759011 - Great startup screen, no way to get back to it

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 895816

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

[Andreas Kloeckner]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:11.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/11.0 Iceweasel/11.0
Build ID: 20120330185949



Actual results:

I started Firefox. I got this great screen that let me enter an address, see rectangles that said, "if things worked right, maybe this could be a thumbnail of your favorite site", plus a list of tabs on my other computers. Life was great. And then I started browsing. As I was done with some site, I wanted to return to that great screen. And I couldn't. All I got was this, "hey, you said you want a different site? which will it be, history? bookmarks? most visisted? but don't even think about pretty thumbnails. or those tabs on your other computers."


Expected results:

hit address bar. go back to oh-so-good-looking-if-half-working screen.

Comment 1

[Aaron Train [:aaronmt]]

That page is called 'Firefox Start' in your Top Sites, also visitable when visiting about:home. CC'ing Madhava/Ian for them to add any additional UX thought.

Comment 2

[Andreas Kloeckner]

How about "closing the last tab goes back to the start screen"? This works for in favor of some (slightly OCD, I guess) part of me that really doesn't like just leaving the browser at whatever I was doing last. What I do now is quit the browser entirely from the context menu (and restart if necessary). Anyway, this might just be my own personal brain damage, but I suspect not. (Note that I have no problem leaving my tabs rotting on the desktop--but only if I mean to come back to them...)

Comment 4

[Kartikaya Gupta (email:[e-mail])]

(In reply to Andreas Kloeckner from comment #2)
> How about "closing the last tab goes back to the start screen"?

+1 for this. I also find it jarring how sometimes I end up exiting the browser when I don't mean to, mostly by hitting the back button.

Comment 5

[Ian Barlow (:ibarlow)]

UX is actually working on a design for a simple way to get back to the homepage, we should have something to show in the next week or so.

Comment 6

[Aaron Train [:aaronmt]]

Ian, do you have another meta/tracking bug you wish to use to dupe this to or shall we continue to keep this bug open and change its status to NEW?

Comment 7

[Ian Barlow (:ibarlow)]

We can use this one to track the work.

Comment 8

[Ian Barlow (:ibarlow)]

Attachment: mockup of start page transition

Attached is a proposed design to make it easy to return to the start page without adding more UI controls, and builds on the "layers" UI model (http://www.flickr.com/photos/61892693@N03/7003028197/in/photostream) that we are starting to work into the browser.

Basically, we use the elastic overscroll we have implemented to "pull" the content page out of the way. As is shown in the mocks, pulling down to a certain threshold (roughly 25% of the content height) triggers an animation that slides the content off the page and slides the start page into place.

Comment 9

[Ian Barlow (:ibarlow)]

I should add that this solution will likely not function on websites that have panning controls built into content (like maps, for example). 

However it will work for the vast majority of websites out there today, so from a UX perspective the loss of functionality on a very small set of sites is worth the tradeoff of having a such a simple action the rest of the time.

Comment 10

[Logan Rosen [:Logan]]

Isn't that gesture usually associated with refreshing the content in an app? I'm just thinking about what people are used to.

Comment 11

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

Breadcrumb to Bug 751940 Comment 11.

Comment 12

[airmanjayl]

Attachment: Suggestion for Home shortcut

I agree with the concern about using a downward pull to go Home in Android.  We Android users are used to pulling apps to reload things.  I am attaching an image to illustrate a simple solution that most people could get used to quite easily:

User presses the tabs button, as we're already getting used to that action.  At the top of the dropdown is a home button.  I know we'd get used to that pretty fast.  :)

Hope this helps.

Comment 13

[Aaron Train [:aaronmt]]

Simple, I like it airmanjayl :-)

Comment 14

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

(In reply to Aaron Train [:aaronmt] from comment #13)
> Simple, I like it airmanjayl :-)

I like it too

Comment 15

[Ian Barlow (:ibarlow)]

Any chance we can make one build with a pull-to-home interaction, and one with a tab-menu-home-icon interaction?

I think both ideas have merit, so it would be useful to compare them in real life.

Comment 16

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

(In reply to Ian Barlow (:ibarlow) from comment #15)
> Any chance we can make one build with a pull-to-home interaction, and one
> with a tab-menu-home-icon interaction?
> 
> I think both ideas have merit, so it would be useful to compare them in real
> life.

One is a lot easier to implement :)

Comment 17

[Brian Nicholson (:bnicholson)]

One idea that has come up before is simply opening about:home when creating a new tab rather than going directly to the AwesomeScreen. This is what virtually every other mobile browser does, and it's also more consistent with Firefox desktop. An additional advantage is that the user immediately sees a new tab (the tab counter is incremented and a new page is shown). When directed straight to the AwesomeScreen like we do now, it's not as intuitive that a new tab is being added.

Comment 18

[Sriram Ramasubramanian [:sriram]]

I like bnicholson's idea. Now that desktop shows the topsites, we should be showing about:home (or a smaller version of about:home) when we open new tab.

Comment 19

[Sriram Ramasubramanian [:sriram]]

"Pull to home" interacts with page content -- and we have an overscroll behavior. If we support pulling the BrowserToolbar, then its a good idea. If we want to pull the content -- we are messing up with the content interaction.

Comment 20

[Ian Barlow (:ibarlow)]

Sounds like this one is even easier to implement ;)

Let's try it.

Comment 21

[Brian Nicholson (:bnicholson)]

Attachment: Show about:home when adding new tab

Patch to show about:home when adding new tab.

Comment 22

[Brian Nicholson (:bnicholson)]

Build with patch here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/35559547/fennec-tab-about-home.apk

Comment 23

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

(In reply to Ian Barlow (:ibarlow) from comment #20)
> Sounds like this one is even easier to implement ;)

Probably not, but it's in the same ballpark.

> Let's try it.

Yes, it sounds like a good improvement, although it's not an explicit "load home page" action. It is probably a better "new tab" action though.

Comment 24

[Ian Barlow (:ibarlow)]

Love it. 

* It makes the tab count more useful and it shows up at the right time now
* It allows constant easy access to about:home
* The transition into new tab is a lot easier to understand

Only issue I see is it starts to get a little janky after a few tabs are open. Could this be worked on as part of bug 767980?

Comment 25

[airmanjayl]

Excuse this user from jumping in on your guys' business again.  I tried out the Fennec Brian apk; seems cool!  At first, though, I felt we lost quick access to the most powerful screen of all (the screen with a search bar at the top and 3 tabs: Top Sites, Bookmarks, History).  

The "Browse all your top sites" link gets us there; just feels like that link deserves a more prominent presence now. Long, colored button perhaps?

Great work - Firefox is rockin'! :)

Comment 26

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

 
> The "Browse all your top sites" link gets us there; just feels like that
> link deserves a more prominent presence now. Long, colored button perhaps?

Tapping on the URLBar ("Enter Search or Address") will also open the AwesomeScreen

Comment 27

[airmanjayl]

Ah, so true.  Thank you for the reminder, Mark. :)

Looking forward to seeing Firefox Beta updated to include the new improvement.

Comment 28

[Ian Barlow (:ibarlow)]

So, in fairness to the comments about "I miss going right to the awesomescreen", it would probably be worth spinning up a test build of the "home icon in the tab menu" as well to compare the two experiences. 

Anyone have time to take a look at that?

Comment 29

[Brian Nicholson (:bnicholson)]

Would it be too much to have both a home icon and a new tab page? Desktop has both, and having both on mobile would allow us to have an explicit "load home" action (comment 23) while also improving the new tab transition (comment 24).

Comment 30

[Ian Barlow (:ibarlow)]

We could try it -- I fear it might be overkill though. Also the home icon is actually not in the desktop UI by default anymore.

Comment 32

[Michael Comella (:mcomella) [NI reported issues only: ex-Mozilla]]

(In reply to airmanjayl from comment #12)
> Created attachment 640097 [details]
> Suggestion for Home shortcut
> 
> I agree with the concern about using a downward pull to go Home in Android. 
> We Android users are used to pulling apps to reload things.  I am attaching
> an image to illustrate a simple solution that most people could get used to
> quite easily:
> 
> User presses the tabs button, as we're already getting used to that action. 
> At the top of the dropdown is a home button.  I know we'd get used to that
> pretty fast.  :)
> 
> Hope this helps.

A discussion in bug 766392 extended this idea to include apps, add-ons, and downloads buttons. I filed bug 781595 to discuss this idea. I hope this does not segment the discussion too much.

Comment 33

[Michael Comella (:mcomella) [NI reported issues only: ex-Mozilla]]

(In reply to Michael Comella (:mcomella) from comment #32)
> A discussion in bug 766392...

Sorry, bug 766389.

Comment 34

[Sriram Ramasubramanian [:sriram]]

(In reply to Michael Comella (:mcomella) from comment #33)
> (In reply to Michael Comella (:mcomella) from comment #32)
> > A discussion in bug 766392...
> 
> Sorry, bug 766389.

Let's file a bug for the bug in the bug number you reported, as the bug that deals with the other bug, but it deals with some other bug which is not relevant to this bug, so that, that bug can be marked wontfix! :P

Comment 35

[airmanjayl]

lol.

Thanks for the update ... I was wondering how it was all going to turn out.

Comment 36

[Lucas Rocha (:lucasr)]

What's the status here? I really like the idea of simply loading about:home on new tab instead of opening the awesome screen. Leads to a simpler and a more intuitive visual feedback for new tabs.

Comment 37

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

(In reply to Lucas Rocha (:lucasr) from comment #36)
> What's the status here? I really like the idea of simply loading about:home
> on new tab instead of opening the awesome screen. Leads to a simpler and a
> more intuitive visual feedback for new tabs.

I feel the opposite. I really like opening the awesomescreen. It shows the same "top sites" and more! I think about:home is more limited and shows too many things I don't care about when making a new tab. Things like: Add-ons, Session restore tabs and Sync/WebApps banner.

Comment 39

[:Margaret Leibovic]

This is fixed by bug 895816.