Firefox/Projects/Connecting Status

The status bar has been removed, and with it went status messages about the progress of a page load. The result is that when a network connection or page takes a long time to load, the browser can look hung.

• Project Lead: beltzner
• Development Lead: tbd

Status

Design stage, need to find implementation resources.

Goals

• Provide feedback for slow loading pages

Non Goals

• Provide status that can be used to debug connection problems

Timeline / Milestones

• Jan 14 - Complete design proposal
• Jan 19 - Patch ready for review
• Jan 21 - Patch checked into tree

These are the bugs of interest:

Requirements

• Shows difference between connecting and downloading states
• Only shows when there is a long (>1s) delay in loading a document
• Doesn't "chirp" as much as previous statusbar text

Design Specification

• EVENT: page navigation
  • backwards throbber begins
• IF: no data received within 1s
  • backwards throbber continues
  • "Connecting..." appears in link preview area
• EVENT: connection is obtained
  • backwards throbber continues
• IF: no paint event within 1s
  • "Waiting..." appears in link preview area
• EVENT: paint event
  • forward throbber starts
  • link preview area cleared

Questions

• should we show the URL that we're waiting for?
• should we show that we're waiting after the first paint event?

Related

UX team's spec, which aims to clarify what should happen when slow resources from other servers are requested as part of a page: File:Indicator spec.pdf

Dependencies

• Status bar removed

Testing

• QA will need to test on slower connections / slow loading pages

Related Projects

• Status Bar Removal
• Link Preview in Location Bar