[Epiphany] Proposal to Change Default Toolbar Layout (http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=105983)

[Dave Bordoley <bordoley pilot msu edu>]

This proposal is loosely based upon mpt's past criticisms of mozilla's 
ui. It also is meant to take into account that by default toolbars are 
icons+text.


Issues with the current chrome layout (stolen from mpt's analysis of moz
once again, what can I say he makes some good points...)

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from: http://mpt.phrasewise.com/stories/storyReader$35

For these people, Navigator’s current toolbar layout is fundamentally
broken. The root cause is the Toolbar and Address Bar being welded
together, leaving no room for any buttons besides the standard four (Back,
Forward, Stop, and Reload)

Even for advanced users, the toolbar layout is annoying. The shortened
address field doesn’t show as much of a URI, and the auto-completion menu
doesn’t show as much of an auto-completion’s title, as it does in competing
browsers.

also see: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=65067&action=view <http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=65067&action=view> 
which is mpt's old moz layout proposal
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Dave's Proposed Layout
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Toolbar 1:
Back Forward Stop Reload | Home History Bookmarks | Find Print    Spinner

*note: I'm not so convinced about Print, but none of the other available
toolbar items seem anymore reasonable, and we have the space.

Toolbar 2:
Favicon           Location(address) entry                              Go

Adavantages of this layout
---------------------------
The proposed toolbar layout has a few advantages over the current layout.
1. Clear seperation of location information (icon, address) from tasks (ie.
navigation)

2. Better use of toolbar area. The current layout is sub par in this
respect, only providing the bare minimum of the available toolbar items.
This forces the user to delve into the menus to access some important and
commonly used items, slowing them down.

In contrast, this proposal provides the user with fast access to commonly
used web browser items, including history and bookmarks. Given that we do
not have a bookmarks menu or easy access to history (as other browsers do
via their sidebars), making these default toolbar items will drastically
increase access speed to these important dialogs. Similarly find and print
are also commonly used tools for which high speed access is preferable.

3. The propose layout works better with the various different style of
toolbar layouts, specifically priority text style (well assuming we
supported priority text), and text + icons (the gnome default). When using
these toolbar styles, the location(address) bar becomes very small with the
current layout. The proposed layout eliminates this problem.

4. Similar Layout to IE and nautilus (for better or worst). I don't
advocate copying, but IE is the most widely used web browser in the world.
By providing a similar ui, we make the switch to epiphany easier for new
users (who are a large part of our target audience of non technical users).

Disadvantages of this layout
---------------------------
The main disadvantage of the proposed layout is the use of slightly more
screen realestate. However imo, the amount of extra toolbar space added by
a second toolbar is far offset by the benefits of more default toolbar
items that provide easier access to commonly used tools.

Here's a screenshot of how ephy would look with this layout:
http://www.msu.edu/~bordoley/screenshot.png <http://www.msu.edu/%7Ebordoley/screenshot.png>