320796 - [META] Make toolbars more robust and intuitive

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Toolbars and Customization, enhancement)

Description

[Chris Cook]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8) Gecko/20051111 Firefox/1.5
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8) Gecko/20051111 Firefox/1.5

This bug will consolidate a list of bugs which deal with toolbar usability.

Here is an initial synopsis of some of the issues.

1. Toolbar names (as listed in the "View" menu) have no fixed relation to their contents so, for example, the "Bookmarks toolbar" may have other items placed in it which can cause confusion if the user attempts to hide the bookmarks toolbar item. (Bug 287686)
2. Custom toolbars are unintuitive. (Bug 212990)
3. Dragging toolbar items should provide better feedback than a slightly different cursor (a mostly transparent copy of the item for example). (Bug 318052)
4. The "Go" button should be somehow linked to the "Location" bar. (Bug 257561)
5. Only the "Bookmarks toolbar" item handles overflow. It would be nice if all toolbar items (including the menu) handled overflow.

These issues might seem only slightly related but there is a simple solution for most of them. All toolbar buttons could be placed into groups (i.e., <toolbaritem>) and the "View > Toolbars > name" could be linked to the toolbar group instead of to the toolbar.

This is my first meta bug so forgive me if I've covered too much, or not enough.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

#1 is inherent in the possibility to customize toolbars (i.e., add or remove items from them) => INVALID or WONTFIX.

#2: please explain your meaning. I find them just as intuitive as the default ones.

#3. In Fx 2 (or 3) the cursor is more than "slighly" different, it is quite obvious that "something" is being dragged.

#4: The Go button is now part of the location bar.

#5, if still present, merits a separate bug.

A metabug is characterized by the keyword "meta" and by the fact that individual bugs covered by the metabug are set to "block" it.