4 ms·

I find it infuriating how designers keep adding more and more whitespace and padding on my desktop computer. If you want to make your UI easier to use on touch

I find it infuriating how designers keep adding more and more whitespace and padding on my desktop computer. If you want to make your UI easier to use on touch devices that's fine, but Windows 10 has a tablet mode that I keep disabled, so there's no reason to assume I'm not using a mouse. If I go to Customize toolbar there's three density options: Touch, Normal, and Compact (not supported). Why aren't there a supported compact mode, and why is the normal mode so full of unnecessary padding? With the new design my bookmarks menu that previously had plenty of vertical space left now needs scrolling. Tabs have poor contrast and lack visual anchoring to the web content they contain. I'm going to keep browser.proton.enabled to false in about:config as long as it's possible.

Scarbutt 5y ago
'Compact' is flagged as not supported but looks like it still works.
- starik36 5y ago
  How do you turn it on? I don't see it.
  - Scarbutt 5y ago
    Looks like they made it harder to find the option to customize the toolbar. Right click on toolbar, select 'Customize Toolbar', click 'Density' option at the bottom (I'm macos).
    - starik36 5y ago
      Looks like "Compact" is only in the list, if you had it selected prior. If not, then go to about:config and set "browser.proton.enabled" to false. Then, you'll get the option. What a mess.
      - noisem4ker 5y ago
        You're looking for the "browser.compactmode.show" key.
- sva_ 5y ago
  The searchbar looks odd now. Something weird going on with the font rendering as well (on Linux) ... ugh. https://i.imgur.com/DEgnh2t.png https://i.imgur.com/DEgnh2t.png https://i.imgur.com/8lreTHi.png https://i.imgur.com/8lreTHi.png
- sjagoe 5y ago
  "works" in quotes. Compact after an update I measured as a third taller than "normal" density before the update (100px vs 75px). I want maximum vertical space for the website, not for the browser UI. It's really not compact anymore.
coffeefirst 5y ago
This is absurd, but I wound up finding some settings in about:config to compensate for it. - browser.compactmode.show = true, which brings back compact - layout.css.devPixelsPerPx scales the whole app. I brought it down from 2 to 1.95, which looks normal scale on a retina screen. - But this also scales down the content of the page. To compensate for that, I want to be zoomed in slightly at all times. So I added 1.05 to toolkit.zoomManager.zoomValues, and then set 1.05 as the browser default. The tabs shrink back down to normal scale, the web stays the same, and it fits much better on my 13" display. Having the tabs be free-floating buttons is still weird, but you can't win them all.
silicon2401 5y ago
I miss text that would just wrap along the length of the window. Using Github always infuriates me because I have a nice, wide macbook screen, yet they force code to be displayed in a text box that uses maybe 1/3 of my screen width
- dsr_ 5y ago
  That would be Github's fault; if they specifed boxes in percentages they would have different problems...
  - zmmmmm 5y ago
    sadly it seems to be very common UI pattern these days. Heaps of standard layouts / static generators for documentation etc. seem to have given up on the original concept of flexible layout and just pin things at a fixed max width. Very sad.
- nicbou 5y ago
  My monitor is too wide for this to make sense
  - account42 5y ago
    You are not forced to run your browser maximized.
vort3 5y ago
Having empty space is considered «clean», «light», «fresh» and having less buttons (by hiding everything into some menus that you need 3 clicks to access) is called «streamlined interface». I hate that too. On my phone that is 2.5x larger than my old Samsung I see less information on screen compared to old phone, because everything needs to be «light» and «clean».

Scarbutt 5y ago

'Compact' is flagged as not supported but looks like it still works.

starik36 5y ago
How do you turn it on? I don't see it.
- Scarbutt 5y ago
  Looks like they made it harder to find the option to customize the toolbar. Right click on toolbar, select 'Customize Toolbar', click 'Density' option at the bottom (I'm macos).
  - starik36 5y ago
    Looks like "Compact" is only in the list, if you had it selected prior. If not, then go to about:config and set "browser.proton.enabled" to false. Then, you'll get the option. What a mess.
    - noisem4ker 5y ago
      You're looking for the "browser.compactmode.show" key.
sva_ 5y ago
The searchbar looks odd now. Something weird going on with the font rendering as well (on Linux) ... ugh. https://i.imgur.com/DEgnh2t.png https://i.imgur.com/DEgnh2t.png https://i.imgur.com/8lreTHi.png https://i.imgur.com/8lreTHi.png
sjagoe 5y ago
"works" in quotes. Compact after an update I measured as a third taller than "normal" density before the update (100px vs 75px). I want maximum vertical space for the website, not for the browser UI. It's really not compact anymore.

coffeefirst 5y ago

This is absurd, but I wound up finding some settings in about:config to compensate for it. - browser.compactmode.show = true, which brings back compact - layout.css.devPixelsPerPx scales the whole app. I brought it down from 2 to 1.95, which looks normal scale on a retina screen. - But this also scales down the content of the page. To compensate for that, I want to be zoomed in slightly at all times. So I added 1.05 to toolkit.zoomManager.zoomValues, and then set 1.05 as the browser default. The tabs shrink back down to normal scale, the web stays the same, and it fits much better on my 13" display. Having the tabs be free-floating buttons is still weird, but you can't win them all.

silicon2401 5y ago

I miss text that would just wrap along the length of the window. Using Github always infuriates me because I have a nice, wide macbook screen, yet they force code to be displayed in a text box that uses maybe 1/3 of my screen width

dsr_ 5y ago
That would be Github's fault; if they specifed boxes in percentages they would have different problems...
- zmmmmm 5y ago
  sadly it seems to be very common UI pattern these days. Heaps of standard layouts / static generators for documentation etc. seem to have given up on the original concept of flexible layout and just pin things at a fixed max width. Very sad.
nicbou 5y ago
My monitor is too wide for this to make sense
- account42 5y ago
  You are not forced to run your browser maximized.

vort3 5y ago

Having empty space is considered «clean», «light», «fresh» and having less buttons (by hiding everything into some menus that you need 3 clicks to access) is called «streamlined interface». I hate that too. On my phone that is 2.5x larger than my old Samsung I see less information on screen compared to old phone, because everything needs to be «light» and «clean».