79240 - Same tooltips for back/forward/print buttons and drop-downs

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 71329

(SeaMonkey :: UI Design, defect)

Description

[Jan Urbanek]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:0.9+) Gecko/2001050704

On Back button is same tooltip like for that small dart that show list of last
visited pages. This is same for forward and forward list.
The little dart light on separately from back buttom, so shoult have diferent
tooltip.

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

They should definitely have different tooltips since they do different things....

over to UI design to come up with verbiage.

Comment 2

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

For Back:
*   "Opens the previous page."
*   "Shows a menu of pages visited before this one."

For Forward:
*   "Opens the next page."
*   "Shows a menu of pages visited after this one."

That do?

Comment 3

[Alex Bishop]

*** Bug 82952 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 4

[Alex Bishop]

My suggestions:

Back:
Go back one page (as it is now, at least until bug 43180 is fixed)
Go back several pages (or possibly "Go back more than one page")

Forward:
Go forward one page (as it is now, at least until bug 43180 is fixed)
Go forward several pages (or possibly "Go forward more than one page")

The terminology for the menu tooltips is similar to that for the button
tooltips, which I think is logical. People could mouse over the Back button,
read the tooltip, then notice the arrow and mouse over that, getting a similar
tooltip that makes it clear that the two are related. (Apologies, that last
sentence was really badly constructed.)

I think "Back" and "Forward" are better than "Previous" and "Next" because the
latter terms could be confused as being part of the site's navigation,
especially after the link metadata toolbar is implemented.

Comment 5

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Tooltips should be in the form of a description (`Goes to the previous page'), 
not an order to the user (`Go back' ... or else). And clicking on the triangle
*doesn't* `Go back several pages' (how many pages, exactly?); it `Shows a menu 
of pages visited before this one'.

Comment 6

[Alex Bishop]

If tooltips should be in the form of a description rather than an order then
shouldn't the tooltips for Reload (currently "Reload current page"), Stop ("Stop
loading this page"), Go ("Type a location in the field to the left, then click
Go"), Search ("Type a word in the field to the left, then click Go"), Print
("Prints this page"), the throbber ("Go to the Mozilla home page") and most of
the buttons in Mail and Composer be changed?

Tooltips usually display the name of the menu command that the button
represents. Web browsers are different, probably because they often display the
name of the command under the button. Therefore the tooltip is usually a
slightly extended version of the menu command, often more like a status bar
description. However, the tooltips are still written the same way, which is like
an order. It's not an order to the user, it's an order to the program. Examnples
include "Add Bookmark..." or "Save Form Data".

I'm changing the severity of this bug to minor. At the moment the tooltip for
the arrows say "Go back/forward one page" which is just plain misleading.

Comment 7

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

> shouldn't the tooltips for ... [everything else also] ... be changed?

In a word, yes. (Any volunteers?)

See also bug 43180, which asks for the page title to be included in the tooltip
for the Back and Forward buttons.

Comment 8

[Blake Ross]

I feel a strong desire to fix this bug eminating from Stephen!

Comment 9

[[e-mail] (gone - use [e-mail] instead)]

... And I say that the dropdown can't get a seperate tooltip for the moment, 
due to bug 71329.  I will be happy to fix it once that works.

Comment 10

[[e-mail] (gone - use [e-mail] instead)]

mass accepting my bugs.

Comment 11

[Alex Bishop]

*** Bug 93676 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 12

[Alex Bishop]

Resummarising to include Forward and Print buttons.

Comment 13

[Jesse Ruderman]

I have to say that I disagree with mpt.  Turning button tooltips from commands 
into third-person phrases would make the tooltips longer and harder to read.  
You don't have a button labelled "Searches".  Why should tooltips for buttons 
be different?

Comment 14

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Because tips should tell you what the button does, rather than ordering you to 
do it or else.

Comment 15

[Alex Bishop]

No, no, no, no, no. Tooltips tell you which command the button will perform. 
Generally, the tooltip displays the menu command that the button invokes. Some 
programs, particularly Web browsers, have nice big buttons with words on them. 
In this case the tooltip usually displays an expanded description of the 
command because the button's caption fills the role that a tooltip normally 
would. In general that's the system that Mozilla uses now.

Here's some examples of tooltips from the various programs I found on this PC 
(running Windows 2000, which is my favourite Microsoft operating system because 
tooltips fade-in gradually. And it's more stable than Windows 9x. Allegedly):

Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0* - Back to mozilla.org Bugzilla -- the Mozilla 
bug database, Edit with Microsoft FrontPage

Microsoft Word 2000 - Open, Save, Insert Table, Columkns, Microsoft Word Help

WinZip 8.0* - Create a new archive, List archives in your Favorite Zip Folders

Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0 - Open, Print, Next Page, Fit in Window

* = Program has nice big buttons with words on them

As you can see, the tooltips from these examples are used to indicate to the 
user what the button does briefly. Or occassionally, a more detailed 
description, similar to the status bar text used by some programs when you 
hover above a menu bar command.

Mozilla should do this too. A description along the lines of "Shows a menu of 
pages visited before this one" would be more likely found in a Windows 'What's 
This?' caption. For example, asking 'What's This?' for the OK button in a 
Windows dialogue box gets you the answer, "Closes the dialog box and saves any 
changes you have made." Tooltips are not the same as 'What's This?'.

I had a look to see if there's a tooltip spec. It took me ages to find it, but 
there is one. It's at http://www.mozilla.org/docs/refList/user-
interface/specs/tooltips/ and was written back before the MozillaClassic code 
was released on an unsuspecting world (well, unsuspecting if they hadn't read 
the press release). But I couldn't find a newer one so I guess it still stands.

The spec says that "The most descriptive [tooltip] text has both a noun and a 
verb... For example: Display images".

In short, tooltips should sound like orders in the same way that menu items 
sound like orders. Personally, I've never found anyone who was deeply offended 
by the fact that their Web browser ordered them to "Print" (though I did once 
find someone who was offended by the term "icon").

Comment 16

[Alex Bishop]

The link didn't work. Let's try again:

http://www.mozilla.org/docs/refList/user-interface/specs/tooltips/

Comment 17

[Christopher Aillon (sabbatical, not receiving bugmail)]

*** Bug 116509 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 18

[Ian Pottinger]

adding self to cc list

Comment 19

[Jesse Ruderman]

*** Bug 159209 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 20

[[e-mail] (gone - use [e-mail] instead)]

back to default owner.

Comment 21

[Jesse Ruderman]

*** Bug 186915 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 22

[Alex Watson]

I'd like to suggest that the tooltip for each individual page on the
Back/Forward drop-down list should be the URL of that page. Anything else that
it's changed to can't be any more useful than this, after all.

Comment 23

[Per Ångström]

I dearly hope  Alex Watson's suggestion in comment #22 is chosen, if this bug is
ever fixed. Although many URLs are far from self-descriptive, the URL is still
more interesting than "Go back 7 pages" or "Goes forward 3 pages".

Comment 24

[Jesse Ruderman]

"Open" vs "Opens" -> bug 210292

Comment 25

[Blake Ross]

Reassigning obsolete bugs to their respective Seamonkey owners (i.e. nobody). 
If you want this fixed for Firefox, change the Product and Component accordingly
and reassign back to me.

Comment 26

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

Filter "spam" on "guifeatures-nobody-20080610".