Viewing multiple pages concurrently

[avrignaud]

Users should be able to interact with more than one webpage at a time.

This ticket covers user interaction with multiple windows including opening, closing, default positioning, moving and resizing. Full spec can be found here: TBD

(old text)
Need to have design that take into account Tabs, Bookmarks, History, and Downloads. In future we will also need to have design for receiving "Sent to Device" items as well.

[thenadj]

DE-29 is ready for review and feedback:
DE-29 Tabs, Bookmarks, History, Downloads_005.pdf

Bookmarks v1.1:

• New button next to URL bar to bookmark content
• Bookmarks pane can be opened through new button in tray
• Bookmarks pane can be permanently docked to window
• Bookmarks pane can be undocked and placed anywhere in 360 sphere

Bookmarks Post v1.1:

• Add History, Downloads, Received Tabs to pane as tabs
• Tabs in pane can be individually pulled off and placed anywhere in 360 sphere
• Add buttons to tray for History, Downloads, Received Tabs and 'Hub-it' (social browsing)

Tray v1.1:

• Redesign tray to make it horizontal, not curved
• Add bookmarks button to open bookmarks pane
• Add browser tabs to top of tray

Tray Post v1.1:

• Add buttons to tray for History, Downloads, Received Tabs and 'Hub-it' (social browsing)
• Allow browser tabs above tray to be pulled off as standalone browser windows

[avrignaud]

@thenadj How does the bookmark window adjust (or not) when main window size is changed?

[thenadj]

@avrignaud We'll address that once we drill in deeper on this design. For now I am looking for feedback on the general direction. If it seems like a good idea we'll design the rest. :)

[MortimerGoro]

Thanks for sharing Nadja! Some early feedback about the Bookmarks:

• IMO history should be part of v1.1. On desktop and mobile I usually use more the history of most used websites for going to a website (via autocompletion) rather than manually saving bookmarks (I use that only for very specific things)
• I'm concerned about all the steps to select a bookmark or history item. I think that the main entry point should be the the URL bar instead having to find and go to a different dialog. IMO a search suggestion UI on the URL bar should be the core UI element to find bookmarks and history. The extra windows may be ok for more specific things such as deleting bookmarks or doing more advanced but not common searches. I'd like to see the whole picture in the spec, how does the bookmark work with URL bar text entry.
• The number of bookmarks/history can grow a lot. We'd need some filtering in the extra windows.
• We also need a way to delete bookmarks
• Reg showing history: categories based on the date range you visited the web? today, yesterday, last week, etc.
• Reg clearing history: only one global option or more for specific data ranges? e.g. "Clean today's story", "Clean the history of the last 3 days", etc.

Some feedback about the tray:

• I'm concerned that the tabs on the tray can be confused with the tray categories. FYI when I saw the pictures (I couldn't attend design review last week) I thought it was tray categories. It's a very used pattern in the Oculus Go launcher UI.
• You mentioned that we can increase the height of the tray if we add tray categories in the future, but wouldn't that make the tray too high?
• The tray position can be problematic when resizing a window. I'd like to see the whole picture of the tray related to window resizing.

[keianhzo]

On the technical side, interaction between widgets for things like merging two windows into a single window or snapping windows is not supported right now and I could anticipate that may take some substancial dev time.

I agree that the core implementation for favorites/bookmark should be the URL bar I also use it that way most of the times. Regarding the proposed UX, I don't see any advantage on moving around the history/bookmarks windows, I'll personally prefer to have them at a fixed position to the side of the browser window.

Reg the Tray, I agree with @MortimerGoro that might be confusing. I also see some other issues:

• You could end up having many tabs so it could be difficult to reach a further tab, it could require too much scrolling
• Some space will be required to show the tab name to identify which tab you want to choose and that might lead to very wide tabs so just a couple of tab visible in the tray

Don't have a formed opinion about alternatives but as for bookmarks/history I like the practical side of the Ocuclus side tabs windows.

[MortimerGoro]

@thenadj @avrignaud There is some initial design for awesome bar in #414 (UIS-21 in trello)

I think we can get awesome bar ready for v1.1 if we get a design soon (we still need to figure out the keyboard placement issue)

[thenadj]

Attached is the user flow for the new tabs, bookmarks, history and downloads design concept. It's ready for review.
Awesome bar will be designed next.
UF-31 Tabs, Bookmarks, History, Downloads_007_nh.pdf

[thenadj]

Related issue: #347

[thenadj]

DE-32 Content Feed - History and Bookmarks.pdf
Adding Content Feed Bookmarks and History to this issue.

[cvan]

@thenadj: Can we upload this issue w/ the latest designs from Trello? (I didn't want to add them here w/o checking with you first).

@philip-lamb: @jvonitter: Can we split this work out into separate GitHub issues? Or re-scope this issue to be Support tabbed browsing or something?

[thenadj]

We are in the process of working through tabs, bookmarks, downloads, history and tray right now and don't have any final designs just yet. We are meeting with @Janice Von Itter <[email protected]> tomorrow to review and brainstorm. I will share work when it's ready. Thanks @chris Van Wiemeersch <[email protected]> for checking with me before uploading Trello stuff.

[cvan]

@thenadj: @jvonitter: are we committed to sidebar tabs for v1.2? are the designs ready for implementation?

[cvan]

filed #1141 for History. we can move any History-related discussion from this issue #635 to #1141.

[cvan]

• Bookmarks: implemented
• Downloads: Implement downloads to device #672
• History: [meta] History feed #957 (viewing: Design UI + UX for viewing History #1141, clearing: Add an option to clear history (and cache, cookies, etc.) #336)

Will keep this issue open for designing Tabs. Feel free to make changes to track the design + engineering.

[jvonitter]

Changed the title to be less prescriptive.

[philip-lamb]

needed-by #519

[jvonitter]

Closing this in favor of new meta bug #1319