637017 - New status tooltip covers important parts of a web application

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, defect)

Description

[Jonathan Monahan]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-GB; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101203 Firefox/3.6.13
Build Identifier: https://www.mozilla.com/en-US/products/download.html?product=firefox-4.0b12&os=osx&lang=en-GB

The new status tooltip added in Firefox 4 beta 12 (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=541656) obscures useful information or interactive elements in a web application.  This is exactly the same UI bug as Chrome has (http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=38204).

The previous solution of putting this information in the location bar was a good way of increasing screen real-estate (by removing the status bar).

I understand from reading other related issues that the status tooltip apparently solves a situation where the location bar is not visible in full-screen mode.  However, obscuring parts of the web page (which ever corner it is in) will always be counter to the design of some websites and web applications.

Furthermore, a UI element that appears and disappears regularly whilst browsing is distracting.  Some users find such distractions very confusing or disorientating, and so they find that absorbing information from the page is more difficult.

Finally, because the status tooltip appears in the webpage area, it could easily be spoofed by a webpage, enabling a kind of malware or social engineering that would be impossible if the status information is kept outside of the webpage area.

It is also worth noting that there are a number of other parallel (but unrelated) issues that are also caused by the status tooltip overlaying the web page area.  Here's a few:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=631270 - the status tooltip covers find results
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=636998 - Hovering link display suboptimal after change of status-bar into add-on bar
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=630452 - Status popup bar in bottom left doesn't get closed for certain sites

I am afraid I don't have a better solution for the moment other than to simply put it back in the location bar as earlier the in v4 implementation, or back in the status bar as in v3 and earlier.



Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. The status tooltip can now appear and obscure something useful or important on any website.
2. Also, our service demo can be tried at https://secure.workbooks.com/login?demo=1
Actual Results:  
1. The status tooltip covers useful information sometimes.
2. The status tooltip covers the "Start" button of our web desktop.
3. The status tooltip appears and disappears as you move the mouse around a link-heavy web page, or scroll down, causing distraction.
4. The status tooltip could easily be spoofed by a webpage to fool the user for some sort of malware.


Expected Results:  
The status information should be displayed outside of the webpage area to avoid the issues raised above.

Comment 1

[Jonathan Monahan]

Attachment: Screenshot of Workbooks UI with status tooltip

Here's a screenshot of what the status tooltip looks like in our Workbooks web desktop user interface.  As you can see it covers the "Start" menu button.

Yes, the status tooltip does move over to the right if you mouse over it, but then it obscures the clock!

If you know what the status tooltip does, it is distracting.  If you are unaware that it will move out of the way, then it can stop the user from accessing the "Start" button.

Comment 2

[James Kay]

Please fix this.

Comment 3

[Mardeg]

Is there a bug already filed about not displaying the link when it is a pointless <a href="#"> one that uses a js onclick handler? I know it's only specific to the case in that screenshot, but it would solve that particular use case.

Comment 4

[[not reading bugmail]]

Well, there is no way to determine when websites try to fake start menu and taskbar designs.  We did consider the URL bar, but people didn't want that either, the most likely outcome should be in this case, put in the add-on bar or convert it to a customizable widget, which both are bugs and current wontfix status.

Comment 5

[Jonathan Monahan]

It is worth noting that in the equivalent Chrome bug, Firefox 4 beta 8 is held up by one commentor as an example of how they think it should be implemented: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=38204#c25

I personally don't know all of the reasons for moving it around, and would welcome a clear explanation from someone in the know as to the benefits and disadvantages that have been discovered/explored of the various different implementations so far (and other designs that have been dismissed).  It seems that there are a large number of possible designs; many have already been explored; there isn't consensus on the "right" way to go and some but not all of that information is liberally spread around a reasonably large number of Bugzilla issues.  I don't feel able to recommend or propose a solution without that background.  Can anyone tell me if this information is already somewhere?  Thanks.

Comment 6

[Jonathan Monahan]

Note that a new issue 78532 http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=75832 has been raised against Chrome because the original issue 38204 http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=38204 was more intended for enabling an end-user to turn the status bubble on or off.

Comment 8

[Rick]

I'd like the option to add/remove the status bar.  Putting it on the add-on bar would also be a fine solution.  Depending on the user's preference, it will display appropriately.  

The bubble got quite annoying today when I was trying to read the bottom row of a list and the bubble kept covering it.

Comment 9

[[not reading bugmail]]

(In reply to comment #8)
> I'd like the option to add/remove the status bar.  

That would be bug 599212.

Comment 10

[Rick]

(In reply to comment #9)
> (In reply to comment #8)
> > I'd like the option to add/remove the status bar.  
> 
> That would be bug 599212.

An addon is not a proper fix.  Furthermore, developers shouldn't have to redesign their site to work around such annoyances. I notice that the workbooksUI site had to resize their bottom controls if visiting from FF.  

There are more and more social media bars that now appear at the bottom of sites.  The overlays will block visible command items in bottom aligned toolbars.

FF4 is now the most unstable browser on my systems.  To be fair, it's been more stable lately due to the frequent updates, but it is still the only browser that I notice crashing anymore (even if it is rare).  Annoyances like this make it easier for me to move onto another browser as my default.

Comment 12

[Michal Čaplygin [:myf]]

Attachment: Testcase for URL tooltip hiding focused link.

Attaching simple static test page showing "focused link is hidden under tooltip" annoyance.

Comment 13

[Axel]

When enhancing the new "status bar" behaviour, please also revisit this bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=723038

Comment 14

[Ioana (away)]

Reproducible on (testcase attached by Michal):
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:29.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/29.0

Comment 18

[Daniel Cicas [:dcicas], Release QA]

I can still reproduce this issue under the following OS's: Windows 10 x32, mac OS 10.13.6, Ubuntu 16.04 and Ubuntu 18.04. The affected builds are: 65.0a1, 64.0b14, 63.0.1 and 60.0.2esr.

Comment 19

[Cristian Comorasu, QA [:ccomorasu], Releae Desktop QA - Please contact [e-mail]]

Thank you, Daniel!

Comment 20

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Doesn't look like we're going to change this.