79992 - Rearrange Status Bar Items

Status: NEW

(SeaMonkey :: UI Design, defect)

Description

[Cormac F]

Generally like the new layout of the task bar, however I find my eyes darting 
between the progress bar and the status bar as a page loads, now they're on 
opposite sides of the screen, making both difficult to read. 

Perhaps they could be combined? Increase the height of the progress bar 
slightly and pick a good contrasting font, and both could be aligned neatly on 
the right.


Build:2001050915
Platform:WinNT

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

over to UI design

Comment 2

[doctor__j]

Attachment: I got some mocked up alternatives... Comments are welcome.

Comment 3

[doctor__j]

I think if they (the text on status bar and the progress bar) overlay, the text 
would be hard to view during the progress bar is rolling.

Comment 4

[Warner Young]

I think I would like an option for whether the taskbar icons are displayed at
all.  I normally never use them, so I'd rather not see them.  As for the options
to combine them, I think option #2 looks better.

Comment 5

[timeless]

can you mock: 
offline, progress, security, status, components.
offline, progress, status, security, components.

ben is planning to make progress disappear when it's done.

Comment 6

[Scott Tran (Wildcard)]

I like Option 1 in the Mockup, of course I dont really care where the security
icon goes. I discussed with andreww about the moving the progress bar to the
left and he said that placing the progress bar next to the status text will
cause the status text to jump around too much when a page loads because of ben's
soon to be checkin causing the progress bar to disppear when not used. 
Adding myself to CC list.

Comment 7

[WD]

I like either one of the proposed mockups.
Now, if the statusbar does disappear when it's done, I'm not sure what'll work best.

I do think that keeping a similar layout to 4.x may be a good idea, though.  
The way it is now is just completely backwards and really throws me off.

Comment 8

[WD]

Attachment: A couple Photoshop'd possibilities...

Comment 9

[Jesse Ruderman]

I agree with this bug.  Having the throbber and progress bar on the same side 
of the screen means I can't look at one without also seeing the other animate.  
(This would be even more of a problem with the NS 6.0 throbber, which flashes 
in addition to animating.)

Comment 10

[timeless]

components should be at an edge. 3 w/ security to the left and some visible 
separator might look nice.

Comment 11

[WD]

sounds good to me!

Comment 12

[Scott Tran (Wildcard)]

I'm renaming the Summary... as is it has a pretty confusing name right now

Old Summary:
Status bar and progress bar are badly arranged:combine them?

New Summary:
Rearrange Status Bar Items

Feel free to voice your opinion on this change...

Comment 13

[Jason Heard]

My preference would be proposal #2 with offline, progress, status, components,
security in that order across the bar, and components and security right justified.

I think it would be confusing to users if the progress bar disappears without a
placeholder.  It doesn't in IE or NS 4.7.  And if it does disappear and leaves a
placeholder, then the original order is fine.  Also, the new order (from adding
the components and blending) is not anything like 4.7 which makes it really
confusing for me.

Comment 14

[Doron Rosenberg (IBM)]

I like the way classic has borders in the status bar, I wonder if it will look
good in modern. Perhaps use smaller version of the 2 vertical bars used when
hovering over a button in mailnews/composer (or even the print icon in navigator).

Comment 15

[Fabian Lau]

Rearrange Status Bar Items

Yeah, the current status bar item placement is really peculiar! That is, they
are completely the wrong way round. Items I *never* use (task buttons) are on
the left, information that belongs together is on opposing parts of the screen...

I think proposal #2 is best. Items ordered by significance. And as Jason implied
- why would you want to let the progress bar disappear entirely? That would be
confusing, regardless of where it is.
Imo, there should be an empty progress bar which gets filled while a page is
loading, and will be emptied again when finished. Like flushing the toilet, just
reversed - everyone would understand that.

And yes, separators would also be nice.

Arhu

Comment 16

[Mike Kowalski]

Attachment: pic of statusbar

Comment 17

[Mike Kowalski]

Attachment: this pic is better than my last one

Comment 18

[Mike Kowalski]

Attachment: this is another pic of the statusbar

Comment 19

[Mike Kowalski]

Attachment: this is another pic of the statusbar

Comment 20

[doctor__j]

*** Bug 88349 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 21

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

The idea with the right-side progressmeter is that the pm. is hidden when a 
transfer is not in progress. Unfortunately that patch was never checked in, so 
we are currently without. Could be something to work on in .9.3 however. 

Comment 22

[Cormac F]

Is this bug still relevant? The status bar arrangement has stabilised since I 
filed this bug, and is certainly easier to use than it used to be. The 
possibilities attached to this bug all look wrong, or would offer no real 
advantage. Other than somehow combining the progress meter and status message 
somehow, I can think of no arrangement that would be any better. Mark fixed?

Comment 23

[Peter Lairo]

Yes, I think this bug is still highly relevant because having the status text
and the progress bar on opposite ends is just horrible UI.

The best proposal so far is the screenshot #(id=39203), just 4 comments above
this one: 
1) Components
2) progress bar
3) status text
4) connection info icons (connected, security, etc.)
Separating the elements from each other with vertical lines would be useful too.

PS. This bug needs some useful keywords, like: "UI, mozilla0.9.5"

Comment 24

[Cormac F]

What would probably make such an arrangement more attractive would be if the
component  bar section and "online & lock" bit, were more distinct from the
status bar area. Otherwise, it just looks like we've dumped each icon in a line
across the bar. The above image shows this - it just doesn't look right, for
some reason. Perhaps the two areas could be raised (or indented), or with
careful use of vertical rules.

This issue certainly needs to be thought through and a consensus reached once
and for all - this will be the third time (at least) that the status bar
arrangement would have to be changed.

Comment 25

[Cormac F]

adding ui keyword. Sorry for the spam.

Comment 26

[Steven Gorsky]

Why can't the status bar be arranged like it was in Navigator 4.x? I would think 
a majority of Mozilla/NS6 users would be users of the previous versions, and the 
pointless change would only cause confusion and annoyance.

Comment 27

[Jesse Ruderman]

*** Bug 129053 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 28

[Felix Miata]

Please visit screenshot on bug 129052. Regardless of where any of the other
icons are to be, the envelope (incoming mail awaiting) icon offers maximum
utility placed at the extreme right end.

There should be UI prefs option to disable any of or all of the task icons,
allowing maximum space available for the status bar.

Comment 29

[Ian Pottinger]

adding self to cc list

Comment 30

[timeless]

uid is being phased out.

Comment 31

[Adam Guthrie]

*** Bug 310314 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 32

[Thomas]

Hm, does this bug also include the posibility to move components from other
toolbars into the status bar and visa versa?
Personaly I'm trying to minimize my space use, and I'd like to combine, not
many, but one or two of the statusbar combonents in one of my other toolbars.

Comment 33

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

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