Feedback on javadoc UI changes (original) (raw)

Alex Buckley alex.buckley at oracle.com
Wed Oct 9 18:33:11 UTC 2019

On 10/9/2019 10:29 AM, Hannes Wallnöfer wrote:

The feedback we are looking for:

- What do you prefer for scrolling up and down a page? Do you find the moving parts useful or distracting?

I find the motion of the top blue bar and search box distracting at the first scroll, but only in the most minor way.

I find the universal visibility of the search box to be very helpful and useful in #1 and #3.

I appreciate the extra screen real estate I get with #3 when the top blue bar is gone. (What about in #2? See below.)

People should remember that the search bar often contains overview information of its own -- not on the top-level javadoc page, but on module and class pages. Having that always visible is very useful on module and class pages. It would be even more useful if the "SUMMARY:" part on a class page had a "DESCRIPTION" link to get you back to the top, like the "SUMMARY:" part on a module page has.

- Which version is best for navigating to an anchor within a page (e.g. member search or internal links)?

I think #2 has a serious problem. If you scroll, and then hit any key, then the search box grabs focus -- this is useful on the many occasions when you want to search, but it means that keyboard shortcuts such as Ctrl-C are pre-empted. Specifically, if I select text anywhere on the javadoc page with the mouse, then press Ctrl-C, I see focus jump to the search box; if I then switch to another program to paste in the copied text (to quote it in an email, say), then I find the clipboard is empty, nothing was copied, Ctrl-C was pre-empted. For this reason, I disregard #2.

- Do you experience any technical problems with your particular browser?

No, everything worked as you described. Firefox 60 on Windows 10.

Alex

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