh menu command flashes after
you select it, giving the same kind of visual feedback to the user. Navigator
did this, by the way, on all platforms.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open a webpage with simple hyperlinks on it
2. Click on a hyperlink as usual.
3. Watch what happens to the link that was just clicked.

Actual Results:  
For a moment, a dotted line box appears around the link just clicked, but no
flashing or blinking or any other attention-getting event occurs at the link itself.

Expected Results:  
The text of the hyperlink blinks or flashes once or twice, probably in a
reversed color, drawing the user's eyes to the link and thus giving very solid
visual indication as to what the user just did and where they did it on the page.

Note: I entered this bug for Mozilla Suite instead of Firefox, just because I
thought it was more of a suite-level issue. If it's more appropriate or get
added faster (yes!) as a Firefox component, sounds good to me.

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Er.... Mozilla will color the link as "active" when clicked (turning from blue
to red until the mouse button is released).  The flash of red is pretty
noticeable...

Granted, if a site overrides the active coloring you won't see it, but that's
something that's up to the site.

Comment 2

[pepp]

Okay I'm looking at this carefully. The "flash" of red isn't a flash, it just
stays red. If you hold down the mouse when clicking on a link, without letting
go just yet, the link just stays red, and then changes back to original color
when the mouse button is released. That isn't a flash, it's just a static color
change.

Use Netscape Navigator 4.x on the Macintosh to see what I mean on an identical
page. When the mouse button is released, the link text flashes 1-3 times (maybe
depending on system setting) before the browser navigates to the page.

Comment 3

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
copy) or, for feature requests, if it's not present in the latest version and
you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
(given at the top of this mail) and add a comment to that effect, giving more
reproduction information if you have it.

If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
changed in any way in the next two weeks, it will be automatically resolved.
Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
Firefox:     http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releases/1.5beta1.html
Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Comment 4

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This bug has been automatically resolved after a period of inactivity (see above
comment). If anyone thinks this is incorrect, they should feel free to reopen it.