Closed Bug 594708 Opened 14 years ago Closed 14 years ago

urlbar-throbber needs a new place if/when the favicon is removed

Categories

(Firefox :: Address Bar, defect)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
Address Bar
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED INVALID

People

(Reporter: i.drugoy, Unassigned)

References

Details

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:2.0b6pre) Gecko/20100908 Firefox/4.0b6pre
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:2.0b6pre) Gecko/20100908 Firefox/4.0b6pre

In the latest nightly the favicon in adressbar was replaced by #identity-container (e.g. the box that indicates the current domain you are viewing page on), which now doesn't show you the process of searching for the typed into the addressbar words through history.
Old behavior was so: you type anything in the addressbar and the search begins and the favicon turns into rotating arrows, which will disappear when the search is finished.
And now users can't get know whether the search is finished or not.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Type anything into address bar.
Actual Results:  
Search starts, but the user doesn't get informed whether it is in process or it has already stopped.

Expected Results:  
Search starts and the user gets informed whether it is in process or it has already stopped.

This bug appeared since yesterday's nightly build's out, where the new feature (#identity-container) landed.
It doesn't sound like disability access bug since it's not about AT and screen reader support.
Changing component to something more appropriate.
Component: Disability Access → Location Bar
QA Contact: disability.access → location.bar
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Depends on: 587901
Ever confirmed: true
Summary: Typing anything into the addressbar starts a search, without indicating when it was finished. → urlbar-throbber needs a new place if/when the favicon is removed
OS: Windows XP → All
Hardware: x86 → All
Since in latest 2 nightlies the favicon was brought back (in addition to the identity-container) to the url-bar, I suggest just not to remove it anymore, then this bug may be closed.
The identity block shouldn't persist when the location bar is being edited, we should go back to showing a throbber to indicate search progress (although the existence of this throbber isn't tied to the existence of a favicon for the site, or the presence of the identity block).
This means that the cursor would jump around when you start typing, which seems suboptimal.
yes, so I suggest to keep the current state: both identity-container and favicon are shown in address bar and everything is ok, bug is gone until you manage to remove favicon again.
(In reply to comment #6)
> yes, so I suggest to keep the current state: both identity-container and
> favicon are shown in address bar and everything is ok, bug is gone until you
> manage to remove favicon again.

It seems the favicon in the identity block is going to be removed (bug 587901). It is redundant and there's no significant advantage to keeping it. Also, it makes no sense at all to keep favicon or identity block in the location bar if the text in the location bar isn't the address of the current page. Removing the identity block entirely creates a new visual state that indicates the text has been edited and is not the location of the current page anymore. That said, as Alex mentioned, we don't need a favicon or even the identity block to have a throbber. It seems trivial enough to add a throbber to the location bar.

(In reply to comment #5)
> This means that the cursor would jump around when you start typing, which seems
> suboptimal.

I currently see two cases:

1) New tab: On the latest Mac nightly a new tab has the identity block in the location bar and shows the generic document favicon. AFAIK that is going to be removed (a blank page needs no identity block). If we added a throbber to the left when the user enters text, the left edge of the text input would jump to the right to make room. That's no good. Put the throbber at the right end to the left of the dropdown arrow.

2) Tab with a page loaded: If the identity block is removed when the user edits the location bar text, the left edge of the text input will make a huge jump to the left. That's no good, but it shouldn't keep us from doing the right thing. One solution would be to animate the removal of the identity block to make the transition smoother and communicate what has happened to the user. A simple slide to the left or a horizontal shrink a la tab close would do the trick.
(In reply to comment #7)

> That's no good, but it shouldn't keep us from doing the right thing.

Why not just remove favicon from location bar completely and leave there only the throbber, which will appear at the right edge of it (when user types anything to the addressbar)?
It's position should be to the left of all other buttons - so it causes no jumping AT ALL for all cases.
We could also show feedback as the first autocomplete result (in the event that we don't have any actual autocomplete results yet).
Note that this is also much less of a problem after the fixes in 3.5 and 3.6 releases, it's much more rare to get this indicator now (I'm not saying it doesn't happen — but it's certainly less likely now, so can probably be de-emphasized a bit).
We're no longer considering removal of the favicon.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 14 years ago
Resolution: --- → INVALID
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