787386 - Handle overflow of Add-on bar

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Add-on SDK Graveyard :: General, defect, P1)

Description

[Matteo Ferretti [:zer0] [:matteo]]

Once the Add-on bar will be moved onto navigation toolbar, we need a way to display to the user those widgets that are not visible because overflowed.

The visual results will be similar to what we have already with the bookmarks.

Comment 1

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

As I've said before, I strongly disagree with the chevron. Most common users will not find an icon that is hidden in this way. For them, the icon doesn't exist.

That makes this whole feature entirely useless for us. Icons must never be hidden.

We've had cases where users had *manually* hidden things, then complained to our hotline that the icons are not there and said the extension is broken. This wasn't a one-off stupid user, this happened considerable times.

One solution is to create a second toolbar, if the user opted to install so many extensions that they don't fit. Maybe there are other solutions, you're welcome to find other ideas. But the chevron is user hostile.

Comment 2

[Jeff Griffiths (:canuckistani) (:⚡︎)]

Hi Ben,

I appreciate your input, however UX guidelines for the main Firefox UI are created by the Firefox UX team, so in order to move forward with these ( IMO very important ) improvements to add-on visibility in Firefox, we need to adhere to those guidelines. I view the use of chevrons as a UI indicator in Firefox to be out of scope for this work.

Comment 3

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

The chevron isn't used anywhere else in the Firefox UI where I can see it, at least not in a prominent place.

Bookmarks don't count as comparison, because you'll have to have a screenful (not just window full) of bookmarks for them to overflow. In this case where, we are limited by window width, and the vast majority is used by the locationbar, so only a few widgets fit until it overflows. It's a big difference whether it overflows after 25 icons or after 5 icons.

Users will easily run nto this, and that's the problem. That's why this is not a good UI. Firefox UX has carefully avoided to have main Firefox UI hidden behind a chevron, but you're doing exactly that now to the addons.

Comment 4

[Jeff Griffiths (:canuckistani) (:⚡︎)]

Hi Ben, 

Disclaimer: I'm not on the Firefox UX team, and I don't claim to speak for them.

While this UX-related work is being done by the Jetpack team, the changes are landing in mozilla central and shipped with Firefox, therefore I hope we can both agree that direction on how to implement overflow is implemented is up to the Firefox UX team. My best suggestion for you would be to engage with the UX team directly on the use of chevrons, as you obviously have some experience with them in the context of add-ons.

cheers, Jeff

Comment 5

[Erik Vold [:erikvold] (please needinfo? me)]

This is a platform bug now right?

Comment 6

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Yes this is something that will be implemented in Firefox frontend