Closed Bug 941235 Opened 11 years ago Closed 11 years ago

Search box's min-width is too big for me.

Categories

(Firefox :: Toolbars and Customization, defect)

28 Branch
x86_64
Linux
defect
Not set
minor

Tracking

()

VERIFIED FIXED
Firefox 28

People

(Reporter: Aleksej, Assigned: Gijs)

References

(Blocks 1 open bug, )

Details

(Whiteboard: [Australis:P3][bugday-20131120])

Attachments

(3 files, 1 obsolete file)

When I am not using the search bar, I "stow" it by making it smaller (by dragging the separator), especially when I want to look at a long URL of a page.  When I need to use the search bar, I stretch it again (at least if I need to edit the query).

(I usually use search and bookmark keywords, and choose the bar only when I need to search a site for which I have no good and unique keyword many times in separate tabs — thus without using its in-page search field, e.g. Wiktionary.)  

My GTK font size is usually 16-18.  This makes the search bar pretty large for something not constantly used (with the 25ch min-width, about 20 zeros fit in it).

URLs can be long, and the location bar can become longer; at this page Firefox shows "Mozilla Foundation (US)" to the left of the URL.  With Add-on Bar gone, people may add icons to the location bar more often.
P3 because I'm not sure why we gave this such a high min-width to begin with. OTOH, if we use a fixed size, that's going to be an issue because you won't have enough room to type. Yes, you can resize it with the resizer, but only if it's adjacent to the navbar (!).

Maybe we could make the minsize only be that large if it's not next to the URL field? Jared, what do you think?

See also bug 940814.
Flags: needinfo?(jaws)
Whiteboard: [bugday-20131120] → [Australis:P3][bugday-20131120]
I don't see 15ch as a size that we want to support. For users who don't want to see the search box often they can move it to the menu panel.

Here is a screenshot of 15ch min-width on Win7 default font size:
http://screencast.com/t/HOq0xV4x (notice how only "Goog" is able to fit in the box)

Here is a screenshot of 20ch min-width:
http://screencast.com/t/3ckyVarn

Here is a screenshot of 25ch min-width:
http://screencast.com/t/1Z10wSu0FV
Flags: needinfo?(jaws)
This keeps the 150px min-size on win7 exactly. Because Ubuntu and OS X have larger default font sizes, it slightly decreases the minimum size there - but more characters fit in the box there at its minimum size than there do on Windows, so I think that's a net win.
Attachment #8337048 - Flags: review?(jaws)
Assignee: nobody → gijskruitbosch+bugs
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
Comment on attachment 8337048 [details] [diff] [review]
change search container's min width to use fixed value for icons so large fonts aren't penalized in Australis,

Review of attachment 8337048 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

::: browser/base/content/browser.css
@@ +286,5 @@
>    min-width: 50ch;
>  }
>  
>  #search-container {
> +  min-width: calc(54px + 16ch);

This is making assumptions about the sizes declared in the theme. Might be better to leave this one alone and create new theme rules that override this.
Attachment #8337048 - Flags: review?(jaws) → review-
Can we back out bug 870463? It's not clear to me that it solved a real problem that users actually ran into, let alone complained about.
Historically, users have always been able to put extra stuff on the navigation toolbar, causing the location and search bars to shrink quite a bit (though not to a point where they're entirely useless), hence my confusion about the motivation behind bug 870463. I suppose the difference is that items can overflow now. Does the lack of a min-width make items overflow later than users might want/expect?
(In reply to Dão Gottwald [:dao] from comment #6)
> Historically, users have always been able to put extra stuff on the
> navigation toolbar, causing the location and search bars to shrink quite a
> bit (though not to a point where they're entirely useless), hence my
> confusion about the motivation behind bug 870463. I suppose the difference
> is that items can overflow now. Does the lack of a min-width make items
> overflow later than users might want/expect?

Yeah, this is the tricky bit. E.g. bug 940814 complains about how we overflow too early, but also that we remove buttons before we remove the search bar, wanting the search bar to go before removing the buttons. I fully expect that other users might be happy with the current 'overflow order' (ie would prefer to keep their search bar rather than e.g. their home button - I know I would). I guess it really depends on how people use their browser, and I'm not sure if we can fix this for everyone in a sensible way.

One thing would be to only apply the min-width if the splitter isn't present as I suggested in comment 1, but I'm afraid that might still not really solve the problem.

(for context's sake, I'll just note that on beta on OS X, I can resize my search box to be so small that only the G of 'Google' is fully visible, and only part of the first 'o' is. I'm not sure I'd agree that that's not beyond the point where it is 'entirely useless', but, hmm. 1.5 character should be enough for anyone? ;-) )
(In reply to :Gijs Kruitbosch from comment #7)
> (for context's sake, I'll just note that on beta on OS X, I can resize my
> search box to be so small that only the G of 'Google' is fully visible, and
> only part of the first 'o' is. I'm not sure I'd agree that that's not beyond
> the point where it is 'entirely useless', but, hmm. 1.5 character should be
> enough for anyone? ;-) )

Well, it's enough for typing and submitting something. The placeholder itself is redundant anyway. So this might be a fine tradeoff for power users who want to have lots of other stuff on the toolbar.
So like this? The iconsizes are pretty much the same. Note that I did elect to reduce the min-width because I think Dao provides a good point. The minimum size I picked is still easily enough to show 'Google' in full everywhere (should be roughly the same as 20ch on Windows). I'll add a combined set of screenshots in a second.
Attachment #8339926 - Flags: review?(jaws)
Attached image size-adjustment.png
Attachment #8337048 - Attachment is obsolete: true
Attachment #8339926 - Flags: review?(jaws) → review+
remote:   https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/fx-team/rev/208332369a4a
Whiteboard: [Australis:P3][bugday-20131120] → [Australis:P3][bugday-20131120][fixed-in-fx-team]
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/208332369a4a
Status: ASSIGNED → RESOLVED
Closed: 11 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
Whiteboard: [Australis:P3][bugday-20131120][fixed-in-fx-team] → [Australis:P3][bugday-20131120]
Target Milestone: --- → Firefox 28
Verified fixed with 2013-12-03-03-02-02-mozilla-central-firefox-28.0a1.en-US.linux-x86_64.  Making the field even smaller would probably have gained too little additional space for the URL.

(In reply to Jared Wein from comment #2)
> For users who don't want to see the search box often they can move it to the menu panel.

Oh, you mean that new panel in Australis. I had thought it was about the menu bar.
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
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