I started to use mobile (phone, tablet) more and more on forums. As you post images or links, you want to check the preview, but I find the two step click a bit inconvenient.
Have read this topic, where feature was introduced:
I find this mini-hamburger menu as very hard to notice (discoverability issue) and find two click process as two much for such common feature. I see this on same level as insert image, which is available all the time.
I see following two options how to improve it:
Show toolbar always
Better discoverability for whole toolbar - I find that you can afford one additional line of vertical space for it on modern mobile devices.
Mini-hamburger removed for better top bar (prevent misclick on colapse editor)
Can move image button from bottom to toolbar to make it on same spot as others (consistency)
Preview button could be moved in the place of image upload button - as it has impact on whole post, similar as other buttons below.
Add preview button next to image upload
Saves one click, improves discoverability
Maybe confusing with image button next to it?
I think option 1. would greatly improve mobile editor.
What are you talking about? The toolbar, which includes the preview toolbar button, does show by default on mobile. Are you on an unusual device?
Although now that I think about it, if we are removing the duplicated upload button from the toolbar, and we have the upload button at bottom right on mobile… preview button might make sense there since it is also a mobile only thing? What do you think @sam?
Problem is that even after turning the “saving” into an animation, there can still be an error like “Edit Conflict” or “Drafts Offline” which then would still be displayed as text and thus require more width.
An Idea I have on this one would be to show a cross instead of a check if there is an error and show the error message as a tooltip if the user hovers the cross.
I can confirm that this is not always the case. It seems that the toolbar retains its visibility state from the last time it was changed (not sure what state it is in for a new user).
Steps to repro here on meta:
open composer
select hamburger menu to toggle edit toolbar (hide)
exit composer without saving
open composer
toolbar is still hidden (it persists even on browser close)
It is visible by default for a new user, except when the viewport is very small, and on new topic creation (as that adds category selector which takes up additional space).
I don’t think this would be clear enough, to the point where an X might be more confusing than having nothing at all… I’m also assuming that “drafts offline” probably happens more often with flaky mobile connections so there’s no tooltip.
I don’t think coming up with a “connection issue” type of icon would be too hard for the draft case… but edit conflict is much harder to convey. Maybe edit conflict could be more interruptive anyway? A little overlay like the posting errors? Not sure.
For “Draft offline” Fontawesome would have Icons like “signal-slashed” or “wifi-slashed”. But both icons are only available with the pro version.
And isn’t edit conflict already a full popup or sth like that? Probably no need for a draft status then.
Ok, this is probably what got me confused. Is it really not enough space to just have it always and remove mini-hamburger altogether?
I think such simplification would improve ux.
This is for mobile, there is no hover on mobile. Tapping on it could show something but the use case is so narrow I don’t feel we need to gold plate it.
