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How to make a better default Firefox UI

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Re: How to make a better default Firefox UI

#181

Post by cassepipe »

sikhnerd wrote: post #165
tomxor wrote: post #14

The main issue I've had with their new UI is the massive size of everything, it's fair enough for fat finger phone displays but is annoyingly wasteful for any regular sized desktop. This is partly due to the increased padding as per the article, but also because they removed the "compact" UI density option. However you can bring this back under about:config browser.compactmode.show Then go to menu > more tools > cust…

Thanks for posting this, really makes a big difference!

I have been using that for some time but I just tried Lepton now. Installing Lepton is as easy as one-liner and imho well worth it.

Re: How to make a better default Firefox UI

#183

Post by WorldMaker »

Dwedit wrote: post #179
bloopernova wrote: post #90

Better browser UX, in my strongly-held opinion, starts with vertical tabs. With horizontal tabs, you can have maybe 6 to 8 tabs open before things tabs get difficult to manage or track. With vertical, nested tabs; links that open in a new tab are automatically made a child tab. From that you can infer structure and context more easily than horizontal tabs. Then you add colours to indicate different sites and now you…

Vertical tabs would be unusable on a window that's resized to be half the width of a 16:9 display.

I do it all the time and I don't think it is "unusable". About the only "issue" with it is often that it shrinks the viewport just enough to trigger "mobile" breakpoints in CSS, but for some websites (YouTube, especially) that can be a feature as much as a "bug".

Re: How to make a better default Firefox UI

#184

Post by Fnoord »

medstrom wrote: post #155
darkwater wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we have people in the camp "don't waste space with padding, please" and then, each time a KDE discussion appears "how the hell can they cram so many information and text with no padding, it's unreadable" camp. Damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

That's why much like the dark/light mode switch has become standard, "compact"/"touch mode" should too.

Going full circle Hildon / Maemo.

Re: How to make a better default Firefox UI

#185

Post by black7375 »

DonHopkins wrote: post #159
bloopernova wrote: post #90

Better browser UX, in my strongly-held opinion, starts with vertical tabs. With horizontal tabs, you can have maybe 6 to 8 tabs open before things tabs get difficult to manage or track. With vertical, nested tabs; links that open in a new tab are automatically made a child tab. From that you can infer structure and context more easily than horizontal tabs. Then you add colours to indicate different sites and now you…

Vertical tabs are better in some situations and for some users, horizontal tabs are better in other situations and for other users. So all users should be able to choose to place tabs along any side of any window, and change which side and what position any tab is at any time. Not just tabs for emacs frames or web browser windows, but for ALL windows including top level and internal application windows. And you shoul…

> And not only tabs for apps like browser and IDEs, but also the desktop window manager should support tabs on top level windows in a consistent manner

I miss the tabbed window feature in KDE 4. This is the feature I'm most disappointed to see missing from version 5.

- https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=343690 - https://community.kde.org/Plasma/5.4_Errata

I think this is a really essential feature when displaying tiled windows.

Re: How to make a better default Firefox UI

#186

Post by foolswisdom »

OJFord wrote: post #60
foolswisdom wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know edge at least supports vertical tabs? I don't like them though (I don't have enough horizontal screen space, plus it doesn't free up the top bar space). If I start to have many open tabs I start cutting them down anyway.

Fair enough not having the horizontal space for it. It's usually still the opposite that annoys me (small centred content not making use of space) but of course this depends on zoom level etc. too. I'm not sure what you mean about not freeing the top bar though? The topmost thing I have is the back/forward/refresh/URL/extensions/menu bar. (file/edit/view/etc. hidden unless I press Alt, but that's not where tabs would…

The space where tabs go (when horizontal) isn't removed in vertical tabs mode. So using vertical tabs doesn't save any extra on vertical space, only uses additional horizontal space.

Re: How to make a better default Firefox UI

#187

Post by bscphil »

Yaina wrote: post #147
_notreallyme_ wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually their argument was that all other major browsers behaved like that. You can check with chrome, and indeed it behaves like firefox. For the user hostility, there argument was that people who dislike the new behavior do not have telemetry enabled, and thus they do not deserve to have the features they want. It's quite ironic considering firefox main advantage is their privacy oriented model...

I don't find it ironic at all. The purpose of telemetry is to be able to obtain information about the user population at large. It's anonymous and the data only flows one way (i.e. you don't see personalized ads based on telemetry data), but of course some data about your browsing behavior is being sent somewhere, yes. It's a trade-off: You sent some anonymous usage data but in turn that contributes to decisions made…

> Now, that a small group of people with very specific opinions and preferences is the same that disproportionally also opt out of sending telemetry... I don't see how that is Mozilla's problem.

I disagree. If you create a piece of software and develop a userbase that disproportionately opts out of telemetry relative to your software's alternatives, congratulations, you won. You got the power users, the developers, the people who care enough to submit quality bug reports, they're all on your side. Game over.

You don't need telemetry to understand what features these users need because they will tell you - loudly and forcefully - in bug reports filed if you break something. Assuming we're talking about open source software, and we are, they may also be the people sending you patches and improvements for these features.

Telemetry is what you need if you're making a mass market product that meets the needs of 80% of users. It isn't necessary, and in fact may not be useful, if you're developing software designed around the needs of the people contributing to the software. Some software tries to do both. But the way you do that isn't by looking exclusively at telemetry and then pretending that what you see there describes the behavior of all user categories, at least when it comports with the plans of your UX team. It's by listening to the people who are most passionate about the software.

Re: How to make a better default Firefox UI

#188

Post by bscphil »

OJFord wrote: post #22

Whenever I see someone using (or a screenshot of) horizontal tabs I'm just shocked that people put up with it, or perhaps even more so that it's still the default in all major (and minor?) browsers. I recommend Sidebery, but more than that I just recommend something to get your tabs listed vertically in a sidebar, so they don't squash each other up as you add more until you can't tell what's what at a glance, the wid…

> I recommend Sidebery

I've seen several people mention this addon. Can you (or someone using it) give a reason or two to prefer it over the standard alternatives (e.g. Tree Style Tab)?

Re: How to make a better default Firefox UI

#189

Post by dathinab »

mrob wrote: post #153
dathinab wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For non-technical people it would be a huge security risk of not behaving that way, similar Clear, Past and Go would just be unnecessary confusing. Technical people have the tendency to use keyboard shortcuts.

If there is one command called "Paste", and another command beginning with and commonly abbreviated to "Go", "Paste and Go" should be equivalent to using both in sequence. If it's impossible to make it act in the expected manner, and impossible to label it correctly, the only remaining option is to remove the feature.

you are missing the point

most non-technical people treat urls mostly as blobs (which doesn't mean they don't understand it's consisted of parts, but that's irrelevant)

so the URL field is mostly operating one urls as a while

that's why if you click on it in difference to normal text it will always select the whole url, because most times most people will either copy that url or fully replace it

similar "Past and Go" also operates as the url as a whole, not text segments. So it pasts the new url to where the old url was and "goes" to the new website

additionally if you don't just replace an url but edit it a "do this edit and directly go without giving me a chance to double check it" functionality doesn't really have any reason to exist as its way too niche and people who do that likely anyway use keyboard shortkuts instead of the context menu

sure there probably could be a better name e.g. "Replace Tab and Go". Or they could not show it if you don't have all text selected.

But "Past and Go" isn't a description of functionality anymore but has become something like a slogan or special term. So neither renaming it nor changing behavior is really acceptable from a UX POV.

Re: How to make a better default Firefox UI

#190

Post by OJFord »

bscphil wrote: post #188
OJFord wrote: post #22

Whenever I see someone using (or a screenshot of) horizontal tabs I'm just shocked that people put up with it, or perhaps even more so that it's still the default in all major (and minor?) browsers. I recommend Sidebery, but more than that I just recommend something to get your tabs listed vertically in a sidebar, so they don't squash each other up as you add more until you can't tell what's what at a glance, the wid…

> I recommend Sidebery I've seen several people mention this addon. Can you (or someone using it) give a reason or two to prefer it over the standard alternatives (e.g. Tree Style Tab)?

I already mentioned 'panels' and container integration.

Idk, I don't know why Tree Style Tab is any more 'standard alternative' (or certainly not that any others are, afaict TST & Sidebery are the most popular two) - they're both extremely popular (Mozilla gives 196k users of TST & 75k of Sidebery; nothing else close) and both 'Recommended' by Mozilla.

Use whatever you want, I did say more than that I just recommend using something to get vertically listed tabs. The tree-ing is a much less big deal to me tbh, though Sidebery does do that too fwiw.

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