Too much glass…
Blake Winton
one of the things that has been pointed out to me recently as not-really-pretty is that Thunderbird shows too much glass in its Windows 7 Aero theme. Currently, it looks like this (114 pixels of glass high):
In the longer-term, I think this will be mitigated by moving to tabs on top, and putting the toolbar into the tabs, but that doesn't help us in the short-to-medium term.
So I've come up with a few things that I think we can do while we're waiting for the big change.
The first pair of ideas is to set the default toolbar format to text-beside and small icons, and to hide the menu, as per Firefox, IE, Windows Finder, and others. That would look something like this (with 79 pixels of glass high):
This seems better, but I think we could do more. I'm hoping that we can get all the way to (54 pixels of glass high):
But that could cause problems with extensions that put their buttons in the tab bar. I've spoken with Philipp about having Lightning move its buttons up to the toolbar, and he's happy to make that change, but there are a few other extensions that I know about that use the same area.
An alternative proposed by JB was to make the toolbar non-glass, and leave glass only for the titlebar and borders. I'm not a huge fan of that, because I like the glass look (just not so much of it), but it's definitely worth considering.
So, my proposal is to set the toolbar format and hide the menu for TB 6, and look into auto-hiding the tab bar for TB7, with the plan of backing it out if it causes problems.
I would appreciate any comments from add-on authors who are using the tab bar area on how this would affect them positively or negatively, as well as comments from anyone on other quick-and-easy options to make the glass area less distracting while we wait for the tabs-on-top to land.
Thanks,
Blake.
--
Blake Winton Thunderbird User Experience Lead
bwi...@mozilla.com
Jim
> But that could cause problems with extensions that put their buttons in
> the tab bar. I've spoken with Philipp about having Lightning move its
> buttons up to the toolbar, and he's happy to make that change, but there
> are a few other extensions that I know about that use the same area.
One solution[1] to this, which I've kicked around for a while, is to
make the button area on the right of the tab bar an external toolbar.
That way, people can customize that to put whatever buttons they want on
there from the main toolbar.
This means that we could keep the UI like it is now, and if people don't
like the tab bar, they could hide it and put the buttons up on the main
toolbar; or, if they really want, they could put the main toolbar
buttons on the tab bar.
- Jim
[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=582801
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Jonathan Protzenko
I'm running webtabs + rss dashboard, and both these addons use the tab
toolbar to add their icons, as it really makes sense to have just
favicons there. Squib and I were talking about possibly making this
area customizable, with the possibility of putting any button from the
main toolbar there, just like in Firefox. Another suggestion I read is
to actually allow the user to remove the main toolbar for small
screens, and move the global search field at the right of the tabbar
(currently you lose the global search if you hide the main toolbar).
This is all a little bit confused, but what I meant to say is there
might be more options besides just getting rid of the tab toolbar by
default.
jonathan
On Tue 28 Jun 2011 11:08:57 AM PDT, Blake Winton wrote:
> Hey everyone,
>
> one of the things that has been pointed out to me recently as
> not-really-pretty is that Thunderbird shows too much glass in its
> Windows 7 Aero theme. Currently, it looks like this (114 pixels of
> glass high):
>
>
>
>
> In the longer-term, I think this will be mitigated by moving to tabs on
> top, and putting the toolbar into the tabs, but that doesn't help us in
> the short-to-medium term.
>
> So I've come up with a few things that I think we can do while we're
> waiting for the big change.
>
>
> The first pair of ideas is to set the default toolbar format to
> text-beside and small icons, and to hide the menu, as per Firefox, IE,
> Windows Finder, and others. That would look something like this (with
> 79 pixels of glass high):
>
>
>
>
> This seems better, but I think we could do more. I'm hoping that we can
> get all the way to (54 pixels of glass high):
>
>
>
> But that could cause problems with extensions that put their buttons in
> the tab bar. I've spoken with Philipp about having Lightning move its
> buttons up to the toolbar, and he's happy to make that change, but there
> are a few other extensions that I know about that use the same area.
>
> An alternative proposed by JB was to make the toolbar non-glass, and
> leave glass only for the titlebar and borders. I'm not a huge fan of
> that, because I like the glass look (just not so much of it), but it's
> definitely worth considering.
>
> So, my proposal is to set the toolbar format and hide the menu for TB 6,
> and look into auto-hiding the tab bar for TB7, with the plan of backing
> it out if it causes problems.
>
> I would appreciate any comments from add-on authors who are using the
> tab bar area on how this would affect them positively or negatively, as
> well as comments from anyone on other quick-and-easy options to make the
> glass area less distracting while we wait for the tabs-on-top to land.
>
> Thanks,
> Blake.
> --
> Blake Winton Thunderbird User Experience Lead
> bwi...@mozilla.com
>
>
>
Jonathan Protzenko
default if some extensions have inserted any items in the tab toolbar.
This should actually be fairly easy to detect.
jonathan
Andrew Sutherland
The first pair of ideas is to set the default toolbar format to text-beside and small icons, and to hide the menu, as per Firefox, IE, Windows Finder, and others. That would look something like this (with 79 pixels of glass high):
Andrew
Richard Marti
> But that could cause problems with extensions that put their buttons in
> the tab bar. I've spoken with Philipp about having Lightning move its
> buttons up to the toolbar, and he's happy to make that change, but there
> are a few other extensions that I know about that use the same area.
Lightning has already buttons you can put on the toolbar.
> So, my proposal is to set the toolbar format and hide the menu for TB 6,
> and look into auto-hiding the tab bar for TB7, with the plan of backing
> it out if it causes problems.
Autohiding is also already doable. Set mail.tabs.autoHide to true. What
is missing is an option in the preferences.
- Richard (:Paenglab)
Blake Winton
Well, that would be nice, but that's more than I was thinking of doing.
I would merely have the menu show when you hit the <Alt> key. (Again,
just copying the behaviour of Firefox, IE, Windows Explorer, etc…)
Thanks,
Blake.
--
Blake Winton Thunderbird User Experience Lead
bwi...@mozilla.com
Andrew Sutherland
>> I presume this would also mean creating some kind of
>> single-point-of-access to the menu like Firefox/IE/etc. have and that
>> it's not shown in the screenshot because it would require photoshopping?
>
>
> Well, that would be nice, but that's more than I was thinking of
> doing. I would merely have the menu show when you hit the <Alt> key.
> (Again, just copying the behaviour of Firefox, IE, Windows Explorer,
> etc…)
Ah, I did not actually realize that was a thing. Neat. Would this be
something covered by a migration wizard? ex: "Keep the menu bar around
all the time, or just have it show up when you hit the 'alt' key?"
Andrew
David Bienvenu
> On 06/28/2011 01:19 PM, Blake Winton wrote:
>>> I presume this would also mean creating some kind of
>>> single-point-of-access to the menu like Firefox/IE/etc. have and that
>>> it's not shown in the screenshot because it would require photoshopping?
>>
>>
>> Well, that would be nice, but that's more than I was thinking of doing. I would merely have the menu show when you hit the <Alt> key. (Again, just copying the
>> behaviour of Firefox, IE, Windows Explorer, etc…)
>
> Ah, I did not actually realize that was a thing. Neat. Would this be something covered by a migration wizard? ex: "Keep the menu bar around all the time, or just have
> it show up when you hit the 'alt' key?"
menu items are used more often than Firefox's (and there's no Test Pilot data to prove me wrong :-)) .
- David
Blake Winton
> On 06/28/2011 01:19 PM, Blake Winton wrote:
>>> I presume this would also mean creating some kind of
>>> single-point-of-access to the menu like Firefox/IE/etc. have and that
>>> it's not shown in the screenshot because it would require photoshopping?
>>
>>
>> Well, that would be nice, but that's more than I was thinking of
>> doing. I would merely have the menu show when you hit the <Alt> key.
>> (Again, just copying the behaviour of Firefox, IE, Windows Explorer,
>> etc…)
>
> Ah, I did not actually realize that was a thing. Neat. Would this be
> something covered by a migration wizard? ex: "Keep the menu bar around
> all the time, or just have it show up when you hit the 'alt' key?"
I would probably just change it, on the basis that that's the behaviour
users of Windows 7 have come to expect from applications on that platform.
Okay, after seeing Bienvenu's post and the comments in #maildev, I take
it back. I would break from Firefox, and just add a right-click option
to hide the menu, a la Firefox.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2301433/Glass/FirefoxContext.png That way the
user would be able to minimize the glass, but would still see the menu
by default.
Later,
Blake.
--
Blake Winton Thunderbird User Experience Lead
bwi...@mozilla.com
David Bienvenu
> I would probably just change it, on the basis that that's the behaviour users of Windows 7 have come to expect from applications on that platform.
>
> Okay, after seeing Bienvenu's post and the comments in #maildev, I take it back. I would break from Firefox, and just add a right-click option to hide the menu, a la
> Firefox. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2301433/Glass/FirefoxContext.png That way the user would be able to minimize the glass, but would still see the menu by default.
I'd be OK with disabling menus on new profiles and doing the alt thing to show them. I know there are users who simply get a new machine and want their stuff to work like
it did on the old machine, but that's less of an issue than getting a silent update and having your menus disappear :-) And I think we really want some sort of profile
migration add-on or app to make it easier for people to move profiles from old machines.
- David
Richard Marti
> Okay, after seeing Bienvenu's post and the comments in #maildev, I take
> it back. I would break from Firefox, and just add a right-click option
> to hide the menu, a la Firefox.
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2301433/Glass/FirefoxContext.png That way the
> user would be able to minimize the glass, but would still see the menu
> by default.
Justin Wood (Callek)
>
> I'd be OK with disabling menus on new profiles and doing the alt thing
> to show them. I know there are users who simply get a new machine and
> want their stuff to work like it did on the old machine, but that's
> less of an issue than getting a silent update and having your menus
> disappear :-) And I think we really want some sort of profile
> migration add-on or app to make it easier for people to move profiles
> from old machines
Before we go the route of hiding by default, I humbly ask you go through
your list of menu items and assure yourselves that if a relatively
clueless user had no idea that ALT + <release> would show the menu....
if they could do any and all essential functions of an
app/thunderbird/troubleshooting/etc.
I particularly worry for habits like "File->Exit", "File->Print" (more
common in e-mails than Browser), ... account settings, options, ... Help
(almost all items).
Also now having a win7 machine, having absoletely no menu is not common
in the apps I have used, except for video games (which have a more
splash-screen-like menu).
--
~Justin Wood (Callek)
Alan Lord (Gmail)
> On 11-06-28 16:16 , Andrew Sutherland wrote:
>> I presume this would also mean creating some kind of
>> single-point-of-access to the menu like Firefox/IE/etc. have and that
>> it's not shown in the screenshot because it would require photoshopping?
>
> Well, that would be nice, but that's more than I was thinking of doing.
> I would merely have the menu show when you hit the <Alt> key. (Again,
> just copying the behaviour of Firefox, IE, Windows Explorer, etc…)
Um,
This feature is not something I am familiar with on Linux, I trust that
any plans will be cross-platform?
I do agree in general that TB is very wasteful of screen real-estate;
especially at the top so this is a good thread. The Compact-header
extension also helps a bit with the message view layout.
Cheers
Alan
Ludovic Hirlimann
Hey everyone,
[snip]
So, my proposal is to set the toolbar format and hide the menu for TB 6, and look into auto-hiding the tab bar for TB7, with the plan of backing it out if it causes problems.
Would you make those changes in the stand alone window and Address book one too ?
Ludo
-- Thunderbird QA https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Testing http://www.flickr.com/photos/lhirlimann/
neandrIMAP
> On 6/28/2011 4:44 PM, David Bienvenu wrote:
>>
>> I'd be OK with disabling menus on new profiles and doing the alt
>> thing to show them. I know there are users who simply get a new
>> machine and want their stuff to work like it did on the old machine,
>> but that's less of an issue than getting a silent update and having
>> your menus disappear :-) And I think we really want some sort of
>> profile migration add-on or app to make it easier for people to move
>> profiles from old machines
>
> Before we go the route of hiding by default, I humbly ask you go
> through your list of menu items and assure yourselves that if a
> relatively clueless user had no idea that ALT + <release> would show
> the menu.... if they could do any and all essential functions of an
> app/thunderbird/troubleshooting/etc.
>
> I particularly worry for habits like "File->Exit", "File->Print" (more
> common in e-mails than Browser), ... account settings, options, ...
> Help (almost all items).
>
> Also now having a win7 machine, having absoletely no menu is not
> common in the apps I have used, except for video games (which have a
> more splash-screen-like menu).
>
As mentioned with other thread already, there is the widely used method
with mouse hover to open menus. That technique (I would it call
mainstream feature) is well known by a wide user base as many web pages
over that:
http://www.reuters.com/
http://www.thestreet.com/
http://world-up.net/wordpress/
...
If the keybord oriented user needs that ALT + <release>, fine, add it
also .. but what is the user base Thunderbird is addressing? We should
over mainstream feature to the main user base.
Günter
Tanstaafl
> I do agree in general that TB is very wasteful of screen real-estate;
> especially at the top so this is a good thread. The Compact-header
> extension also helps a bit with the message view layout.
I prefer the functionality provided by the 'Mal Tweak' extension, that
lets me completely and totally *hide* the header pane, and just show it
on mouse-over... although I'd prefer if it would show itself in a pane
that pops up over the message list instead of shoving the entire message
detail view pane down...
The same extension also allows me to totally *hide* the folder pane in
the same way - but again, I'd prefer it to pop out in a pane, rather
than shove the entire message list/detail panes over to the right...
Both of these should be doable, again, once TB is on the new version of
Gecko, which I guess it is now with version 5?
Sadly, the Mail Tweak extension author seems to have disappeared...
Tanstaafl
> Lightning has already buttons you can put on the toolbar.
Yes, but the buttons it puts on the tab bar are still there. This should
not be. Just put the normal toolbar buttons there by default, but make
them movable.
Tanstaafl
> Before we go the route of hiding by default, I humbly ask you go through
> your list of menu items and assure yourselves that if a relatively
> clueless user had no idea that ALT + <release> would show the menu....
> if they could do any and all essential functions of an
> app/thunderbird/troubleshooting/etc.
>
> I particularly worry for habits like "File->Exit", "File->Print" (more
> common in e-mails than Browser), ... account settings, options, ... Help
> (almost all items).
Of course this shouldn't be done *without* providing the 'Thunderbird
Button'.
Blake Winton
> On 28/06/11 21:19, Blake Winton wrote:
>> On 11-06-28 16:16 , Andrew Sutherland wrote:
>
>>> I presume this would also mean creating some kind of
>>> single-point-of-access to the menu like Firefox/IE/etc. have and that
>>> it's not shown in the screenshot because it would require photoshopping?
>>
>> Well, that would be nice, but that's more than I was thinking of doing.
>> I would merely have the menu show when you hit the <Alt> key. (Again,
>> just copying the behaviour of Firefox, IE, Windows Explorer, etc…)
>
> any plans will be cross-platform?
I didn't think so. The hiding of the menu bar is a Windows-specific UI
concept. (On Mac there's only one menu bar at the top, so hiding it
doesn't make any sense. Ubuntu Unity is similar.) If there is a
convention of hiding the menu bar on Linux (and I'm guessing there isn't
due to your comment), then I would be happy to look into that.
Thanks,
Blake.
--
Blake Winton Thunderbird User Experience Lead
bwi...@mozilla.com
Tanstaafl
> *Blake Winton* wrote:
>> Okay, after seeing Bienvenu's post and the comments in #maildev, I take
>> it back. I would break from Firefox, and just add a right-click option
>> to hide the menu, a la Firefox.
>> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2301433/Glass/FirefoxContext.png That way the
>> user would be able to minimize the glass, but would still see the menu
>> by default.
> This is like it's done in Bug 581661
But it doesn't look like this bug also provides for the single point of
entry 'Thunderbird button, similar to the Firefox button')?
I would really like for this option, so I don't have to rely on one of
the 'Tinymenu' extension devs, and I think I'm not alone (lots of
netbook users out there)...
This would mean I could use the same two extensions as I use for Firefox
('Personal Titlebar' and 'Movable Firefox Button', and config my UI the
same way - neat, clean, and simple.
Tanstaafl
> Squib and I were talking about possibly making this area customizable,
> with the possibility of putting any button from the main toolbar there,
> just like in Firefox.
+1
Choice is good.
Blake Winton
> On 2011-06-28 4:46 PM, Richard Marti wrote:
>> *Blake Winton* wrote:
>>> Okay, after seeing Bienvenu's post and the comments in #maildev, I take
>>> it back. I would break from Firefox, and just add a right-click option
>>> to hide the menu, a la Firefox.
>>> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2301433/Glass/FirefoxContext.png That way the
>>> user would be able to minimize the glass, but would still see the menu
>>> by default.
>> This is like it's done in Bug 581661
> But it doesn't look like this bug also provides for the single point of
> entry 'Thunderbird button, similar to the Firefox button')?
Nope. This is just about hiding the menu and showing it with the Alt key.
> This would mean I could use the same two extensions as I use for Firefox
> ('Personal Titlebar' and 'Movable Firefox Button', and config my UI the
> same way - neat, clean, and simple.
That sounds pretty cool, would you post a screenshot of it somewhere,
for me to look at?
Thanks,
Blake.
--
Blake Winton Thunderbird User Experience Lead
bwi...@mozilla.com
Tanstaafl
> But that could cause problems with extensions that put their buttons in
> the tab bar.
What about extensions that want to be able to put their buttons into the
*Titlebar* - like, for example, the 'Personal Titlebar' extension that I
currently use in Firefox, that will be able to work with Thunderbird
once it moves to the next version of Gecko? The extension author has
expressed interest in supporting Thunderbird too, but cannot until
Thunderbird supports the ability to move the menubar into the Titlebar,
which cannot happen until thunderbird moves to the next version of Gecko.
> I've spoken with Philipp about having Lightning move its buttons up
> to the toolbar, and he's happy to make that change,
Well, that's great news (something I've been waiting for since these
buttons were forced into the tab bar).
> but there are a few other extensions that I know about that use the
> same area.
*Imho, *all* buttons should *always* be movable to whatever toolbar the
user wants...
This is funny... here you all are, arguing over how to gain a little
more UI space, and I *already* - with version 3.1.11 and two extensions
- have a minimalist UI that provides *far* more room than your screen
mockups, and provided working screenshots, and *not a single one of you*
has commented on or otherwise asked me about them.
Blake Winton
> On 2011-06-28 2:08 PM, Blake Winton wrote:
>> But that could cause problems with extensions that put their buttons in
>> the tab bar.
> What about extensions that want to be able to put their buttons into the
> *Titlebar* - like, for example, the 'Personal Titlebar' extension that I
> currently use in Firefox, that will be able to work with Thunderbird
> once it moves to the next version of Gecko?
I have no idea. But that's not really what this conversation is about,
since moving buttons into the titlebar would be very confusing for users
who didn't expect it.
(We're on the latest version of Gecko, so you could ask the author to
try again though.)
> This is funny... here you all are, arguing over how to gain a little
> more UI space, and I *already* - with version 3.1.11 and two extensions
> - have a minimalist UI that provides *far* more room than your screen
> mockups, and provided working screenshots, and *not a single one of you*
> has commented on or otherwise asked me about them.
I don't remember seeing the screenshots. Do you have a link to them?
(I should mention that if they're all about removing the message header,
or are drastically different from the conventions of the operating
system they're on, then they aren't helpful for getting rid of the Aero
Glass, and so I wouldn't be interested in them for this thread… ;)
Thanks,
Blake.
--
Blake Winton Thunderbird User Experience Lead
bwi...@mozilla.com
Jb Piacentino
As Blake indicated, I'd suggest we address the too-much glass solely by reducing the glass real estate and limiting it to the window title and border. I understand this can be done really quickly (next release or +1) and responds to the expressed grievances.
I would favor this option vs saving height by hiding the menu bar for the following reasons:
- I'm not sure we should hide the menu just for the sake of having a better looking Aero rendering. Adhering to Windows UI principles is of course not bad per say, but it seems to me that should open a new conversation on this topic, and not tackle it from a too-much-glass angle
- Along those lines, users might be confused (initially, or maybe for a longer time) with the now-gone menu. Again, I'm not sure an aesthetic issue should, all by itself, motivate a significant UI change.
- Add-on compatibility seems to be is a subject of its own and needs to be considered carefully
I think we could have a discussion on reducing the height of the menu+toolbar+tabbar, but again in a broader UI conversation (Windows specific or not).
Jb
On 28/06/2011 20:08, Blake Winton wrote:
Hey everyone,
one of the things that has been pointed out to me recently as not-really-pretty is that Thunderbird shows too much glass in its Windows 7 Aero theme.� Currently, it looks like this (114 pixels of glass high):
In the longer-term, I think this will be mitigated by moving to tabs on top, and putting the toolbar into the tabs, but that doesn't help us in the short-to-medium term.
So I've come up with a few things that I think we can do while we're waiting for the big change.
The first pair of ideas is to set the default toolbar format to text-beside and small icons, and to hide the menu, as per Firefox, IE, Windows Finder, and others.� That would look something like this (with 79 pixels of glass high):
This seems better, but I think we could do more.� I'm hoping that we can get all the way to (54 pixels of glass high):
But that could cause problems with extensions that put their buttons in the tab bar.� I've spoken with Philipp about having Lightning move its buttons up to the toolbar, and he's happy to make that change, but there are a few other extensions that I know about that use the same area.
An alternative proposed by JB was to make the toolbar non-glass, and leave glass only for the titlebar and borders.� I'm not a huge fan of that, because I like the glass look (just not so much of it), but it's definitely worth considering.
So, my proposal is to set the toolbar format and hide the menu for TB 6, and look into auto-hiding the tab bar for TB7, with the plan of backing it out if it causes problems.
I would appreciate any comments from add-on authors who are using the tab bar area on how this would affect them positively or negatively, as well as comments from anyone on other quick-and-easy options to make the glass area less distracting while we wait for the tabs-on-top to land.
Thanks,
Blake.
--
Blake Winton��� Thunderbird User Experience Lead
bwi...@mozilla.com
Jim
wrote:
> This is funny... here you all are, arguing over how to gain a little
> more UI space, and I *already* - with version 3.1.11 and two extensions
> - have a minimalist UI that provides *far* more room than your screen
> mockups, and provided working screenshots, and *not a single one of you*
> has commented on or otherwise asked me about them.
Alright, fine... assuming you're talking about this
<http://www.web2test.net/Minimal_UIs.swf>, the reason I haven't
commented on it is because I think it's a really, really bad idea to
incorporate into the default install. It is a *serious* violation of
ux-discovery for obvious reasons, but also violates:
* ux-feedback: hidden items can't provide any visual feedback
* ux-efficiency: now I have to move my mouse around instead of just
glancing at part of the window
* ux-affordance: there's no indication whatsoever - except for the
folder pane - that the various panes can be expanded until you mouse
over the right area
* there's no UX keyword for this, but I imagine it would also cause
serious issues for anyone who relies on keyboard navigation
I don't think it's worth it to sacrifice all of these things on the
altar of ux-minimalism, especially when you can already use nearly all
of the window space for a message just by opening the message in a new
tab. The only things that addon hides in addition are the main toolbar
and the message header, with the latter already being almost hideable
with the Compact Header extension.
- Jim
John Hopkins
> On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 5:38 AM, Tanstaafl <tans...@libertytrek.org>
> wrote:
>> This is funny... here you all are, arguing over how to gain a little
>> more UI space, and I *already* - with version 3.1.11 and two extensions
>> - have a minimalist UI that provides *far* more room than your screen
>> mockups, and provided working screenshots, and *not a single one of you*
>> has commented on or otherwise asked me about them.
>
> Alright, fine... assuming you're talking about this
> <http://www.web2test.net/Minimal_UIs.swf>, the reason I haven't
> commented on it is because I think it's a really, really bad idea to
> incorporate into the default install.
Just a side comment: I'd rather have an idea of mine shot down than
ignored. That gives me feedback and motivation to come up with better
ideas.
John
Tanstaafl
> top, and putting the toolbar into the tabs, but that doesn't help us in
> the short-to-medium term.
Hopefully, this will be done in the same manner as Firefox - ie, this
will be a *choice* for the end user?
Tanstaafl
> Alright, fine... assuming you're talking about this
> <http://www.web2test.net/Minimal_UIs.swf>, the reason I haven't
> commented on it is because I think it's a really, really bad idea to
> incorporate into the default install.
Who said anything about making this the *default*? Did you even read my
emails about this?
What I am talking about is how easy it is for these changes to be made...
> I don't think it's worth it to sacrifice all of these things on the
> altar of ux-minimalism, especially when you can already use nearly all
> of the window space for a message just by opening the message in a new
> tab. The only things that addon hides in addition are the main toolbar
> and the message header, with the latter already being almost hideable
> with the Compact Header extension.
I could and have made similar arguments about the tiny amount of space
that is saved by losing the *extremely* useful Statusbar...
But like I said - as long as I can get the Statusbar back by installing
Status4Evar, I'm ok with that being the default...
Andreas Nilsson
The first pair of ideas is to set the default toolbar format to text-beside and small icons, and to hide the menu, as per Firefox, IE, Windows Finder, and others. That would look something like this (with 79 pixels of glass high):Wow, I'm really surprised this wasn't the default already. I guess I should run TB with a fresh profiles more often.
This sounds like a really easy fix and can be done rather quickly. I had a bit mixed feeling about the hiding of the menu. This because my impression was that the apps that hide their menubar was designed to work without menus and adding the menu back were for the I-want-it-like-I-always-had-it-since-win95-crowd and that Thunderbird wasn't one of those.
Upon looking through the menus it seems a lot of the actions are accessible from other places in the UI however, so I'm less worried about this change now.
This seems better, but I think we could do more. I'm hoping that we can get all the way to (54 pixels of glass high):I agree with hiding the tabs by default. It makes more sense in Firefox as that is more tab focused and allows you to add new empty tabs on the fly. As long as we can figure out where to put the filter bar (obvious place is main toolbar) it should be all right.
Yay for killing pixels!
- Andreas
Jim
> On 06/28/2011 08:08 PM, Blake Winton wrote:
>> The first pair of ideas is to set the default toolbar format to
>> text-beside and small icons, and to hide the menu, as per Firefox, IE,
>> Windows Finder, and others. That would look something like this (with
>> 79 pixels of glass high):
> Wow, I'm really surprised this wasn't the default already. I guess I
> should run TB with a fresh profiles more often.
A fresh profile would show the text beside the icons. The problem is
that if you click "Restore Default Set" in the toolbar customization
dialog, it resets to text below icons. The fix (which I have a patch
for[1]) is just to add defaultlabelalign="end" to the various toolboxes.
> This sounds like a really easy fix and can be done rather quickly. I had
> a bit mixed feeling about the hiding of the menu. This because my
> impression was that the apps that hide their menubar was designed to
> work without menus and adding the menu back were for the
> I-want-it-like-I-always-had-it-since-win95-crowd and that Thunderbird
> wasn't one of those.
In Windows Explorer (not IE, mind you), I've found a bunch of things
that can only be accessed with the old-school menu bar. That said, maybe
we should leave the menubar on by default but allow people to hide it
until we have a Firefox-style button.
That's dependent on us getting a heat-map of the most-used menu items,
but now that Test Pilot for Thunderbird is coming along, that should be
doable in the near future.
> I agree with hiding the tabs by default. It makes more sense in Firefox
> as that is more tab focused and allows you to add new empty tabs on the
> fly. As long as we can figure out where to put the filter bar (obvious
> place is main toolbar) it should be all right.
If we do this, I think we should ensure that there's a UI to change the
tab bar behavior. I believe we already have a pref to control this, so
we'd just need to build a UI to set the pref. We could either do it in
the Preferences dialog like Firefox, or make it a "toolbar" that you can
show and hide from the View > Toolbars menu (or when you right-click on
the main toolbar). Personally, I'd opt for the latter, as I think it
makes more sense to put options near the UI that they modify rather than
hiding them in a prefs window somewhere.
- Jim
[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=667391
Steffen Wilberg
> On 06/30/2011 01:27 PM, Andreas Nilsson wrote:
> That said, maybe
> we should leave the menubar on by default but allow people to hide it
> until we have a Firefox-style button.
Firefox 4 cleaned up the traditional menubar quite a bit by hiding
redundant menu items when the user invokes the menu using the mouse.
Candidates for Thunderbird are:
File - New Message/Event/Task
File - Close
File - Get New Messages
Edit - Delete Message
Message - New Message
Message - Reply/to all/to List
Message - Forward
Message - Tag
Message - Archive
Tools - Address Book
Mouse users will prefer the corresponding toolbar buttons; keyboard
users still see those items and their keyboard shortcuts.
The Firefox bugs were bug 588011 and bug 626825.
>> I agree with hiding the tabs by default.
We should also consider tabs on top, in the titlebar, like Firefox.
Steffen
Ben Bucksch
> hide the menu, as per Firefox, IE, Windows Finder, and others.
Without wanting to be too conservative, but the Firefox menu wasn't
really important. (Just the bookmarks.) Thunderbird is a real
application, not just a viewer, so the menus are more meaningful and
important.
I do like the idea of tabs on top, and that shouldn't be hard, or is it?
Ben
Blake Winton
> On 28.06.2011 20:08, Blake Winton wrote:
>> hide the menu, as per Firefox, IE, Windows Finder, and others.
>
> Without wanting to be too conservative, but the Firefox menu wasn't
> really important. (Just the bookmarks.) Thunderbird is a real
> application, not just a viewer, so the menus are more meaningful and
> important.
If we had Test Pilot up and running, we could find out what menus are
meaningful and important to Thunderbird's users… ;)
(See also
<http://breakingtheegg.tumblr.com/post/7087898858/mmmm-test-pilot-for-thunderbird-so-what>.)
> I do like the idea of tabs on top, and that shouldn't be hard, or is it?
It's a much more invasive change than I'ld want to take for a version
that's already in Beta. I'm not even sure we can get it in for TB7, or TB8…
Later,
Blake.
--
Blake Winton Thunderbird User Experience Lead
bwi...@mozilla.com