795602 - "Appmenu" should permanently appear on "tabs-toolbar"

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 790713

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[Günter]

Attachment: Appmenu on tabs-toolbar

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:15.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/15.0.1
Build ID: 20120907231657

Steps to reproduce:

TB17 has changed to "Appmenu" with user customizing it's appearence on a menu bar of choice.



Actual results:

With an update to TB 17 the user will miss the menu structure not intuitively see/find the new Appmenu. A bad experience.


Expected results:

The "Appmenu" should permanently be placed in front of the tabs on the "tabs-toolbar" and *not* be part of the "tabbar-toolbar".

See attachment
a) "Appmenu" moved to first place on "tabs-toolbar" (using DOMi)
b) DOMi snapshot 

This hack isn't permanent but works as long as TB isn't restarted

Comment 1

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

Günter, you could use https://addons.mozilla.org/thunderbird/addon/before-tabs-toolbar/ to move the AppButton permanently to your desired position.

Blake, you have wrote you are thinking about moving the AppButton to a other position. Should we use this bug for this?

Comment 2

[Charles]

Please do not make changes like this 'permanent'... this will alienate those of us who like to customize our UI the way *we* want, not be forced into someone else's view of how our UI should look.

I will *always* want the ability to move the AppMenu button to wherever I want.

Now, placing it somewhere 'by default' is fine, just as long as I can move it to wherever I want later.

Comment 3

[Günter]

(In reply to Charles from comment #2)
> Now, placing it somewhere 'by default' is fine, just as long as I can move
> it to wherever I want later.

Bought it .. as long as the standard installation has the AppMenu in front of the tabs!
The current "standard" isn't user friendly as no one expects that import button to the far right.
Also it would be great to open the AppMenu with mouseover .. I think ;)

Comment 4

[Blake Winton (:bwinton) (:☕️)]

(In reply to Richard Marti [:Paenglab] from comment #1)
> Blake, you have wrote you are thinking about moving the AppButton to a other
> position. Should we use this bug for this?

After chatting with a number of people, I think we should leave the AppButton where it is.  (Users can move it to where they want.  Well, mostly.)

(In reply to Günter from comment #0)
> With an update to TB 17 the user will miss the menu structure not
> intuitively see/find the new Appmenu. A bad experience.

The menu will remain visible for existing users, so they won't miss it, and thus this bad experience won't occur.

> The "Appmenu" should permanently be placed in front of the tabs on the
> "tabs-toolbar" and *not* be part of the "tabbar-toolbar".

I disagree, both with this suggestion, and with the idea that moving a button from one side to the other would make it drastically more visible.

(In reply to Charles from comment #2)
> Please do not make changes like this 'permanent'...

I have no idea what you mean by 'permanent'.  Could you explain it a little more?

> I will *always* want the ability to move the AppMenu button to wherever I
> want.

But you already don't have this ability for any other button.  Try moving _any_ button to before the tab strip, or into the middle of the message list, or the preview pane.

You will certainly be able to move the AppMenu to wherever you can move any other button, and I would ui-r- any patch which attempted to restrict that.

(In reply to Günter from comment #3)
> > Now, placing it somewhere 'by default' is fine, just as long as I can move
> > it to wherever I want later.
> Bought it .. as long as the standard installation has the AppMenu in front
> of the tabs!

Given the amount of work that would be necessary for that change, I can state pretty definitively that that's not going to happen.

> The current "standard" isn't user friendly as no one expects that import
> button to the far right.

There are reasons to put it there, which will be explained as soon as I finish recording the video.  Further, no-one expects the AppMenu button anywhere, since it's a new button.  Perhaps _you_ don't expect it where we've chosen to put it, but please don't confuse what you expect with what "everyone" expects.

> Also it would be great to open the AppMenu with mouseover .. I think ;)

No other buttons do that, so I feel this would be confusing to users.

So, all in all, I'm tending to resolve this as WONTFIX.  Any objections?

Thanks,
Blake.

Comment 5

[Günter]

(In reply to Blake Winton (:bwinton - Thunderbird UX) from comment #4)
> ..  (Users can move it to where they want.  Well, mostly.)
> 
Yes, "mostly"! *not* in front of the tab's.

> > Bought it .. as long as the standard installation has the AppMenu in front
> > of the tabs!
> 
> Given the amount of work that would be necessary for that change, I can
> state pretty definitively that that's not going to happen.
> 

Can't follow. AFAIS the minimum is an additional empty toolbar in front of the tab definition so a user can customize the AppMenu also in front of the tabs. A one line in the XUL file.
A few lines change to place it to that additional bar instead of it's current place.

> > Also it would be great to open the AppMenu with mouseover .. I think ;)
> 
> No other buttons do that, so I feel this would be confusing to users.
Why not starting a (another) different UI experience .. 

Günter

Comment 6

[Charles]

(In reply to Blake Winton (:bwinton - Thunderbird UX) from comment #4)
> After chatting with a number of people, I think we should leave the
> AppButton where it is.  (Users can move it to where they want.  Well,
> mostly.)

Good, thanks...

> (In reply to Charles from comment #2)
>> Please do not make changes like this 'permanent'...

> I have no idea what you mean by 'permanent'.  Could you explain it a little
> more?

Sorry, I usually quote for context... I was responding to Gunter's comment that "The "Appmenu" should permanently be placed in front of the tabs on the "tabs-toolbar" and *not* be part of the "tabbar-toolbar"."

> But you already don't have this ability for any other button.  Try moving
> _any_ button to before the tab strip, or into the middle of the message
> list, or the preview pane.

Ok, I thought it was obvious I meant moving it anywhere I want *on one of the toolbars*... ;)

> You will certainly be able to move the AppMenu to wherever you can move any
> other button, and I would ui-r- any patch which attempted to restrict that.

Perfect, thanks, then I'll be very happy once the AppMenu is implemented... :)

Charles

Comment 7

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Fwiw, like reporter I was also suprised to see that the appmenu button can only be placed on a toolbar, to the effect that if user wants to use the appbutton, he has to show at least one toolbar, which is not always the case nor necessary.

So e.g. I'm looking at my "Welcome to Daily" Screen and I want to print that from the menu. No toolbar, thus no app button to be found. Placing it (by default) in front of tabbar would ensure it's always visible. Placing it on the left would also make it a lot easier to use, instead of that confusion of submenus popping up in very strange directions.

But well, I'm not a big fan of the app button concept anyway, as I think it's a concept which doesn't apply well to a feature-rich application like TB.

Comment 8

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

FTR, having an iconic TB AppMenu button (TB logo) in the top-left corner of tab bar would be a really nice solution
- much more discoverable for all sorts of users
- more practical on the left, as submenus naturally enfold to the right
- always present when there are tabs (no need to keep Mail toolbar displayed just to have menu access), and solves problems cases where Mail toolbar is hidden (see comment 7)
- return branding to the main screen (with current defaults, we've eliminated any visual clue that this is *Thunderbird*)

Magnus has a WIP patch to this effect in bug 790713, so let's bundle the discussion there -> dupe.