571992 - Switch Tabs-on-top to be the Default State on Windows

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, defect)

Description

[Stephen Horlander [:shorlander]]

Change tabs to be on top by default for Firefox 4 Beta 1.

Comment 1

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

The UX team would like to release a video simultaneously with this change.  Before anyone checks this in for the nighties please confirm in this bug that the video has been posted (should be Tuesday or Wednesday).

Comment 2

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

Not sure that bug 572112 is a dependency, but it's a Firefox 4 blocker for sure.

Comment 3

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

I think they're completely independent (though I agree that bug should be fixed).

Comment 4

[u88484]

Attachment: Patch v1

Comment 5

[Dão Gottwald [::dao]]

Comment on attachment 451292 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch v1

What you really need to do is set the tabsontop attribute on the toolbox.

I think we can't do this on Linux yet, as it looks unreasonable. Not sure about OS X.

Comment 6

[Stephen Horlander [:shorlander]]

(In reply to comment #5)
> (From update of attachment 451292 [details] [diff] [review])
> What you really need to do is set the tabsontop attribute on the toolbox.
> 
> I think we can't do this on Linux yet, as it looks unreasonable. Not sure about
> OS X.

I don't think this will work on OS X until bug #562733 lands.

Hi Kurt, are you planning on updating the patch to address Dao's comments? Thanks!

Comment 7

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

I'm hoping we can do this per-platform as the rest of the theme work comes in to support it. To start we'd like to do it on Windows only - re summarizing.

Comment 8

[Dão Gottwald [::dao]]

Attachment: patch

Comment 9

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

Let's flip the pref for windows now.  The post is planned to go out on Friday evening, but it will be up before we ship the beta.

Comment 10

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

I'd like to make sure that the post is up before we flip it in nightlies, tbqh. Can we get the post up tonight?

Comment 11

[Shawn Wilsher :sdwilsh]

(In reply to comment #10)
> I'd like to make sure that the post is up before we flip it in nightlies, tbqh.
> Can we get the post up tonight?
Hopefully that goes up today since I just pushed this...

http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/88142593698a

Comment 12

[Dão Gottwald [::dao]]

I actually landed this just a bit earlier: http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/4a6f3d15cfdc
http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/88142593698a is going to cause an XML error, I think...

Comment 13

[Shawn Wilsher :sdwilsh]

(In reply to comment #12)
> I actually landed this just a bit earlier:
> http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/4a6f3d15cfdc
> http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/88142593698a is going to cause an XML
> error, I think...
So, why was it checkin-needed then, and why didn't I get conflicts when applying it?

Comment 14

[Shawn Wilsher :sdwilsh]

Backed out my push.  In the future, please unmark checkin-needed on bugs you land so others don't have to waste time landing and then possibly backing it out.

http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/39cb8075f844
http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/945351318494

Comment 15

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

>I'd like to make sure that the post is up before we flip it in nightlies, tbqh.
>Can we get the post up tonight?

video and mockups are now up:
http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2010/06/24/why-tabs-are-on-top-in-firefox-4/

Comment 16

[Peter Lairo]

(In reply to comment #15)
> video and mockups are now up:
> http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2010/06/24/why-tabs-are-on-top-in-firefox-4/

List of disadvantages the video neglects to mention:
http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2010/06/24/why-tabs-are-on-top-in-firefox-4/comment-page-1/#comment-159018

Comment 17

[Peter Lairo]

Here's the official(?) feedback page for the new features in Firefox 4:
http://firefox.uservoice.com/forums/57440-firefox-4-beta

Not much feedback there yet. Perhaps that page needs to be promoted better.

Comment 18

[Marcia Knous [:marcia]]

Is it expected that the bookmarks toolbar is disabled, even with a new profile? I have to explicitly enable it if I want it shown.

Comment 19

[Stephen Horlander [:shorlander]]

(In reply to comment #18)
> Is it expected that the bookmarks toolbar is disabled, even with a new profile?
> I have to explicitly enable it if I want it shown.

That is intended.

Comment 20

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

(In reply to comment #18)
> Is it expected that the bookmarks toolbar is disabled, even with a new profile?
> I have to explicitly enable it if I want it shown.

Yes, that was done in bug 544817

Comment 21

[Peter Henkel [:Terepin]]

(In reply to comment #18)
> Is it expected that the bookmarks toolbar is disabled, even with a new profile?
> I have to explicitly enable it if I want it shown.

The bookmarks toolbar is disabled only in new profile and in profile with untouched toolbar.

Comment 22

[Peter Lairo]

(In reply to comment #21)
> The bookmarks toolbar is disabled only in new profile and in profile with
> untouched toolbar.

So the millions of users who have touched their Bookmarks Toolbar will have to live with the problems identified here http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2010/06/24/why-tabs-are-on-top-in-firefox-4/comment-page-1/#comment-159018 and/or here http://firefox.uservoice.com/forums/57440-firefox-4-beta/suggestions/842641-tabs-above-page-bookmarks-toolbar-ugly-please?ref=title

BTW: Where was the discussion of the pros and cons on dropping the Bookmarks Toolbar? It is IMO a very important part of the UI that deserved and needed love and care (i.e. evolving) instead of back-burner status (i.e. hidden and thus likely forgotten).

(sorry for the slightly OT subject, but in the current context this seems the best place to bring it up at the moment)

Comment 23

[Peter Henkel [:Terepin]]

I'm using tabs on top with bookmarks bar longer than this landed and I don't have any problem. So the millions of users minus me who have touched their Bookmarks Toolbar will have to live with the problems.

Comment 24

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

The bookmarks toolbar change is lower impact because it doesn't modify existing profiles that are using it (well, once we get the detection implemented correctly).  Since a large number of users never interacted with it, we give them some screen space back.

Comment 25

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

(In reply to comment #24)
> The bookmarks toolbar change is lower impact because it doesn't modify existing
> profiles that are using it (well, once we get the detection implemented
> correctly).

You might want to blog about that, FWIW, as it'll bite all Beta 1 users. Can you also add the "relnote" keyword to that bug?

Comment 26

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

I'll mention it in the UI video, also added the relnote keyword to bug 574514

Comment 27

[Henrik Skupin (:whimboo) [⌚️UTC+1]]

Verified fixed with 

Dao, is that change covered in some way by brower-chrome tests?

Comment 28

[Dão Gottwald [::dao]]

Nope, there's nothing interesting to test here.

Comment 29

[Marcia Knous [:marcia]]

https://litmus.mozilla.org/show_test.cgi?id=12064 covers this in Litmus.