311305 - [MacOS X] Menu rendering of bookmark toolbar folders does not respect theme font size

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: Toolbars and Customization, defect)

Description

[Andreas Wuest]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8b4) Gecko/20050908 Firefox/1.4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8b4) Gecko/20050908 Firefox/1.4

The font size on the bookmark toolbar folders pop-up menus does not match the
font size of the bookmark toolbar entry itself (see attached screenshot).

Although it it a good idea to use the native menu support, I think it's equally
important to also respect theme settings.

Here is a link to the documentation of the Carbon API function in question:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Carbon/Reference/Menu_Manager/menu_mgr_ref/chapter_1.2_section_11.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30000227-DontLinkChapterID_2-F09100

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Click on the entry of a folder in the bookmarks toolbar
2. Compare font sizes of entries contained within that menu and the font size of
the folder in the bookmarks toolbar itself

Actual Results:  
Font sizes are not equal.

Expected Results:  
Font size in pop-up menu should be the same as the themed font size of the
bookmarks toolbar entries.

theme: Firefox default theme
os version: MacOS X 10.4.2

Comment 1

[Andreas Wuest]

Attachment: screenshot of bookmark toolbar with opened pop-up menu

The font size used in the pop-up is ways larger than the font size used for the
bookmark toolbar entries (e.g. the "Firefox Dev" string in the bookmark toolbar
vs. the "Bugs" string in the pop-up).

Comment 2

[Kevin Gerich]

The popup menu font is consistent with other menus in the app. I don't see any
reason to break that consistency.

Comment 3

[Andreas Wuest]

(In reply to comment #2)

> The popup menu font is consistent with other menus in the app. I don't see any
> reason to break that consistency.

You mean contextual menus? Well, but contextual menus are a UI entity of their
own, and not related to e.g. the bookmarks folders. The bookmark folders only
expand in the form of a menu because this is convenient, but they could also
open as e.g. in a file browser like the finder, nautilus or the explorer.
Contextual menus and bookmark folders bear no inherent semantic relation, they
have nothing in common, and there is no reason to render them with a different
font size than ALL the other bookmarks (on the top level of the bookmarks
toolbar, in the bookmarks sidebar, in the bookmark manager, etc.). All bookmarks
have the same font size everywhere in Firefox, except in the bookmark toolbar
folder pop-up menu on platform Mac.

So, to summarise: there is no reason to render them the same as a context menu,
since a bookmark folder does not have the semantics of a contextual menu. The
bookmarks are not in a menu context, they are in a bookmark folder context, and
the only reason why they are rendered with a menu widget is that it is
convenient to do so. And the argument that in the "Bookmarks" menu they would
also be rendered with the same font size as the other menu entries doesn't
count, because in the main "Bookmarks" menu they are indeed in menu context.

Comment 4

[Andreas Wuest]

Attachment: screenshot of expanded bookmark folder compared to bookmarks sidebar

Shos an expanded bookmark folder from the bookmarks toolbar compared with the
bookmarks sidebar.

This not only looks so silly, but it is also extremely cumbersome on small
screens.

Comment 5

[Jo Hermans]

note that bug 308010 claims that the font-menu in the contextmenu is too small

Comment 6

[Andreas Wuest]

(In reply to comment #5)

> note that bug 308010 claims that the font-menu in the contextmenu is too small

Please quote bug #308010 correctly: it doesn't state that the font is too small
to read, it only states that on platform Mac the contextual menus of Firefox use
a slightly smaller font than the contextual menus of all other applications
(which btw. I can confirm)! This only tells us that the Firefox contextual menus
are inconsistent with all other contextual menus on that platform, but this does
not have any relation to the issue discussed in this report here.

Comment 7

[Kevin Gerich]

(In reply to comment #3)
> You mean contextual menus?

I was refering to the bookmark folder popup menus, not the context menus

> Contextual menus and bookmark folders bear no inherent semantic relation, 

Yes they do. The bookmark folder popup and the context menus are <menupopup>
elements.

Camino, Safari, Omniweb, etc. render the bookmark folder popup the same way as
we do.

marking invalid. please don't repoen

Comment 8

[Andreas Wuest]

(In reply to comment #7)

> (In reply to comment #3)
> > You mean contextual menus?
> 
> I was refering to the bookmark folder popup menus, not the context menus

But that's what the bug is about!

> > Contextual menus and bookmark folders bear no inherent semantic relation, 
> 
> Yes they do. The bookmark folder popup and the context menus are <menupopup>
> elements.

Yes, they are both <menupopup> elements. And know what? This is a SYNTACTIC
commonality, and NOT a SEMANTIC commonality! As I've mentioned in commment #3,
using the same widget because it's convenient does not imply same semantics.

> Camino, Safari, Omniweb, etc. render the bookmark folder popup the same way as
> we do.

Camino: of course, since it's a mozilla offspring. Omniweb: of course, they are
entangled with cocoa. Safari: same reason.

But this does not mean we have to do the same thing! On other platforms like
e.g. Linux, the font size of the expanded bookmark folders match the font size
used with the rest of the bookmark toolbar. But on Mac, it has to be different,
averting the advantage of Firefox that on whatever platform you run it, the user
experience will be the same. This is unfortunate.

> marking invalid. please don't repoen

I won't, since it's going to be closed again anyway... :(