RFC browser: URL bar, bounce effect, performance

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Thursday, October 27, 2011 16:54:05 Fania Bremmer wrote:
> creating our own active browser from the scratch? Is there no well
> suitable browser out there, that we can adapt to touch? I have the

our realistic options are limited to three kinds of apps:

* ones that work well and have lots of features (e.g. Firefox mobile, or 
Google's Chrome-based brwoser), but we'd have to adapt the UI significantly to 
blend in and do various integration bits (e.g. virtual keyboard plugins). they 
would also usually tie us into supporting more libraries rather than less in 
our core install as they use things like gtk+

* QtWebKit based apps .. all of which are desktopy and so would require 
essentially the same amount (or more) work as we're putting into it right now

* proprietary apps

we are sorely in need of an open source browser written in Qt for mobile. they 
exist, except for the open source part (he says, glaring at Nokia ..)

it's a really annoying situation to be in.

> feeling that we are having lots of work to do to make the current active
> browser better usable... But just my 2 cents.

agreed; it will be a lot of work. i really hope we can encourage groups such 
as the rekonq team or entirely new developers to pick up the ball, though, as 
we start showing successes with PA.

your RFC's look a lot like the sort one gets from showing it on a tradeshow 
floor, though. my own wishlist items include many of yours, but at the top of 
my list are things that are actual use-prevention issues such as the lack of 
"save as" or "open with" when clicking on a link that doesn't return HTML; or 
how it fails with an error when something on the page doesn't load (but not 
the page itself!). i have a small list of them i collected while using it 
during vacation.

> RFC1:
> ** Proposed Change **
> leave the URL bar in the active browser on top and visible all the time
> while scrolling down
> 
> ** Reason For Change **
> users want to change quickly the url (as we dont have tabs currently) to
> move to other websites and its irritating if the whole URL bar moves up
> and dissappears

as with Thomas, i'd rather see a quick gusture or some always-there chrome off 
to the side somewhere that would let me quickly get the URL bar back. any idea 
on that?

> RFC2:
> ** Proposed Change **
> Improve the loading speed for websites to 3 sec max for displaying it.

this requires work in QtWebKit and as such is out of scope for us. upgrading 
to Qt 4.8 may already give us benefits, moving to WebKit2 based QtWebKit when 
it is available should as well.

> RFC3:
> ** Proposed Change **
> If scrolling a website to its end, it should be indicated by a small
> bounce of the content - not shaking the whole interface browser
> background to white background and bouncing back.

i'm not 100% sure what you mean here; do you mean that the html page 
background should stay and just the page "content" (text, etc) should bounce? 
if so, i don't think that's feasible to implement without getting into 
QtWebKit itself.

> RFC4:
> ** Proposed Change **
> The zoom gesture should scale exactly into the position where the two
> fingers are put on the screen.

can't comment as i don't have a PA device with working multitouch atm, but the 
relevant code is in doZoom in plasma-
mobile/applications/webbrowser/package/contents/ui/content/FlickableWebView.qml

> RFC5:
> ** Proposed Change **
> Add tabs to Browser.

this would be very nice; the "thumbnails down the side" approach would be 
nicer.

> RFC6:
> ** Proposed Change **
> Put the reload button in front of the URL or move SLC icons.

won't you just hit the other buttons in that case?

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE core developer sponsored by Qt Development Frameworks
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 198 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
URL: <http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/active/attachments/20111027/a8ce169c/attachment.sig>