Closed Bug 496654 Opened 15 years ago Closed 14 years ago

let controls strip get wider, for use by add-ons

Categories

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, defect)

defect
Not set
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

RESOLVED WONTFIX

People

(Reporter: madhava, Assigned: fabrice.desre)

References

Details

Attachments

(6 files, 2 obsolete files)

Attached image diagram
Right now, on most screens in landscape orientation, there's room for only one more button in the control strip.  Add-ons ought to exercise some restraint in terms of whether they really need to have a button in our equivalent of primary chrome, but either way we have to provide some more room for those that _do_ need to.  The tab area expands (automatically) to two columns-worth when the user has opened more tabs;  could we do the same for the control strip when the number of buttons added by add-ons needs to overflow?

Some buttons ought to stay in their places (see diagram).  And this whole area should snap out (as with the tab side) -- you shouldn't have to drag more to get the whole thing out.
Flags: wanted-fennec1.0?
Blocks: 477628
Flags: wanted-fennec1.0? → wanted-fennec1.0+
Assignee: nobody → mark.finkle
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
Here's a proposal to make add-ons be first class citizens in Fennec :

- add an "applications" button in the control strip (hard part: find a good icon) that opens a panel in which add-ons can add their own icon.

- once you click on an application icon, open the application in a pseudo dialog. Fennec will provide UI and methods to minimize/close/navigate running applications.

This is like a small application manager, and could also be used to provide support for W3C widgets.
After some thought, I decided to go for Fabrice's idea of a separate panel. If one has many add-ons, they can start typing the name in the search field and the relevant results will begin to show up on the first row. On clicking on one of the icons of the add-ons, the panel disappears and the application is opened, wherever and however it is meant to be opened. Let me know if I've missed a point and what you think of it.
Attachment #401714 - Flags: ui-review?(madhava)
Attached patch WIP (obsolete) — Splinter Review
This is a WIP with the following features :
- a new (+) button is added in the browser controls bar, which opens a searchable list of installed applications.
- selecting an application launches it full screen. You can minimize an application with the top right button.
- once minimized, you'll see that the application appears in the tab list, and can be closed or maximized from here.
- applications can ask for a notification icon to be added when they are minimized.

The patch features two sample apps : about:config revisited and a simple acess to google maps. I also have GraffiTwit supporting this framework.

The styling has only be done for hildon.
Assignee: mark.finkle → fabrice.desre
Attached patch WIP v2 (obsolete) — Splinter Review
updated patch fixing a bug in themes/hildon/jar.mn and updated to current nightly
Attachment #407542 - Attachment is obsolete: true
Attached patch WIP v3Splinter Review
fixes an issue when closing apps and when clicking on the notification icon
Attachment #407720 - Attachment is obsolete: true
Attached image screenshot
The pplication chooser : a running app has a orange glow, and apps that can only be launch once are dimmed if already running
Attached image screenshot
showing apps in the tab strip. Notice that you can close all apps, but not the web view.
Attached image screenshot
the about:config sample application
@Fabrice
Looks great :)
But maybe use a blue or green circle glow instead ?
And allow more space for text.
Thanks Antoine. The look is easy to change and I have close to no graphical skills...

About the text, I'm not sure I even want to display it. It is very short and thus get cropped to the limit of usefulness, but using a bigger size will make too huge buttons.
adding in-litmus? so we remember to add testcases for this new feature when it goes in.
Flags: in-litmus?
Not sure it is a good idea or not, but I'm starting to think that this should live somewhere near the awesomebar results / bookmarks.

Why?
 - there is more space for a text and the icon
 - the '+' button taking space on the UI even if you will never use it
 - the awesome screen is used to go 'somewhere'
Vivien, why not, but I really like applications to be reachable without keyboard interaction. 

Would this mean adding another row like "See all bookmarks" displaying the application list ? We can try that and see how it works !
I don't think we have plans to add this feature
Status: ASSIGNED → RESOLVED
Closed: 14 years ago
Resolution: --- → WONTFIX
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