79639 - Move sidebar toggle into Toolbars menu, and rename toolbars submenu to "Show".

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(SeaMonkey :: UI Design, defect)

Description

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Split off from bug 77819.

Gerv

Comment 1

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

The strings [e-mail] mentioned over in bug 77819 do not need
localising, as they are in the catch() part of a try() which fills those strings
from the stringbundles. Therefore, getting the values from the stringbundles
would be somewhat recursive :-)

Patch coming - looking for r= from [e-mail] or someone.

Gerv

Comment 2

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Attachment: Patch

Comment 3

[Håkan Waara]

r=hwaara. good work gerv!

Comment 4

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

alecf: could you sr= this, please?

Gerv

Comment 5

[Alec Flett]

sr=alecf

Comment 6

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Checked in by bz - thanks :-)

Gerv

Comment 7

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Given that this change introduced inconsistency, by making the UI to toggle the 
sidebar inconsistent between the browser and the other Mozilla apps, I think it 
has made the UI worse rather than better overall.

More importantly, this change was not approved by the Navigator UI owner (Ben), 
the UI Design owner (me), or the XP Apps: GUI owner (Blake). I know Blake 
doesn't like it. Ben, what you say?

Comment 8

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Yer wot? 

mpt, I am 100% certain that this was your idea - I would never have thought of 
doing it otherwise. To say now that you haven't approved it is ridiculous. When 
you queried this in IRC, I pointed out that you had approved it and you said 
"Yes, but not in the bug." I said "Well, comment to that effect in the bug, 
then!" and you said "Right."

This change does not (or should not) make the sidebar-switching UI inconsistent 
between apps, because I changed the sidebarOverlay which all the Mozilla apps 
should use. This is the _point_ of overlays. If some apps aren't using it, this 
needs to be fixed.

Gerv

Comment 9

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Yes, this was my idea. However I have hundreds of half-baked ideas, and if all 
of them were implemented without peer UI review we'd end up with some weird MPT 
Browser which no-one wanted to use. :-) As it is, Blake has been threatening to 
back this out, and I have been inclined to agree with him.

I considered approving this change when we discussed it on IRC, but found I 
could not because:
*   I don't know that `Show' is an appropriate title for this submenu (yes, I
    know 4.x used it, but it sounds pretty tautological with `View');
*   I had no idea where in the submenu you were planning to put the Sidebar
    item;
*   I had not looked at whether the items for toggling other panels (e.g. the
    folder pane, or the message pane, or the address book list) would suffer
    visibility problems from being by themselves (even if this was only
    temporary) rather than outside this submenu;
*   I was at work and Mozilla-less when I first heard about this change, so I
    could not do any of the above before the patch was checked in, and Blake or
    Ben did not do it either.

As for my worries about inconsistency, they came from reading the patch, and 
seeing references to `browser' and `navigator' where I thought I should have 
been seeing `global' or `communicator'.

I do think that the sidebar item should go in this submenu, and if some of the 
details are less than adequate now, I'll file bugs for them. But in future, 
please keep in mind that approval must not just be given, it must be seen to be 
given. Netscape engineers have got in trouble recently for making UI changes 
without approval, and we shouldn't have a double standard here. Ok?

Comment 10

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Well, can the three of you put your heads together and decide what you want to 
do, OK? If it's back out, back it out, and if it's change "Show" to something 
else, we can do that too. 

However, I would like to make the point that if I have to check with all three 
of you before doing any UI work, then I'll never get anything done. Some clear 
guidance as to which of mpt's or ben's or blake's bug comments and IRC ideas are 
considered to be "stuff that needs implementing" and which are "half-baked ideas 
which need discussion" would be appreciated.

In addition, while I'm here, a list posted in n.p.m.ui of "top X bugs 
currently not planned to be fixed that we really want fixing (and we think are 
fixable in the time) before 0.9.1 branches" would be a very good idea.

Gerv

Comment 11

[scottputterman]

As far as I can see, most windows are using sidebarOverlay.xul, yet in my
current build, you can't toggle the Sidebar in mail, the addressbook, or composer.

Comment 12

[Alec Flett]

every single thing can't be approved by the counsel of UI gurus.. This seemed
minor, but people seem to have huge objections, so I'll sr= the backing out of
this fix by blake, so we can come up with a better solution, if any.

Comment 13

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

(Note: It seems that the UI gurus have decided to keep the new submenu name,
just back out the moving of My Sidebar to the submenu.)

Gerv

Comment 14

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

Backed out. 

Comment 15

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Just to clarify, I think the idea was great (obviously, since it was my
idea:-), but the UI process and execution was flawed. This was proved by bug 
80999 -- it turned out that the fix didn't work anywhere except Navigator. So, 
bug 80999 is now open for getting this fixed properly.

Comment 16

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Reopening. Let's try this again sometime...

Gerv

Comment 17

[Mitchell Baker]

I am compelled to comment on mpt's comment that

"More importantly, this change was not approved by the Navigator UI owner (Ben),
the UI Design owner (me), or the XP Apps: GUI owner (Blake). I know Blake
doesn't like it. Ben, what you say?"

This comment suggests that Ben, mpt and blake have analogous roles. This is not
the case. Ben is a module owner, and has the responsibility and authority of
that role. Blake and mpt are Bugzilla Component Default Assignees. This is an
important and valued role. It is not the same as module ownership, and does not
convey the same authority. It does not convey "ownership" of the Mozilla UI.

Ownership of the Mozilla UI is a complicated and difficult question for which I
don't yet have a good solution; I certainly understand how the confusion may
have arisen. But I am sure that the solution is not to change mozilla.org
practices and declare Bugzilla Component Default Assignees as owners.

Any further discussion on this topic undoubtedly belongs in m.ui.

Mitchell

Comment 18

[Chase Tingley]

*** Bug 87909 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 19

[Blake Ross]

-> me

Comment 20

[Blake Ross]

Fixed.