274822 - UI: Replace modal error dialogs with toolbar notification

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: General, enhancement)

Description

[Ben Mitchell]

Error messages slated to be handled by error pages instead of modal dialogs
(page not found, server timeout messages, and other similar error messages)
should be displayed as toolbar notifications in the same fashion as the popup
blocker notifies users of blocked popups.

For error messages produced by tabs without focus, the tab's text color and/or
icon in the tab bar should change to notify the user that a message is waiting.

Current modal dialog behavior should be available through the advanced section
in the preferences dialog.

Comment 1

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

(In reply to comment #0)
> Error messages slated to be handled by error pages instead of modal dialogs
> (page not found, server timeout messages, and other similar error messages)
> should be displayed as toolbar notifications in the same fashion as the popup
> blocker notifies users of blocked popups.

Why?  This would introduce potential confusion, since all existing infobar
notification is in the context of the displayed page.  If you're loading a new
page, in place of the page we should display something, not the previous page.

This also wouldn't make sense in the "open in new tab" context, and doesn't
allow us to do nearly as much as a nicely put-together error page would.
 
> For error messages produced by tabs without focus, the tab's text color and/or
> icon in the tab bar should change to notify the user that a message is waiting.

We don't do colour-coded tabs for other status indicators, we're not going to do
it for this either.  (A big problem is how to do this in the context of natively
styled tabs.)  Possibly a red X or something for the favicon, but that should be
filed as a separate bug marked as dependent on the error pages bug.
 
> Current modal dialog behavior should be available through the advanced section
> in the preferences dialog.

The modal dialog behaviour is substandard and less than useful.  Once we don't
need it, we're going to bury it deep.

Comment 2

[Ben Mitchell]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Why?  This would introduce potential confusion, since all existing infobar
> notification is in the context of the displayed page.  If you're loading a new
> page, in place of the page we should display something, not the previous page.
> 
> This also wouldn't make sense in the "open in new tab" context, and doesn't
> allow us to do nearly as much as a nicely put-together error page would.

For a link followed from a page in a currently-open tab, an infobar notification
regarding the user's request relates to the page being displayed. I do agree
that the open new tab context is one that might not be as easy to handle with
this sort of a notification device.

> We don't do colour-coded tabs for other status indicators, we're not going to do
> it for this either.  (A big problem is how to do this in the context of natively
> styled tabs.)  Possibly a red X or something for the favicon, but that should be
> filed as a separate bug marked as dependent on the error pages bug.

I agree, the report should have specified that some visual change to the tab
would occur to indicate that there was a waiting message for the user.