329934 - optimize fade effect between preference panels to feel less sluggish

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Toolkit :: Preferences, defect)

Description

[Mike Beltzner [:beltzner, not reading bugmail]]

As pointed out by Bill Scott of Yahoo!, the fade effect in the preferences panel change in FFx on OSX feels sluggish.

What we're currently doing is ..:

  - Erase components from dialog
  - Resize dialog window (with animated transition) to match new size
  - Fade in new components

What we should be doing (and what Apple actually does) is ..:

  - Fade out components from dialog and at the same time,
       resizes dialog window (with animated transition) to match new size
  - Draw new components

Comment 1

[Ka-Ping Yee]

(In reply to comment #0)
> What we should be doing (and what Apple actually does) is ..:
>   - Fade out components from dialog and at the same time,
>        resizes dialog window (with animated transition) to match new size
>   - Draw new components

Well, sort of.  I carefully watched the behaviour of the preference
dialogs in Safari and in System Preferences and found the following.

System Preferences:
    1.  Concurrently crossfade from the old window contents to the
        new window contents while smoothly resizing from the old
        height to the new height.  During the transition, both the
        old and new contents are anchored to the (moving) bottom
        edge of the window.  The transition takes a constant time
        of about 0.5 seconds, regardless of the old and new heights.

You can observe the System Preferences in slow motion if you hold
down Shift and Option while clicking (on a preference pane icon or
on the "Show All" button).

Safari:
    1.  Instantly erase the old window contents.
    2.  With empty contents, animate the transition from the old
        height to the new height.  The transition takes a variable
        amount of time (more time for a larger difference in height).
    3.  Instantly draw the new window contents.

Actually, all the Apple standard apps that have multiple panes in
their Preferences dialog seem to share this behaviour.  I tried
iCal, Address Book, and iChat, and they all behave like Safari.

Firefox 1.5:
    1.  Instantly erase the old window contents.
    2.  With empty contents, animate the transition from the old
        height to the new height.
    3.  Slowly fade in the new window contents.

So the Firefox behaviour could be described as an imperfect
imitation of the Safari behaviour, which is itself an imperfect
imitation of the System Preferences behaviour.

Seems like the right thing to do is to make Firefox match the
behaviour of Safari, iChat, Address Book, etc.

Comment 4

[Colin Barrett [:cbarrett]]

I agree with comment 1. System Pref's behavior is nonstandard and shouldn't be copied.

Comment 6

[Gregory Pappas [:gregp]]

No longer an issue