688836 - Remove the tabs sidebar in landscape mode, use the tab switching mechanism as in portrait mode

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

I think I prefer the tabs sidebar in landscape mode on the tablet UI, to be honest.
I don't like having to open a popup to switch tabs.
I often switch tabs just to watch if the page shows something useful already and with the tabs sidebar that's easy.
But with the tabs popup, I have to reopen that popup every time, when I want to switch tabs.

Comment 1

[Lucas Rocha (:lucasr)]

Adding design team to CC for input. Brian, Madhava, Ian, what do you think?

Comment 2

[Matt Brubeck (:mbrubeck)]

The design for the portrait tab popup includes the ability to press on the "tabs" button and then swipe down to the desired tab without releasing your finger.  We haven't implemented this behavior yet.  I'd like to see if that takes some of the pain out of quick tab switching in portrait mode.

Comment 3

[Ian Barlow (:ibarlow)]

Matt, I'd like to see that too. 

Martijn, thanks for the feedback, let's keep an eye on this and see what kind of feedback we continue to get. My gut tells me the tablet is just too narrow to make the bar feel comfortable in portrait mode, but we can keep it on the table as a possibility.

A possible alternative to using the tab bar in both orientations might be to design some kind of notification UI to tell you when there is updated content in your tabs...

Comment 4

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

I think the tabs in the tabs popup should show the loading icon when the page is still loading. 
That's actually what I miss in the current tabs sidebar, no progress indicator or an indicator that a tab is loading.

(In reply to Ian Barlow (:ibarlow) from comment #3)
>  My gut tells me the tablet is just too
> narrow to make the bar feel comfortable in portrait mode, but we can keep it
> on the table as a possibility.

In my opinion, the tabs sidebar should just hide and show with swipe movements, just like with the phone UI.

I've grown quite accustomed to the swipe movements to open sidebars.
It's an lazy and easy way to see your opened tabs. With the taps popup thing, I have to very carefully tap on a particular point.

Comment 5

[Henri Sivonen (:hsivonen)]

I use mostly the landscape mode and would like to have the portrait mode's tab switcher in the landscape mode due to bug 690739, bug 690740, bug 690748 and bug 690760.

I don't want the phone-style sidebars, because I think swiping horizontally should be reserved for moving between different views in Web apps without the browser's UI interfering with swipes meant for the Web app.

Comment 6

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

What do you mean with 'moving between different views in Web apps'? Do you mean scrolling in websites?

Comment 7

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

(In reply to Henri Sivonen (:hsivonen) from comment #5)
> I use mostly the landscape mode and would like to have the portrait mode's
> tab switcher in the landscape mode due to bug 690739, bug 690740, bug 690748
> and bug 690760.

Bug 690740 and bug 690748 can be fixed. Bug 690739 is invalid, I think and bug 690760 happens in portrait mode too.

Comment 8

[Henri Sivonen (:hsivonen)]

(In reply to Martijn Wargers [:mw22] (QA - IRC nick: mw22) from comment #6)
> What do you mean with 'moving between different views in Web apps'? Do you
> mean scrolling in websites?

I don't mean scrolling.

If a Web app presents e.g. a multi-screen flow or hierarchy of views (e.g. mailbox and message) I'd like swiping left and right to be available for Web apps for moving between screens in the flow or hierarchy within the app (where the Web app is responsible for dividing its UI into such tiles as opposed to the browser doing it).

Comment 9

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

What web app are you talking about? Zimbra?

Comment 10

[Wesley Johnston (:wesj)]

Some Mobile Google results pages do this. AFAIK, the correct way to do it right now involves using touch events to detect swipes and to prevent panning of the page.

I'm not sure if its enabled on any of the pages Google sends to us though, or if it works. I think, last time I checked, that it worked when I forced Google to send me the same pages it sends the stock browers, but did not prevent panning. I haven't looked into it enough to say for sure, but I would guess that because most mobile browsers don't have sidebars to worry about, they just don't bother to call preventDefault in this case. Haven't checked that by decompiling their source though.

Comment 11

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

Morphing bug.

Comment 12

[Matt Brubeck (:mbrubeck)]

It seems like bug 690740 might be the best approach here, since it would allow people who want to always see their tabs and have one-tap access to use the sidebar, and it would allow people who want maximum screen space for content to ignore it.

To fully enable a sidebarless experiecence, we would also need to remember the sidebar state across browsing sessions (so you only need to hide it once, not every time Fennec starts), and fix or mitigate bug 690739, perhaps by reducing the area for swiping the tab bar on-screen from 30px to 10px or so.

Comment 13

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

Mass resolving XUL Fennec I filed to WORKSFORME. If someone still cares about this bug, please reopen.