Closed Bug 941250 Opened 11 years ago Closed 9 years ago

add an "other stuff I don't use much" button to the main menu

Categories

(Firefox :: Toolbars and Customization, enhancement)

enhancement
Not set
normal

Tracking

()

RESOLVED WONTFIX

People

(Reporter: davemgarrett, Unassigned)

References

(Blocks 1 open bug)

Details

(Keywords: ux-discovery, Whiteboard: [Australis:P-])

Bug 941002 caused me to think about the larger discovery issues in the GUI here and I think there's a simple and obvious solution: add an "other stuff I don't use much" button to the main menu. Just label it "more" or something generic and make it a sub-menu listing everything else that's not somewhere else in the interface already (i.e. the entire contents of the customize pane).

I use the developer tools once every blue moon, but when I do need them I don't think I should have to customize the interface to gain access or be forced into using the old-style menu bar to get at it.
This would also add some minimum discoverability for every widget so addons' menus can be found easily and they won't necessarily feel compelled to add it by default on install.
Blocks: australis
I'm pretty sure the point of the menu panel was to be the "other stuff I don't use much" place. Does the menu panel not serve this purpose for you?
Flags: needinfo?(davemgarrett)
Tentatively marking P- until we hear more about this.
Whiteboard: [Australis:P-]
If we start from a goal of wanting to not have things that are "never" used in the top level GUI, then the menu gets all of the things that are used infrequently. However, the menu now uses big buttons that take up lots of space in that menu, so the decision was made somewhere to remove some items previously in the old Firefox button to simplify this area too. The primary example here is the developer tools. This is now nowhere in the UI. The only way to find these things is to customize the UI and move buttons around. This prevents a major discoverability issue: how do you add these tools to your menu if you don't know that they exist to add them?

Likewise, say a user installs a dozen extensions with a dozen or so buttons/widgets of their own. Where do those addons put them now? In the past, they had two choices: dump it straight into the top-level GUI or instead be polite and add a menu item and/or button to the customization pallet. Now they don't really have the same options anymore. Putting a button straight into the menu is now a bigger deal than adding a menuitem; it occupies a much larger bit of space in a menu only allowing three items to a line. Adding a dozen extensions' worth of buttons here now doubles the size of this "minimal" overlay. If addons take the other route to avoid this then users may not even see that their buttons are available.

Put another way, we've slowly progressed our logical breakdown of GUI levels. Hierarchies of items ordered in descending order of discoverability:

Once upon a time in the land of traditional menu bars:
1) Many toolbars
2) Menu bar with submenus -> big with lots of space and lots of submenus easily added
3) Customization pallet

Previously in Firefox with the Firefox button (with the exception of Mac which stayed behind):
1) Some toolbars
2) Firefox button with submenus -> smaller with some space and few submenus
3) Customization pallet

Australis (now for everyone equally):
1) One simplified toolbar (with no addon bar anymore and thus less free space for addons)
2) Simplified Firefox/menu button with big buttons and multiple panes -> limited space to add new items
3) New customization pallet (bigger and better)

We still have roughly the 3 same zones, but we've been progressively restricting what we want to do with them. (I'm not arguing against this by the way; I personally think this has been largely a very good thing) Now that we've effectively banished the traditional menu and have one simple menu, and also removed the addon bar outright, we no longer have a really good place to add lesser used things too. Those have all been slowly pushed aside because most people don't need them. However, without a "more stuff" button in this new menu people that _do_ need them may not actually see that they are there for them at all.

We've eliminated the standard route for a user to fiddle with a program and figure out what it can do: look at all the menus. Yes, the classic menu is technically in the program still, but it's hidden for everyone by default (and of course learning how to do something via this doesn't automatically show you where the new intended route is). The Firefox button used to have everything that people needed, now its replacement does not and should not. Thus, we need a new overflow area for the rest for this to work well. (i.e. a forth zone in the model above)

My suggestion would just be a button of comparable styling and size to the cut/copy/paste/zoom buttons added to the bottom and labeled "more" that switches the menu to a pane with everything left in the customization pallet. (bonus points for letting a user drag an item from the "more" menu into the main menu as a quick customization route)
Flags: needinfo?(davemgarrett)
Needinfo'ing shorlander to weigh in here.
Flags: needinfo?(shorlander)
s/pallet/palette which I blame on bug 395327 rather than my inability to spell the right word
Also, I used to be able to have some addons in my addon bar and just do ctrl+/ whenever I needed to get at them. That's gone now. It would be nice to have that in a menu instead (even if it's more clicks). I don't have a fantastic number of addons installed so I could easily just put what I need in the menu pane (and might just do that) but not everyone will be in agreement here.
The full list of now non-discoverable features that have been banished to the customization palette by default:
open file dialog
developer tools menu
RSS button
character encoding
Sync
tab groups

So, the massively improved developer toolset, the much touted Sync service, and the previously touted Panorama feature are all effectively gone to anyone who doesn't fiddle with their customization palette. Most users use defaults.

Note specifically that I am NOT arguing that these be in the default menu. If I add them all I get a menu that stretches the full height of the default sized window, or most of my screen height on this laptop. This menu is not designed to have lots of buttons; they're all too big for that. (and again, I think this is generally good design)
I think that a good way to fix this problem would be to add a new menu item that would open a window showing all the addons/features. This would not fill up the GUI and could be hidden or moved somewhere else by the user in order to work as a shortcut.
(In reply to Mike Conley (:mconley) from comment #5)
> Needinfo'ing shorlander to weigh in here.

The distribution of items in their respective locations was carefully considered. We are collecting data and evaluating the new system. Before we create an "Everything" bucket we should monitor data and see if there are real discoverability issues.
Flags: needinfo?(shorlander)
I'll consider this WONTFIX, as it wasn't. Can reopen if it's actually still under consideration.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 9 years ago
Resolution: --- → WONTFIX
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