878852 - resizable chat windows

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox Graveyard :: SocialAPI, defect)

Description

[Shane Caraveo (:mixedpuppy)]

users should be able to resize chat windows without going full screen

Comment 1

[Shane Caraveo (:mixedpuppy)]

There are a couple considerations here...

- eventually we really want tear-off windows.  given that, does resize matter
- we may end up needing more controls in the (limited size) chat window titlebar, such as camera indicator, secondary status icon (bug 824158), etc.  we should consider the potential additions.

Comment 2

[Jared Wein [:jaws] (please needinfo? me)]

I think a simpler solution would be to have a "larger" size chat window. By default the chat windows can be their normal size that they've always been.

There can be a "grow" button which when clicked doubles their size. The button then switches to be a "shrink" icon which takes them back to their normal size.

This will be simpler to implement and it should solve the use-case of someone trying to fit a video chat in the small area.

Comment 3

[Jennifer Morrow [:Boriss] (UX)]

Attachment: Mockup from Trello: minimize, close chat windows

I'm attaching a mockup from Trello that shows minimizing and popping out windows.  

So far, we have "normal" chat windows docked to Firefox.  As Shane notes in Commment 2, what we really want is the ability to pop out (and in) chat windows, such that they become resizable (via OS-level controls) separate windows.  This bug seems to be advocating for a middle position where chat windows are docked and yet we can't pop them out.  It seems worth waiting for what we really want here - popped-out windows - rather than creating this temporary middle case.  I'd advocate wontfix for this one.  Shane, is there something about this case that means it's necessary in the short-term from a technical standpoint?

Comment 4

[Shane Caraveo (:mixedpuppy)]

(In reply to Jennifer Morrow [:Boriss] (Firefox UX) from comment #3)
> Created attachment 758390 [details]
> Mockup from Trello: minimize, close chat windows
> 
> I'm attaching a mockup from Trello that shows minimizing and popping out
> windows.  
> 
> So far, we have "normal" chat windows docked to Firefox.  As Shane notes in
> Commment 2, Shane, is
> there something about this case that means it's necessary in the short-term
> from a technical standpoint?

I think the primary issue is that the window is too small for combined video+text chat.  Probably too small even just for video.  Making it larger by default might be an option, but that also ends up consuming more of your browser space, perhaps also not being appropriate for other uses.  I dont think there is a perfect solution here.  Maybe entering video should always pop out to it's own window?  That doesn't seem optimal either.

Comment 5

[Jared Wein [:jaws] (please needinfo? me)]

Entering video could make the chat tab larger, and then shrink back down when the video session ends. I think that would look pretty swell :)

Comment 6

[Shane Caraveo (:mixedpuppy)]

Boriss, given bug 824158 and the latest prototype on bug 809085, do we really want two icons for resizing?  That will make 4 icons total on the right side.

Comment 7

[Shane Caraveo (:mixedpuppy)]

Attachment: chat in window.png

just to show boriss default state

Comment 8

[Jared Wein [:jaws] (please needinfo? me)]

There has been discussion in bug 880911 that for simplicity we should only support either tearing-off or resizing the chat. As I'm understanding it, promoting chat to a full window/tab would provide better affordances than resizing the chat. So if we had to pick one of the two, we should go with promoting the chat to a full window/tab.

Comment 9

[Shane Caraveo (:mixedpuppy)]

I played with a resizable attached chat window and feel that a larger window will block too much of the browser space.  Given bug 880911 landing, we have a resizable detached chat window, as well as full screen access (in both attached and detached chat windows).  I'm going to wontfix.