367648 - add "tab preview" to preferences dialog

Status: NEW

(SeaMonkey :: Preferences, enhancement)

Description

[Susanne Jaeger]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.2pre) Gecko/20070111 SeaMonkey/1.1 Mnenhy/0.7.4.10004
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.2pre) Gecko/20070111 SeaMonkey/1.1 Mnenhy/0.7.4.10004

While tab preview seems to be requested by many users, it's as well annoying to others, who feel they don't need this feature and are irritated by continous flickering while hovering over the tabs. 
At the moment this "feature" can be only be deactivated by altering the value of browser.tabs.tooltippreview.enable, it should be configurable via the GUI. 

A menu item should be placed in the "tabbed browsing" - "tab display" section, a
checkbox to enable or disable the preview. 
I'm not sure about an additional textfield for changing the size, there might be severe performance issues by careless choosing too large values.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.

Comment 1

[Manuel Reimer]

... maybe it's also a good idea to disable this by default?

I'd vote for an GUI to make this one easily accessible and for disabling by default.

A patch should be easy, but I need response of someone in the SeaMonkey council about disabling by default, so I know if I should add this to my patch.

Comment 2

[chAlx]

My opinion: tooltips looks very different on desktops 800px and 1600px; on 2 tabs and 20 tabs; on search results and gallery. So user should have easy way to tune preview properties for his needs.

PS: Bug 368046 should block this bug if submitted.

Comment 3

[Manuel Reimer]

I don't think we should add too much configuration options! The whole thing gets too complex!

If I'm looking at some of the patches, then I think it would have been better to do the whole thing as an extension!

Comment 4

[Manuel Reimer]

Attachment: Patch for adding the "Enable tab preview" checkbox to the pref window

Comment 5

[Manuel Reimer]

Attachment: Patch to disable tab preview by default

This patch is for disabling tab preview by default, as users now are easily able to enable this feature, if they like it.

The tab preview thing gets more and more "extension-like", especially as the code, behind this one, gets more and more complex. This feature also changes the look and feel of SeaMonkey in a way not everyone might like. If someone moves around the mouse and suddenly something pops up, then this may confuse.

If someone likes this "extension" then he is able to enable it. Noone should have to disable it, if he doesn't like it.

Comment 6

[Manuel Reimer]

... Of topic. but I had been able to assign bugs to me in the "old bugzilla". Since they updated bugzilla, I can't find the setting where I'm able to take bugs. Could semeone tell me about where I can find this setting?

Comment 7

[[e-mail]]

Comment on attachment 253085 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch to disable tab preview by default

You can put it in the pref window, or you can disable it by default, but I don't think you need both.

Comment 8

[Manuel Reimer]

Why? Don't you want people to allow to enable it easily?

I think disabling by default is a good idea, just to have an as slim as possible configuration by default.

But I also think it has to be easy to re-enable it for those who want to have this feature.

Comment 9

[[e-mail]]

Comment on attachment 253084 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch for adding the "Enable tab preview" checkbox to the pref window

The problem is there isn't actually any room left in this panel for the pref.

Comment 10

[[e-mail]]

(In reply to comment #8)
>I think disabling by default is a good idea, just to have an as slim as
>possible configuration by default.
No, that's called Firefox.

>But I also think it has to be easy to re-enable it for those who want to have
>this feature.
How will they know? On the other hand I agree that has to be easy to disable it for those who don't want to have the feature.

Comment 11

[Robert Kaiser]

Comment on attachment 253084 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch for adding the "Enable tab preview" checkbox to the pref window

we can't accept new L10n strings on branch, sorry.

Comment 12

[Manuel Reimer]

(In reply to comment #9)
> (From update of attachment 253084 [details] [diff] [review])
> The problem is there isn't actually any room left in this panel for the pref.

I already tried that and it looked nice. Seems like there is even space for one more checkbox.

(In reply to comment #10)
> (In reply to comment #8)
> >I think disabling by default is a good idea, just to have an as slim as
> >possible configuration by default.
> No, that's called Firefox.

No, Firefox would be, if the feature would be removed at all and someone would have to redo this as extension, but if we decide that a feature is used by only a few people, or most people would disable the feature, then disabling by default would be a good idea.

Setting a checkbox is still easier as installing an extension.

> >But I also think it has to be easy to re-enable it for those who want to have
> >this feature.
> How will they know? On the other hand I agree that has to be easy to disable
> it for those who don't want to have the feature.

SeaMonkey users read changelogs ;-)

There will always be features, not used by the majority, which should be disabled by default. For example "browser.link.open_newwindow" is on "3" by default, which means, that we could open any links, which would open in new windows, in new tabs, just like Opera, but we don't do so, as most users may like to have those links in new windows.

Comment 13

[[e-mail]]

(In reply to comment #12)
>Seems like there is even space for one more checkbox.
Well not in the Modern theme under windows or the Classic theme under Linux.
(I can do you some screenshots if you really want).

Comment 14

[Chris Thomas (CTho) [formerly [e-mail] [e-mail]]]

The problem with off-by-default features is that nobody finds them.  The people who hunt through the pref dialogs for new features would probably also search for extensions online if the feature was just omitted.

(In reply to comment #12)
> There will always be features, not used by the majority, which should be
> disabled by default. For example "browser.link.open_newwindow" is on "3" by
> default, which means, that we could open any links, which would open in new
> windows, in new tabs, just like Opera, but we don't do so, as most users may
> like to have those links in new windows.
> 

Every one of my friends changes it to open in tabs.  Personally, I think we should change those defaults - especially now that tabs are present in all the other big browsers (IE7, Opera, Firefox).  Maybe I should file a bug on that.

Comment 15

[chAlx]

Put checkbox to the right-click menu for tabs: it is usually accessible only with some tabs (browser.tabs.autoHide) and has a lot of space.

PS: I hope we won't get another browser for housewives who could be discomforted by some 'pro' features and so features are disabled at all. Anyway, predefined defaults will be separated to the 'Lite' and 'Advanced' presets some day.

Comment 16

[Peter Weilbacher]

Another alternative for a new pref option in the tabbed browsing panel could be to add a menu item under View -> Show/Hide...
I remember that while for some people the tabbed browsing panel seems to still have some space for others it was already slightly cut off at the bottom. (That was shown in a bug discussing dpi-resolution problems that I don't find at the moment.)

Comment 17

[Manuel Reimer]

(In reply to comment #13)
> Well not in the Modern theme under windows or the Classic theme under Linux.
> (I can do you some screenshots if you really want).

Please do so. I've tried now with Windows and Linux and I tried with both themes on both systems. I always haven space free for at least one additional checkbox.

If the checkbox doesn't fit, then I think we should replace the 2x3 radiobuttons at the end of the configuration page with two dropdown menus, to get more space.

Comment 18

[[e-mail]]

Attachment: Windows Modern

Comment 19

[[e-mail]]

Attachment: Linux Classic

Comment 20

[Manuel Reimer]

(In reply to comment #14)
> The problem with off-by-default features is that nobody finds them.  The
> people who hunt through the pref dialogs for new features would probably also
> search for extensions online if the feature was just omitted.

Maybe, but at least I'm always reading the changelog to see which new features are in the new release.

An other question ist if people really wanted to find this feature. In german usenet we discussed a bit about it. One URL someone posted is:

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=462005

There someone asks if any Firefox users use an extension, which does exactly what we have in SeaMonkey now.

The result seems to be: Noone uses it and noone needs it.

At least this one shouldn't have been enabled by default without a "user-reachable" or "beginner-friendly"-way to disable it.

Comment 21

[Manuel Reimer]

@neil: The problem seems to be, that we set the window size using "em" and not "px". This means the window size depends on the fonts, installed on the target system.

So I'll write a patch to replace the radiobuttons with dropdown menus.

Maybe it's also a good idea to add "scrolling support" to the right part of the window and to allow people to resize the window.

Comment 22

[Manuel Reimer]

Attachment: Screenshot with menulists

Screenshot with the menulists added.

It's impossible to place them horizontal, as the texts are too long and would be cutted at the end.

So I've placed them vertical, which doesn't add very much space to the dialog...

We really need scrolling ability in this dialog.....

Comment 23

[[e-mail]]

Comment on attachment 253180 [details]
Screenshot with menulists

Those menulists look as if they could use class="indent"

Comment 24

[Manuel Reimer]

I've added this, but this, of course, doesn't give us more vertical space.

Comment 25

[Peter Weilbacher]

Another option would be to make this a selector under the Show Tooltips option on the main Appearance panel, like

   [X] Show Tooltips
      [X] Including Tab Preview
   [X] Show Web Site Icons

As the tab preview is visibly related to tooltips this is as good an option as the Tabbed Browsing panel. And there is enough space there...

Comment 26

[Manuel Reimer]

Noone will search for this, there. This one has something to do with "Tabbed browsing" and so it *has* *to* go into the "Tabbed browsing"-page.

Comment 27

[Manuel Reimer]

Attachment: Same patch but with menulists

Here is the patch I've used to get the menulists and the new "tab preview" checkbox. Maybe Neil could check if this change will give us as much vertical space as we need.

Comment 28

[[e-mail]]

Comment on attachment 253340 [details] [diff] [review]
Same patch but with menulists

>+    <description>&newWindowDescription.label;</description>
>+    <description>&externalDescription.label;</description>
For accessibility, these should really say <label control="...Group" accesskey="&...Description.accesskey;">&...Description.label;</label>
Nit: I think these descriptions need to end with a colon.

>+    <menulist id="newWindowGroup" class="indent" preftype="int" prefstring="browser.link.open_newwindow">
>+    <menulist id="externalGroup" class="indent" preftype="int" prefstring="browser.link.open_external">
Nit: preftype="int" is already the default for menulists.

>+          <menuitem value="1" label="&openCurrent.label;"
>+                    accesskey="&newWindowGroupCurrent.accesskey;"/>
>+          <menuitem value="3" label="&openTab.label;"
>+                    accesskey="&newWindowGroupTab.accesskey;"/>
>+          <menuitem value="2" label="&openWindow.label;"
>+                    accesskey="&newWindowGroupWindow.accesskey;"/>
>+          <menuitem value="1" label="&openCurrent.label;"
>+                    accesskey="&externalGroupCurrent.accesskey;"/>
>+          <menuitem value="3" label="&openTab.label;"
>+                    accesskey="&externalGroupTab.accesskey;"/>
>+          <menuitem value="2" label="&openWindow.label;"
>+                    accesskey="&externalGroupWindow.accesskey;"/>
No access keys on menulist menuitems please (and remove them from the DTD).

Comment 29

[Manuel Reimer]

Attachment: Updated menulist patch

Added all the things, mentioned by Neil. Now the whole thing looks much nicer and *heh* we have some more pixels of vertical space with the new changes ;-)

Comment 30

[Peter Weilbacher]

(In reply to comment #26)
> Noone will search for this, there. This one has something to do with "Tabbed
> browsing" and so it *has* *to* go into the "Tabbed browsing"-page.

Sorry, but that just seems to be your opinion as somebody who intimately knows SeaMonkey and especially knows that this features is called "_Tab_ Preview". I was asked by several users how to switch off the picture in tooltips. But most of them did not make the connection to tabs. Although I have to admit that this is still very small number statistics (<10).

But well, whatever is decided where to put it in the prefs, there will always be those who don't find it.

Comment 31

[[e-mail]]

Comment on attachment 253354 [details] [diff] [review]
Updated menulist patch

>+    var _elementIDs = ["tabStrip", "tabBackground", "tabPreview", "middleClick", "urlBar", "loadGroup",
I noticed that this line is getting rather long... it could probably do with being split into two groups of three.

>+    <label control="newWindowGroup" accesskey="&newWindowDescription.accesskey;">
>+      &newWindowDescription.label;
>+    </label>
I thought there was some issue with wrapping a label like this but I can't remember what it was now so never mind.

>+<!ENTITY preview.label "Enable tab preview">
Maybe it would be easier to find the preference if it was explained better, such as "Show previews in tab tooltips"?

There's no need to rerequest review to make these changes, just attach a new patch and ask for it to be checked in (or if you're very lucky, your checkin buddy will make the changes for you).

Comment 32

[Manuel Reimer]

Attachment: Patch with updated label for the checkbox

This is the updated patch, ready for checkin.

Comment 34

[Robert Kaiser]

Could we update this for current trunk and the new prefwindow?

Comment 35

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

Filter "spam" on "guifeatures-nobody-20080610".