Move hide preview button to line between composer and preview

[barryvan (Barry van Oudtshoorn)]

Help us test a new composer style

I made “hide preview” grey to de-emphasize it. There is a fair bit more blue now with the blue bar, so we risk burying the blue reply button which is the primary action … there’s no way “hide preview” needs to be full blue drawing all that attention to itself, as we’ve definitely used up our blue ink attention budget.

I wonder if the “hide preview” text could actually be hidden entirely, in favour of a tall thin button between the composer and the preview; something like this, perhaps?

[codinghorror (Jeff Atwood)]

Help us test a new composer style

f the “hide preview” text could actually be hidden entirely, in favour of a tall thin button between the composer and the preview; something like this, perhaps?

Adding more bright blue is definitely not a good idea IMO. And adding a dynamic preview resize bar is out of scope for what we’re doing here, that would be a fairly major feature to add, that we’ve never had.

I think if preview is going to float with a transparent / clear background, having the text there explaining what it is, and acting as a toggle, is quite important.

[jomaxro (Joshua Rosenfeld)]

Help us test a new composer style

And adding a dynamic preview resize bar is out of scope for what we’re doing here, that would be a fairly major feature to add, that we’ve never had.

I like @barryvan’s suggestion. I don’t believe he was suggesting a resizable preview area, just replacing the text “hide preview” with a button in the middle. Could be grey/black if blue is too much.

[codinghorror (Jeff Atwood)]

Yes, but that’s still a sizable change, we’re mostly looking at cosmetics at this time, and as I already said

Help us test a new composer style

I think if preview is going to float with a transparent / clear background, having the text there explaining what it is, and acting as a toggle, is quite important.

In general it is a good idea to remove text we have to translate, whenever we can, but I don’t think so in this particular specific case, at least not right now.

[barryvan (Barry van Oudtshoorn)]

Help us test a new composer style

Adding more bright blue is definitely not a good idea IMO. And adding a dynamic preview resize bar is out of scope for what we’re doing here, that would be a fairly major feature to add, that we’ve never had.

The bright blue was just a placeholder – I’d likely make this thinner, grey, and with a nicer icon. And it shouldn’t be resizable – just a collapser. Something along these lines is probably a bit more subtle:

Help us test a new composer style

Yes, but that’s still a sizable change

Not overly so, I think – it’s mainly changing the location of the “hide preview” link in the DOM, and some minor CSS styling.

From a user’s perspective, though, it is quite a large change, because rather than things just looking a little prettier, things will move – and so there could be some initial confusion.

[notriddle (Michael Howell)]

Separating the preview from the text box with a line doesn’t have to imply putting a button on that line.

[codinghorror (Jeff Atwood)]

In my opinion this adds a fair bit of new complexity to the composer, and the marginal benefit of slightly less translated text – since we already have that text area reserved at the bottom – is not worth it.

It’s arguably a worse UI, since the words are fairly clear and help identify the floating area on the right. Take that away and you make the UI less clear. What is that area on the right?

In summary, I would be quite opposed to this change.