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Comment by exodust | Hacker News Reader

What's this about the status bar / add-on bar gone?

The main reason why I use Status-4-Evar is because when I hover over a link I don't want that link to pop-over the page content, which is what Chrome did first, then Firefox copied like sheep. It's distracting, like a tiny little pop-over in the corner of your eye.

I like having URLs show in a status bar separate to the main web window. It's out of the way, and I just like having my web browser framed by an interface. Is that so wrong?

What's so bad about a status bar? Why is there this idea that everyone wants the full screen web?

First Mozilla forces their CEO to resign, now they're being the soup nazi over the status bar which has been with browsers since day one of web browsers. You call that progress? I call it chopping down an old tree that nobody wanted chopped down.

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It's the first thing I noticed changed, and the first thing I tried (and failed) to re-enable. I am part of the "don't like change" crowd, but normally just get used to it can carry on. This is the first functional change which actually made me a little angry!

EDIT: Found this to restore just the addon bar: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/the-addon-bar...

Nerdrage subsiding

The one that got me was when they took away 'n' to get to the next search result. Not anything to rage quit over, but it pissed me off. I now use VimFX for a few vim navigation keys, and vim-like search.

They replaced it with F3 for some reason.

Maybe because it's the Windows standard, and they think there are more Windows users than vim users?

It wasn't the n for vim search I was missing, it was the next function with a keypress, which happened to have been done with n in FF's searchbox, and coincidentally n in vim. I didn't know that they replaced it with F3.

C-G is still working so I'm fine with it :)

To me this is basically essential at the moment. Not because I hate change and am stubborn but because many extensions are still completely broken in Australis, and many websites are and will always be broken by badly implemented popup status bars

I like change as long as I can turn off things that annoy. I do hate change that takes features away and unfortunately that is the current trends.

I love it. The status bar struck me as weird cruft that was irrelevant the vast majority of the time. I've been using it in aurora and beta for a while now and I quite like the screen real estate.

It's not a new feature, either. The statusbar has been a "only when hovering on a link" for many releases.

Yet another feature copied from Opera....

At this point some of the most beloved browser features in nearly every browser came from Opera.

Okay... but you could always turn if off. I personally like having my 'status' things down there, things like gmail, lastpass, etc. I prefer to have the status items separated from the control-type items on top. I don't see why they had to nuke it.

I don't get it either. "Status 4 ever" didn't help either. But I found a way:

Get this addon:

https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/classicthemerest...

Activate the "Bottombar Toolbar" by right clicking somewhere on the top space where the bars are.

Now you have a small bar down there. Open the new funky customization menue and drag the "Statustext"-Element down there.

The only problem is that you'll find your Start-Button above the text...

Somehow I find myself installing even more Add-Ons with every major UI "improvisation" to keep a useful UI. I wish it would be the other way around where you got standard and customized from there.

This did not work for me. In fact classic theme restorer broke FF's Customize... menu feature, as well as the hamburger menu at the end of the toolbar - it is now completely inoperable, even after removing it.

Ok this is weird. I just repeated the procedure on my office PC and it worked. Do you have an theme active probably?

As far as I'm aware, I did not have a theme active.

I spent several hours debugging this. Chiefly the culprit turned out to be "Default Full Zoom Level" extension.

However, during the debugging process, I did a binary search through prefs.js looking for the problem. If I removed this line:

    user_pref("browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone", "29.0");

... the browser worked properly again. Very peculiar. Of course, this was written into the prefs.js again upon exit, so when restarted the browser was broken again.

Classic Theme Restorer probably wasn't the problem. Probably the problem only showed up because that was the first restart post-upgrade (to enable the extension).

They started following the Chrome screwed-up-statusbar a long time ago. It's like noone in the webdev space knows the basic usability adage, "Don't use popups!". The Chrome-style hover-status thing is a popup. Statusbars are correct.

Disagree. The statusbar is barely useful for me - all I use it for is to peek at where links will take me; it's good to save that real estate for content. Things that default to the statusbar (some app buttons) I put up top in the addressbar, with a wide screen there's plenty of room for a few buttons there.

The status bar is excellent for what the name indicates i.e. status. FoxyClocks in a great example - allows me to check the time in different countries at a glance, is too wide to fit on a top-side toolbar and basically something that is always present but not obtrusive.

I can't accept a message popping up over top of existing content, distracting the user to a different part of the screen, based on mouse-hover of all things (so it's sure to jump out all the time). They mitigate this a bit by adding time-delays but that's even worse.

The status bar IMO should have more things e.g. download status, but the browsers chose not go to that direction. OK, then remove the statusbar and put the link-direction in the location bar instead during the hover.

Agree, I don't understand how every major browser came to adopt that popup thing instead of just putting the link preview into the address bar. I use this addon which does exactly that https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/link-location...

They're cutting down on unnecessary chrome. I can't say I have a problem with it; less chrome means more room for page content. A bit like why Apple added fullscreen apps.

You kind of make it sound as if Apple invented maximized windows... :-)

Fullscreen, not maximized

But yeah, apple is far away from having invented it

A maximized window still shows all of the chrome, as well as system menus. Full-screen apps (not that Apple invented them) hide the window chrome as well as the various system menus.

OS X's full screen apps aren't maximzed windows. If I put Sublime into full screen mode, there's no window, no menu bar. It's a text editor taking up the entire screen.

If I were to maximize Sublime on Windows, Linux, or OS X (green button), you still have the chrome from the windowing system and the OS's menu bars.

Also, the parent comment makes no claim Apple invented anything, he/she is just drawing a comparison people would be familiar with. Frankly, it's more than a little annoying to me that you have to distract from the topic to make completely non-constructive dig at a company you seem to dislike and completely miss the point of the comparison in doing so.

>If I were to maximize Sublime on [...] Linux.

I don't use sublime, but on Linux (Ubuntu GNOME) when you full screen an app the window decorations are hidden and so are the status/window menus.

Edit: before you downvote, please explain why??

You're being downvoted because you are incorrect. Ubuntu GNOME does not have an equivalent of OS X full screen build in to the windowing system. It has a maximize button that doesn't remove the chrome, it just makes the window take up the most of the screen. In OS X, there is no window. The app is completely edge to edge similar like an iOS app except without the status bar.

Edit:

Ubuntu "Fullscreen": http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EnulBlkjTEM/Tzo7Fo3l3uI/AAAAAAAAHw...

OS X Fullscreen: http://www3.pcmag.com/media/images/237835-iphoto-11-albums-i...

But that's not full screen though. That's maximize, you are incorrect.

http://i.imgur.com/lO0g7oS.gif

Interesting. I've never seen this before and the only references I've been able to find on it in a quick search was a compiz setting in 12.04.

Is this built in to the stock ubuntu releases? If so, what version?

This is Ubuntu Gnome. I'm currently Using Ubuntu 14.04 with Gnome 3.10, but afaik it works on Ubuntu 13.x and GNOME 3.x.

Not sure about the Unity interface as I have limited experience with it.

FWIW that F11 transition works the same for me on KDE (4.12.3) on Kubuntu 13.10 - it's been there for quite a time.

I'm using Firefox with the borders set off right now. This gives me a window with no external chrome (no border, no titlebar, no buttons, no scroll area) but set with the standard KDE application bar (which I keep at the bottom a la Win95).

Indeed before Firefox ditched the menubar I used an app to get the same effect pinching a lot of real-estate back (titlebar, menubar, buttonbar). It's interesting that things have moved this way, though not surprising.

Chrome on Elementary OS (Probably consider this Ubuntu 12.04 for this purpose) does a completely chromeless fullscreen on F11 too. Out of interest does OS X support fullscreen on all apps automatically or does the button (it's a window control right?) only show up for supported apps?

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Genera...

Fullscreen mode has been a standard feature of Linux window managers for a long time - it was certainly available in the metacity WM (used by Gnome 2) 10 years ago.

There was little need to reference Apple though, as Firefox can do the exact same thing by pressing F11 (on Windows).

I disagree. The reference why Apple added Full Screen.

Why did Apple make a Full Screen feature in their operating system? Minimalism and simplicity.

Why does Firefox have a fullscreen option? Because most browsers had that option and it's a useful feature once in a while. Not a compelling reference.

Do you have a source for this, or did you just make up some reasons to justify mentioning Apple? ...

Do pay attention. This sub thread started with a mention of Apple.

Do pay attention. I commented on the need to mention Apple in this sub thread, as Firefox (the main topic here, if I'm not mistaken) had the same functionality. Then, epochwolf stated that the reasons for implementing the added functionality were different, and therefore the mention of Apple added to the original comment. I then commented asking whether or not he had a source for stating the reasons for implementing said functionality, since it seems as though they're unsubstantiated.

Sublime text (and many apps) have full screen functionality in Windows and Linux. Admittedly, Sublime Text leaves a menu bar, but it's about as minimal a menu bar as you could get. Chrome, Firefox, all media players, all games etc. have full screen (no chrome) modes.

They had them well before full screen on OS X became a "thing".

Your reply misses the point that the original comparison was flawed. It was like saying "A bit like why Apple added ASLR" or "A bit like why Apple added CUPS". They invented neither and were first to market with neither.

> If I were to maximize Sublime on Windows, Linux, or OS X (green button), you still have the chrome from the windowing system and the OS's menu bars.

Yes, if you maximize. However if you go fullscreen (F11) the chrome disappears.

Except fullscreen apps are actually a bit more than maximised windows: They remove both the top of the title bar and other operating system bars, leaving just the control interfaces, and content. For example, chrome would just have the tabs, address bar, and content, without operating system bars, and without the program titlebar.

I run Firefox with a lot of plugins. I rely on the status bar (add-on bar) to keep many of the plugin notification / configuration buttons out of my toolbar.

From my perspective, Firefox is working hard to drive me away, by removing its distinguishing features that make it different from Chrome.

You should keep in mind that the use-case for Firefox is that the default install focuses on the general user, and add-ons are intended for people looking for something extra/different. You can get the add-on bar back easy by grabbing the 'classic theme restorer' add-on. It allows enabling-disabling a variety of features.

I can't say I agree with all of their choices, but I'm running 29 right now and I don't feel like any functionality or customizability is lost from the last version. If you're not looking for the defaults you can change pretty much everything you want with a few add-ons and about 10 minutes or so of configuration.

Can you stick them all in the menu at the end of the toolbar? https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customize-firefox-contr...

No, because I need them to be visible to show their status.

That's why the new hamburger menu is so awesome. You can put all the addon buttons that you don't want taking up space on the main toolbar in there.

That would be great if they didn't also display status.

I felt the same way as you but try putting them in the "bookmarks toolbar". It works similarly and it's quite nice to have everything at the top of the screen after a while.

The bookmarks toolbar is already used by... bookmarks. Who would have known? We shouldn't have to find new places for things that display status just because Mozilla takes away their designated space. "No more status bar. Hey, why don't you stick that in the bookmark bar. You don't use that for bookmarks, do you?"

It's a workaround.

The Customize mode seems fairly flexible, for shuffling things between the three fixed-position bars, ie. the menu, navigation and bookmarks bars (probably the tab bar as well though I don't use tabs myself).

I wonder why you can't just add new blank bars, at either the top or bottom, to fill up to your heart's content with that same Customize mode. That would undo most of the need for things like Status-4-Evar.

This hasn't changed in version 29, by the way. 'Customize' in version 28 also let you juggle controls around any of the menu, navigation, bookmarks or add-on bars pretty generically. In fact, for all the fanfare about how revolutionary a change this new UI is, the only real functional difference in it I can see between 28 and 29 is the removal of the add-on bar, ie. the only one of the bars whose fixed position happened to be at the bottom, rather than the top.

(Of course I don't really believe that this release is specifically intended to troll people who like having some controls at the bottom of their screen, but I must admit that if you did want to do that, then this would be a good way to do it. I'm sticking with 28 until Status-4-Evar catches up. Also thanks for the suggestion of the "Addon Bar" extension elsewhere in the thread, seen and noted.)

I'm very curious about your statement that you don't use tabs. Why not? Do you really only ever have one page open at once?

I open everything in a new window, and juggle windows at the desktop level with the help of a nifty Alt+Tab enhancer.

I know there's a use case for using seperate windows to group tabs by topic, but I don't like having that organization forced on me.

Also, I don't use a tiling window manager, but they tend to have their own ways of dealing with large numbers of windows, I hear.

Actually, they also removed the ability to disable the navigation bar, which is very annoying for me because I use Vimperator. It can be removed by installing an extension, but I don't understand why they would remove this functionality.

You're right, and having read some other posts in this thread (CompuHacker) and taken another look, I see that the new "Customize" is more diminished in the new version than I previously made out. They're going more towards a fixed default look with permanently fused-together buttons and the like, and this kind of customization further pushed out to extensions.

I wonder if they'll add it back in time? Though I suppose if it's expendable then it's not a huge deal.

I was upset about this too, but fortunately there is a way around this using the Vimperator itself:

    :set gui=nonavigation

There's already a newer version with Status-4-Evar which works with FF29, and adds a customizable bar back to the bottom of the screen. It's somewhat hidden away and not the 'stable' version yet, but it's working fine for me - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/status-4-evar...

The status bar temporarily appears when hovering over a URL, so at least that's still there.

I agree with you. There is an addon to correct it though:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemer...

If it is official, they should verify the author.

(Or admit that the notification that the author is not verified is meaningless)

edit: Also, on my install, the version there makes Firefox 29 lock up when I click on options. But my profile is pretty ancient.

My mistake, sorry, I thought it was official because it's linked to on the Mozilla support page and I thought the developer "Aris" related to "Australis".

The similarity in names is only a coincidence.

You can put the link preview directly into the address bar with this addon https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/link-location... Status-4-Evar can actually do the same but it's a bit of a hassle to configure if you don't need its other features.

I so much agree with you. O hate the interface changes.

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