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Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#91

Post by mkohlmyr »

ersii wrote: post #81
mkohlmyr wrote: post #73

I was surprised to see this rise on the front page. Am I the only one who didn't get excited at all by this? When I see a post titled "a browser experiment" from mozilla.org I tend to think I'm going to get more than some wireframes and talk about "busybees". It will be an experiment once some (any) of it has been built. In any case from what I did see in the video I would say: 1) Bookmarks are broken, but removing t…

To nitpick, in the suggested experiment - bookmarks aren't removed. Although I guess you could compare the solution to "completely remove" them since they work a lot different, I guess you wouldn't "Love"-click something to read later or go back to, but their main site (Like NYT.com, BigBank.com etc). They'd be integrated into the ""amazebar"", but they'd still be there. As has been mentioned in other threads to this…

I understood that was the thinking re: tabs, I just think it's wrong. I can't think of anyone I know who doesn't use tabs, including my parents. In fact anecdotally I would say that the considered user base might use (or abuse) tabs more than most. They are the people who have 40 tab sessions that they never close.

As for bookmarks that is exactly my point. To "love" something is closer to marking as a favourite than as a bookmark. Bookmarks are things you want to go back to at a later date, favourites are things you go to a lot.

I think the idea that they should experiment is a good one and the idea that they might start to is exciting. They should make a dozen experimental UIs to try things. This video however doesn't do much for me - if they had a basic build to showcase it would be different, but I don't see much point in publishing a 10 minute presentation about some wireframes.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#93

Post by felipeerias »

gioele wrote: post #30
jbardnz wrote: post #12

Pretty interesting video. A few things of note: -Tabs are important to almost all web users these days. Maybe you could hide them and display them on hover but I don't think you should ever move them an extra click away. -Not a huge fan of the click-to-play feature. Maybe it would work if you could whitelist plugins rather than websites, I guess you lose most of your security benefits by doing this though. I think he…

> Tabs are important to almost all web users these days Tabs would be a useless feature, if the window manager did a better job at what they should do. In a "tabbing" wm like the one BeOS has you are much better served by one-page-one-window application. With a bit of cooperation from the window manager you can get rid of tabs. I did it few years ago and my browsing behavior and habits have changed for the better.

The way we browse the Web is fundamentally different from the way regular applications are used: we explore several paths at the same time, branch, backtrack, revisit, keep things open as reminders... Tabs make this navigation visible and enable the conscious building of a trail, which can be a very useful aid when browsing and when trying to make sense of the collected information.

Tree-style tabs (Firefox extension) are an even better solution: each new page becomes the root of a "tree", and the tabs that are opened from it become "branches". There is also a very interesting contrast between following a link (so the previous page is available on the Back button, and therefore either accessed right away or soon forgotten) versus opening it in a new tab (so the parent remains visible as a remainder of an interesting place or a branching point in the navigation).

Since we don't use desktop applications this way, I don't really see why we should modify our existing desktop window managers to accommodate this style of navigation. If anything, we could think of doing it the other way around and fitting desktop applications into a browser-like navigation structure like the one described above.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#94

Post by DCKing »

Pacabel wrote: post #84
weavie wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened to just asking the user where they want to save it? To download a file I now have to download it, then open Finder, navigate to Downloads and copy the file, navigate to the folder I want to place the download, paste the file. Then navigate back to the folder and delete the file from Downloads .. because Macs don't give you a Cut option.

You make a very good point. That sensible and effective approach has become yet another victim of the failed quest to "improve the user experience" by throwing away or changing stuff that was working perfectly fine before. The new approach is almost always far worse than whatever minor flaws might have existed with the earlier approach. And allowing the old, working approach to be toggled back on through some prefere…

To me, browsers defaulting to the Downloads folder improved the user experience. You might care much about where exactly your files are going, but I generally don't. Of the two, I think "not caring much" is the default option. If you do care, right-click -> "Save link as...".

It's also incredibly arrogant to say that it's not acceptable or justifiable that Firefox does not exactly cater to what your personal opinion on "usability" is.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#95

Post by gioele »

felipeerias wrote: post #93
gioele wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tabs are important to almost all web users these days Tabs would be a useless feature, if the window manager did a better job at what they should do. In a "tabbing" wm like the one BeOS has you are much better served by one-page-one-window application. With a bit of cooperation from the window manager you can get rid of tabs. I did it few years ago and my browsing behavior and habits have changed for the better.

The way we browse the Web is fundamentally different from the way regular applications are used: we explore several paths at the same time, branch, backtrack, revisit, keep things open as reminders... Tabs make this navigation visible and enable the conscious building of a trail, which can be a very useful aid when browsing and when trying to make sense of the collected information. Tree-style tabs (Firefox extension…

> The way we browse the Web is fundamentally different from the way regular applications are used: we explore several paths at the same time, branch, backtrack, revisit, keep things open as reminders...

I disagree: if I could I would do all these things also in desktop applications. Web makes it easy to do, but that does not mean that we do not have the same needs in other applications.

I explore several paths also in my email application: indeed I open messages and thread in separate windows, now that Thunderbird allows me.

I branch and backtrack my terminal: I often open a new windows just to run a command and see its output, then I close it and go back to the original window. If my window manager could track that and visualize it for longer-lived shells it would be great.

I keep many applications application open as remander, yet I would like to close them if I knew that there were a simple way to recall them, or if the system would remind me about them.

I would love to bookmark application statuses and store them.

All these needs are present in the web and would be nice to have in desktop applications. My point is that tabs are not required to support these needs, a good windowing manager and some synergy with apps is all is needed.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#96

Post by glandium »

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #18
yeukhon wrote: post #13

The no setting part is not really an option. No matter how simple you want to the browser to be, if you want this to be the one browser for the personal use, you need some settings. * setting search engine - this should be dead simple to implement and totally should be customized. I don't mind using Google but some people just don't like that. Actually I don't get why Firefox search engine customization is the way it…

I think the easiest way to change search engine is to expose some UI when you browse to that site. For example if you go to google.com there could be a little dingus in the address bar that you click to make that your search engine. I'm stealing this idea from Chrome, which already does that, somehow. If you go to a webmail site, there's a thing on the right of the omnibox, just left of the star, and if you click it…

Firefox does this already, if the web site has a . Go, for example, to https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/, which I know has that, now click on the drop down to select a search engine, there's a 'Add "Bugzilla@Mozilla"' item.

Sure, discoverability is left to be desired.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#97

Post by insky »

riquito wrote: post #70
insky wrote: post #56

The problem I have with Firefox is that it just doesn't really innovate. We've had some small UI changes. But there's legacy cruft still in there that isn't addressed. Like the bookmarks and history manager. There isn't anything particularly wrong with these data-table windows, but I don't really enjoy using them either. In some ways I think they should be at the heart of the browser. I think a lot of people use tabs…

> Like the bookmarks and history manager. There isn't anything particularly wrong with these data-table windows, but I don't really enjoy using them either. In some ways I think they should be at the heart of the browser. But they are at the heart of the browser. The Awesome Bar use words and tags of your bookmarks to propose you the right url after typing some character in the url bar. In the standard usage you do n…

Well kind of. I bookmark sites and then bring them back up by focusing on the location bar (CTRL+L), then typing * (to search bookmarks), and typing a few characters to get me to sites that I visit frequently. Which is fine if you use the keyboard and know what you are looking for, and already know that shortcut.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#98

Post by ckluis »

phlsa wrote: post #83

Hi, I'm one of the people who worked on this and I wanted to provide a little background and a few clarifications. Lightspeed is currently not a product. It's a collection of sketches and thoughts. It is also NOT the next version of Firefox. While some ideas might find their way into mainline Firefox at some point, many of the assumptions on which Lightspeed is based are the exact opposites of Firefox core values (e.…

Search operators are super powerful and awesome to use in google - providing a way to use those from the browser itself can help provide a distraction free environment, but also opens up new possibilities:

bm:“tag" - show list of all bookmarks with that tag

Just a thought.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#99

Post by quesera »

weavie wrote: post #71
troymc wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with not defaulting to saving downloads in the "downloads" folder. Many people don't really know how to use their file manager. (For years, my mom would open Microsoft Word and organize files there.) Why not default to saving downloads on the Desktop? Where did that file get saved? Oh, there it is!

What happened to just asking the user where they want to save it? To download a file I now have to download it, then open Finder, navigate to Downloads and copy the file, navigate to the folder I want to place the download, paste the file. Then navigate back to the folder and delete the file from Downloads .. because Macs don't give you a Cut option.

To move a file in the Finder, Mac users just drag and drop.

You can nav to the destination folder by hovering the intermediate folders, they will open to reveal contents.

To copy instead of move, just hold Option while doing the above.

I know old habits die hard, but if you've decided to move to a new part of the world, it really is worth learning the local language.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#100

Post by insky »

lucb1e wrote: post #65
insky wrote: post #56

The problem I have with Firefox is that it just doesn't really innovate. We've had some small UI changes. But there's legacy cruft still in there that isn't addressed. Like the bookmarks and history manager. There isn't anything particularly wrong with these data-table windows, but I don't really enjoy using them either. In some ways I think they should be at the heart of the browser. I think a lot of people use tabs…

> Like the bookmarks and history manager. There isn't anything particularly wrong with these data-table windows, but I don't really enjoy using them either. And here I was thinking every browser should have such powerful tools instead of optimized-for-grandma windows.

There's nothing wrong with optimising for Grandma. The key is to make the most useful features easy to get at, and the more powerful ones discoverable.

The bookmark/history manager could be better. It has no autocomplete/awesomeness in the search. It's actually quite an awkward UI.

It's not keyboard friendly. And their are odd inconsistancies. Should the default behaviour of clicking on a link open it in new tab?

Recent bookmarks and most visited are nice smart bookmark folder, these are useful but hard to reach in that tool. Some bookmark management feels a little like a black box.

At least you can tag bookmarks. Scrolling through a massive list of tags isn't much fun.

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