431023 - Change the add-ons manager window dimensions to make it more usable

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Toolkit :: Add-ons Manager, defect)

Description

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

Attachment: Current default window size

The current default window size of the add-ons manager doesn't work well given tall items in the rich list view.  I recommend we make the window 768 pixels tall.  It would also be good if all of our default window sizes followed the golden ratio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio) in this case the window being taller than it is wide.

Comment 1

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

768 would be full-screen on a 1024*768 screen, right?

Comment 2

[(no longer active)]

Am I missing something?  Making the window 768px tall doesn't follow the golden ratio:

height/width = 768/520 = 1.4769230769230769230769230769231

Comment 3

[(no longer active)]

Preserving the current width, a height of 841px would yield in the golden ratio!

Comment 4

[(no longer active)]

Suggestion for the new dimensions: 432x700.  This ratio follows the golden ratio.

Comment 5

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

>Am I missing something?  Making the window 768px tall doesn't follow the golden
>ratio

I think if we make the window less wide we pick up a scroll bar in the rich list view.  If 432x700 looks ok let's do it, otherwise making it tall enough to see results is more important than following the golden ratio.

Comment 6

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Changing the default size is a l10n change

Comment 7

[(no longer active)]

Attachment: Screenshot of 432x700

Ugh, I spoke too soon!  :-/

This neither looks nice, nor golden!  Suggestions?

Comment 8

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Part of the problem could be that a screen (being the bounding box for windows) is wider than it is high. Pixels aren't necessarily square either. Also, a vertical orientation always looks different from a horizontal one, not only on computer screens. Attachment 317983 [details] looks much better if I rotate my screen.

Golden or not, we could make the window a bit higher, although comment 6 sounds like we shouldn't.

Comment 9

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla/source/toolkit/mozapps/extensions/content/extensions.xul#58 is the code, and yes, this would be an l10n change.

So, does this block shipping? I wouldn't think so, even more so as the size of the window is persisted anyway, so if a user doesn't like it, the add-ons manager will come up at their preferred size the next time.

Comment 10

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

> yes, this would be an l10n change.

But only changing the en-US string value would be legitimate and not late-l10n, right?

Comment 11

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

Any check-in to something in locales/en-US isn't welcome at this point.

You can argue that this change doesn't break anything or doesn't warn anything. On the other hand, if it sucks for en-US it sucks for every locale.

Comment 12

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to comment #11)
> On the other hand, if it sucks for en-US it sucks for every locale.

Sure. But as it stands, a change for every locale is not wanted. Patching en-US, while still not welcome, might be better than doing nothing.

Attachment 317981 [details] does look squeezed to me.

Comment 13

[Kai Liu]

1024x768 is still a very common (the most common?) resolution, and you do not want this window covering up parts of the task bar.  And of course, there will be those using lower resolutions than 1024x768.  Aside from the ones living in the "dark ages", there are those who use lower resolutions because of bad eyesight (I've known people who do that because not all apps on Windows respond well to DPI changes, so they opt for a lower res instead), and there are also an increasing number of people using those new-fangled ultra-mobile PCs such as the popular Asus Eee.  If there is a size increase, I think it should take these concerns into account.

Just enough of an increase so that the user could see two items after the recommended item should be enough to make the user want to scroll down if the user is interested.  That would require only a modest size change, and if there is to be a size increase, I think that this would be the best justification for one.

Comment 14

[Ryan A. C.]

Attachment: 700x432 screenshot

This one doesn't look too bad, and monitors are wider than they are tall in 99% of cases I know of.
IT actually looks even better around 740 wide and 520 tall, because the scroll bar goes away with the default amount of suggested addons, but that might be pushing the limits of 800x600 if anyone still runs at that.

Comment 15

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

I'd rather we wait until we can get this localized; I don't think the default is disastrous atm. It'd be nice polish, but not so nice that I want to bother with potential l10n headachery.

Comment 16

[(no longer active)]

OK, I'm setting the target milestone to "future" then.

Comment 17

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

If someone wants to submit a patch and get ui-review then we can take this for 3.1

Comment 18

[Sebastian Hengst [:aryx] (needinfo me if it's about an intermittent or backout)]

Attachment: add-ons manager with golden ration for suggestions box (inner: 672x415, outer: 700x562)

Using the golden ratio for the whole window will always not look perfect for the possible range because the box with the recommended add-ons has another ratio there (and it is the main window element). So I suggest using the golden ration for the recommended add-ons box:

Recommended box:
width: 672
height: 415

Whole window:
width: 700
height: 562

Opinions?

Comment 19

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Please provide screenshots of at least the themes pane as well as it is this pane that uses up most space.

Comment 20

[Sebastian Hengst [:aryx] (needinfo me if it's about an intermittent or backout)]

Attachment: theme pane in add-ons manager with golden ration for suggestions box (inner: 672x415, outer: 700x562)

the width of the preview pane is currently set to 220px. Should it be increased? I have no experience with themes.

Comment 21

[Sebastian Hengst [:aryx] (needinfo me if it's about an intermittent or backout)]

Attachment: plugin pane in add-ons manager with golden ration for suggestions box (inner: 672x415, outer: 700x562)

Comment 22

[Sebastian Hengst [:aryx] (needinfo me if it's about an intermittent or backout)]

Attachment: extensions pane in add-ons manager with golden ration for suggestions box (inner: 672x415, outer: 700x562)

Comment 23

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

I think it makes more sense to make the window taller than it is wide since users may have a long list of adddons (or this might encourage them to get a long list of addons).  We don't really need as much horizontal space.  Can we try switching the dimensions?

Comment 24

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

Alex, you can get an idea of what that would look like in attachment #317983 [details]

The text of a selected item (especially in the Get Add-ons view) is rather *scrunched*

Comment 25

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

Let's go with 480x640

Comment 26

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Attachment: 480x640 screenshot

480x640 seems pretty scrunched up in the themes view to me.

Comment 27

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Comment on attachment 336997 [details]
480x640 screenshot

Alex, if you're happy that this looks ok then I'm happy to go with it. Feels very against the grain though.

Comment 28

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

Would switching the orientation of the preview pane (so that the splitter was horizontal instead of vertical) cause any problems?  If that change is easy enough I think we should try to do it at the same time as altering the default window dimensions.

Comment 29

[Shawn Wilsher :sdwilsh]

Did we end up missing the string freeze again, but for 3.1 now?

Comment 30

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

uiwanted: figure out if we can take this as late l10n

Comment 31

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

The proposed size isn't actually wide enough to accommodate all the possible buttons. I think this is going to have to slide for now and hopefully the UI update will make this unnecessary

Comment 32

[Brian King [:kinger]]

I vote for a wider default. See bug 470268.

Comment 34

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

This bug's priority relative to the set of other polish bugs is:
P2 - Polish issue that is in a secondary interface, occasionally encountered, and is easily identifiable.

A secondary UI, but the current window size is kind of humorously small so the change should be identifiable.

Comment 35

[Jennifer Morrow [:Boriss] (UX)]

No longer needed as add-ons manager is being displayed in a page's content area in next Firefox