Re: Firefox Mobile BETA 1
 

Well, it is a beta application with a slightly different-than-normal UI paradigm for a market which is currently almost non-existant. The only competitor in this market as of now is MobileSafari by Apple.

Text has to be translated. Pictures/symbols you learn once and you're done with them. If you prefer a touch UI browser which uses a lot of text then you can use a different one, like MicroB. I can assure you however, that in my case, I'd love to have S60Browser give me more feedback in pictures/icons/symbols. Hmm, lets see...

Options on left button -> touch the button and the options are (translated):
* Subscription (on what? RSS feeds, a RSS symbol with a + would be a welcome substitution)
** "RSS feed name one"
** "RSS feed name two"
* Go to address (replacement for URI bar)
* Bookmarks
* Save as bookmark
* Navigation options
** Reload
** History
** Page oversight
* Full screen
* Zoom options
** 50%
** 75%
** 100%
** 125%
* Window
** Move between windows
** Close
** Allow pop-ups
* Clean privacy related data
** All
** Clean cache
** Delete cookies
** History
** Form.-/wachtwrdgeg. (???)
* Instruments
** Show workbox (not clear what this is)
** Change connection
** Disconnect
** Save page
** Send page
** Info about page
* Search
** Text
** Telnumber
** E-mail address
* Settings
* Printoptions
** Print page
** Page settings
** Example
** Printers (Not I do not even have a printer configured on the device...)
* Help
* Quit

The right button on the S60 device allows one to go a page back or close the window. Thank god. However all the above is there in text form and I keep searching my *** off. Had they used conventional symbols instead... and some words (maybe due to translation) make no sense whatsoever. They are not descriptive.

If you look at it from this angle text is not necessarily good. It takes up more page than symbols as well. When the EU was formed there was a goal to harmonize the traffic signs. Some countries had some really odd ones which were not conventional. Some differences were slight. Here, standards are to be set as well.

How? Is this for iPhoneOS applications in general? I surely haven't figured this out yet. I keep scrolling to the top.

I'm not sure about this. To me, this sounds like a sensibility issue of the touchscreen. The way the interface works in this regard (related to gestures) should be consistent. Even if you find a feature illogic, it should at least be consistenly illogic :D

Re: Firefox Mobile BETA 1
 

definitely more usable than the last iteration. Fixed that annoying side bar issue as well.

Re: Firefox Mobile BETA 1
 

I'm going to set the performance issues aside and hopefully eventually see fennec as fast, if not faster than microb. Overall, I could work with fennec's interface and like having the full screen while only a stroke away from accessing bookmarks, settings or other open pages. My biggest complaint, and it's been mentioned above, comes from the lack of a scroll bar. I really find moving around on a webpage frustrating and even when the performance issues improve where we don't have to wait for a webpage to fully load before getting the page to move around, I'd still find it annoying trying to get to the bottom of an article. A virtual scroll bar that disappears would be my suggestion, but overall I can see the improvements in beta 1 being more usable. I hope there is lots more to come on performance improvements and interface tweaks.

Re: Firefox Mobile BETA 1
 

I uninstalled the alpha version to make way for this. When it started up it seemed obvious that either something is missing or else what is there doesn't work.

I assumed that this is because it is only a beta so I have given up to wait for the next release.

Based on what you say I shall go and find the manual and try again.

Re: Firefox Mobile BETA 1
 

From release notes:

Heres a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhgj0J6CFes

Re: Firefox Mobile BETA 1
 

Here is a video for the V1.0 Beta
http://blog.pavlov.net/2009/03/17/fennec-1-beta-1/
I am getting there now.

Re: Firefox Mobile BETA 1
 

True, but that's just trying to make it easier for the developer, not the user. Not just that, but like you said, you have to *learn* the action. Once you've learned it, the icons are only reminders for something you already know what to do. The most important use here is teaching new users new interactions the first time using it, and these icons aren't doing the job.

Tap on the top-most bar (with the time/network/etc. on it). Works system-wide.

Funny enough, I JUST figured this out today and it has a lot to do with ergonomics. It's because when I am scrolling up, my swipes are not as straight as when they are going down.

Simultaneously, Fennec does NOT take into consideration that most people can't pefectly drag straight up and down -- you can see this when you try to flick-scroll when zoomed in: the page will slightly shift left or right at the same time (being right-handed, it's to the right for me). It's impossible to drag a page down without shifting it slightly.

Now the kicker: Try swiping the tabs open. You'll notice that the location bar appears almost immediately, while the tabs panel is animated open.

Add these together, and you'll see what was happening. As I was scrolling up, I would pull slightly to the right, causing the tabs to start revealing. This would cause the location bar to appear, as the tabs were slightly being pulled open, then disappear since I didn't drag right far enough. In the end, it looks like there was a weird gesture I wasn't doing correctly to make the location bar stick around, but in fact having the location bar attached to the page top *and* both the left and right panels just didn't make sense to me. And because I was so focused on the panel contents when I did intentionally open them, I never "saw" the location bar there as well. IOW, fairly unintuitive design.

BTW, the original Mac OS HIG has a lot to stay about how menu panels are triggered and kept open on a curve because users don't ever move on perfect vert/horiz paths. If you've ever had a hard time moving from menu panel A to menu sub-panel B, it's because someone was too strict about that movement and didn't allow room for error. There's definitely a lesson for Fennec to learn there if they want to make the flick-scrolling feel natural since they've added these left and right panels to dragging a page around.

Re: Firefox Mobile BETA 1
 

Oh and don't get me wrong, I know it's beta... I criticize because this is the time for things to get fixed. :)

Re: Firefox Mobile BETA 1
 

Your argument fails. If people didn't attempt to reinvent the wheel or solve non-existent problems we wouldn't have progress or diversity. You may be happy with the tools available right now but in a few years you may find that you can't live without a minor detail that was introduced now.

Either way, rather than complain about what is being proposed, just use what you like and leave the trial and error to those of us interested in new tech.

Personally, I like the idea of gesture navigation. I'm happy to see the scrollbar as a nav device gone. However, I do agree that a visual cue for where you are on the page is needed. I don't own an iPhone but if I'm interpreting what I read above properly then there is a semi-transparent scrollbar for this purpose. I don't know if it is used as a nav device though.

I like the icons. They make sense to me. I agree that using icons over text is the most logical method for an internationally used application.

Re: Firefox Mobile BETA 1
 

Yes, but there's a BIG difference between identification and instruction. Iconography is about identification.

Again, we're focusing too much on icons- or text-only, and not on whether these icons are instructional enough. The only way you'll find that out for sure is by user-testing with people who have **never used Fennec before**. We, by the very nature of being on this forum, are not valid test subjects.
I ran a mini-test with my wife, who is no dummy at computers (she is able to Screen Share into our Mac mini HTPC just fine, knows what SSH is, and does light admin of the computers at her office). I ran Fennec, handed her the tablet and stylus, and set it up as such: "Being a Firefox fan (which she is), you've just seen that Firefox Mobile is available and you've downloaded it. When you run it, this is the first screen you see. What do you do next?"

Ultimately the answer was "I don't know what I'm supposed to do." First, she thought the hand was representative of a link cursor, and thought the icons were clickable (they aren't). Then, as I suspected, she mistook the tabs icon to mean something about the Maemo environment, since (a) Maemo has a left-panel, right-content UI of its own and (b) the app doesn't start up in fullscreen mode, so you can still see Maemo's task space on the left. I kept reminding her that it was a browser, hoping that the controls icon might click with her, seeing the left and right triangles. But that's the problem as well -- they are triangles, not arrows, which is what you'd see in Firefox. Ironically, she actually dragged out the tabs panel about a quarter-way but not enough to open it up completely (so it quickly vanished), but didn't make the connection because it wasn't expected and she was too focused thinking it might do something else.

The most egregious part of all is that the location bar ISN'T IMMEDIATELY VISIBLE. This meant until she figured out the drag gestures, she couldn't even use the browser at all, not even to type in a URL.

BTW: Once I told her (and her mother who was observing as well) what the icons were, she said "Oh come on, who would figure out *that's* what they mean." :)