Firefox/Projects/PanelImprovements

Summary

Improve panels in a number of ways. See XUL:Panel_Improvements for specifics of which features would be useful.

Current Status

Still in preparation and investigation phase.

Next Steps

Both of these can be done independently:

• Implement titlebars in panels (bug 552982). This is harder and needs some layout/widget support.
• Create a binding for arrow popups and implement appropriate event handling. This is easier and will likely need tweaks as specific usages are discovered and implemented.

Related Bugs

Bugs are pointed to by XUL:Panel_Improvements.

Team

Enn

Goals/Use Cases

This is a tentative list of how we may use panels in Firefox's UI in the future:

• [currently in use] Bookmark properties
• [currently in use] Site identity
• Context menu on hyperlink > "Bookmark This Link"
• Context menu on bookmark > "Properties"
• Notification of site level events (password manager, geolocation, popups blocked, xpi install, etc.)
• Download progress (Limi is the main contact, he'll post details soon)
• Items on the extension bar, both jetpacks and converted traditional toolbars (Boriss is the main contact)
• Test pilot notifications from the extension bar, not technically part of Firefox but nonetheless a good example of extensions using panels for parts of their UI.
• Firebug would like to have some floating tool palette panels.