573412 - Remove the toggle toolbar (pill) button from the main window

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: Toolbars and Customization, defect)

Description

[philippe (part-time)]

STR
1. click the 'hide toolbar' button (top right of window).

AR: the action hides all toolbars (main toolbar, bookmark bar, tab bar)
ER: hide the main toolbar only - that is what OS X apps do.

Firefox 3.6.xxx does it semi correctly, it hides main toolbar and bookmark bar only, leaving the tab bar visible.

Comment 1

[Rimas Kudelis [use needinfo to ping]]

Can you name an example of an app that does this correctly?

I just looked at Finder: upon clicking that button, it shows/hides both the top toolbar and the left sidebar. That kinda contradicts your statement.

Comment 2

[Rimas Kudelis [use needinfo to ping]]

By the way, both Safari and Opera 9.63 don't have that button at all.

Comment 3

[philippe (part-time)]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Can you name an example of an app that does this correctly?

A few I have open in front of me: Camino, SubEthaEdit, Transmit (all 3 have a tab bar and a main toolbar - only the main toolbar is hidden)
Preview

Comment 4

[Rimas Kudelis [use needinfo to ping]]

Well, like you said, the tab bar doesn't disappear since 3.6. Whether other toolbars should disappear is arguable, I guess. I think they should...

Comment 5

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Attachment: remove the button like Safari and Opera (and Chrome?) do

Apparently our support for this has always been dodgy. Current open issues: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?short_desc=pill&resolution=---&op_sys=Mac%20OS%20X&query_format=advanced&short_desc_type=allwordssubstr&product=Firefox

Comment 6

[Rimas Kudelis [use needinfo to ping]]

Dão, are you sure it's the best way to go? Those five bugs I see don't seem to be that hard to fix, are they?

Comment 7

[philippe (part-time)]

(In reply to comment #5)
> Created attachment 457033 [details] [diff] [review]
> remove the button like Safari and Opera (and Chrome?) do

That is a fair option, if you consider the main window to be an application window (Safari, Chrome, iTunes) instead of document window.

http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/XHIGWindows/XHIGWindows.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000961-TPXREF48

Comment 8

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to comment #6)
> Dão, are you sure it's the best way to go? Those five bugs I see don't seem to
> be that hard to fix, are they?

Not sure, maybe some of them would be easy to fix, but some inconsistency would likely remain.

(In reply to comment #7)
> (In reply to comment #5)
> > Created attachment 457033 [details] [diff] [review] [details]
> > remove the button like Safari and Opera (and Chrome?) do
> 
> That is a fair option, if you consider the main window to be an application
> window (Safari, Chrome, iTunes) instead of document window.
> 
> http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/XHIGWindows/XHIGWindows.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000961-TPXREF48

According to this we should probably remove it from the places library as well.

Comment 9

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

Comment on attachment 457033 [details] [diff] [review]
remove the button like Safari and Opera (and Chrome?) do

I'm open to being convinced if people super strongly disagree with this change, but my general impression is that the vast majority of users have no idea what the pill button does (in Firefox or otherwise), and it for the most part only ends up making our UI look more complex.

Would extensions be able to bring it back?

Comment 10

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to comment #9)
> Would extensions be able to bring it back?

Yes.

Comment 11

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

morphing

Comment 12

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/51fa8d0f6f4f

Comment 13

[Rimas Kudelis [use needinfo to ping]]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Well, like you said, the tab bar doesn't disappear since 3.6. Whether other
> toolbars should disappear is arguable, I guess. I think they should...

Just a note (in case we ever undo removal of this button): the tab bar actually disappears again in the nightlies.

Comment 14

[Irvin (MozTW)]

I'm not getting that why we'd to remove that button, only in order to make the UI more like Safari or Opera? As far as I'd seen, pill button doesn't bother the UI design of 4.0[1], and remove it has no other advantage besides make the window a little neated. 

Pill button is useful when you need maxium space for web content, bug don't want to get into fullscreen mode. Consider the convenience it bring, it's seens no reason to remove it from the original position?

[1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Projects/3.7_and_4.0_Theme_and_UI_Revamp/Mac_Specific_Visual_Refresh

Comment 15

[philippe (part-time)]

(In reply to comment #14)
> I'm not getting that why we'd to remove that button, only in order to make the
> UI more like Safari or Opera?

As explained in comment 0, the point of this bug was: on FX 4b1, the pill button hides main toolbar _and_ the bookmark bar _and_ the tab bar. That was/is inconsistent with the expected behaviour on OS X (hide the main toolbar only). The tabbar is not considered a toolbar and should not be hidden by the pill button (behaviour of Fx 3.6).

Comment 16

[Rimas Kudelis [use needinfo to ping]]

And yet, why are we removing a feature instead of fixing it to work better?

Comment 17

[Irvin (MozTW)]

(In reply to comment #16)
> And yet, why are we removing a feature instead of fixing it to work better?

Agree, removing it is a decision beyong my understanding.

Comment 18

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

The question is how much time would have to be invested to fix all the open bugs which are triggered by this button. It's not really a often most feature. As given in comment 10 an extension can bring back this feature.

Verified fixed with Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:2.0b2pre) Gecko/20100718 Minefield/4.0b2pre

I can't find any existing Litmus tests to update. Setting flag to in-litmus-.

Comment 19

[jrblier]

Please bring back the pill and fix it instead. Firefox 3.6 behavior is perfect.

There will be enough betas to find a real solution, which is to not hide tabs, but hide the rest.

Shall we open a new bug (regression)?

Comment 20

[Markus Stange [:mstange]]

Yes, if you think it should be brought back, file a new bug, please. Whether we decide to fix it is another question that can be debated there.

Comment 21

[Emanuele Alimonda]

Opened new bug 582957