Hi Stuart, thanks for addressing these finer usability issues. Yes, the animated transitions can feel weird when triggered by a small scrolling movement. The behaviour that you prefer is called sticky positioning. I did try to use it, but wasn’t able to combine it with the requirement of making the header appear on demand (it is possible but requires quite a bit of DOM trickery).
The take-away message is that there are people who have a strong (negative) reaction to this kind of animated transition. Hannes > Am 10.10.2019 um 19:41 schrieb Stuart Marks <stuart.ma...@oracle.com>: > > One of the things I've always liked about javadoc is that it has the feel of > a static web page. Of course, it was completely static initially. As time has > gone on it's become more interactive, yet the static feeling is still there. > I think this is a big advantage, because it gives me (the user) the feeling > of absolute control, with nothing getting in my way. This is important when > I'm looking for something, or concentrating on reading some bit of the > specification. The smallest distraction is an impediment to this. > > With this in mind, the animation of the top bar is anathema. > > The problem here, as I see it, is that the animation of the top bar is > independent of how fast or how much I've scrolled. With Version 2, for > example, if I scroll down one line (one scroll wheel click), the top bar zips > up and leaves a big swath of blank space. This is merely odd. > > A different and bigger problem with Version 2 occurs when scrolling up in the > middle of the page. Suppose I'm looking for methods in the Method Summary, > which I know are in alphabetical order. I see that the method at the top of > the window is just below the method I'm interested in, so I scroll the page > up a few clicks. The top bar zips down and covers up what I'm looking at. I > think that's a problem. > > Let me suggest a variation of Version 3. Instead of the top bar animating up > after you've scrolled down a few lines, the top bar should scroll up at > exactly the same speed and distance as the main page, until the > arrow/searchbox portion of the bar is pinned against the top. Since you can > always pull it down explicitly, Version 3 lacks the zip-down misfeature I > described above in Version 2. However, when you get to the top of the page in > Version 3, instead of animating down, the top bar should scroll back into > view at the same rate as the user is scrolling the main page. > > One issue I have with Version 3 is that the top bar animates down when I > simply mouse over the down-arrow. To me, things ought to move when clicked. > Since I'm expecting to click, I'm likely to click the thing that ends up > underneath the pointer after the animation finishes, which is the Overview > link. That'll take me away from what I was looking for, a big distraction. > > Once pulled down explicitly, the top bar should either scroll away at the > same rate as the page, or it should stick there until pushed up with an > explicit action (e.g., clicking on an up-arrow, which might replace the > down-arrow). I'm not sure which is preferable. > > I know that I've seen techniques on the web that are similar to what I'm > talking about. I'll see if I can find a good example. > > s'marks > > On 10/9/19 10:29 AM, Hannes Wallnöfer wrote: >> The javadoc team is considering changes to the UI of javadoc generated >> pages, specifically the behaviour of the top navigation bar and navigating >> to anchors within a page. Since this would affect all JDK users we thought >> it was a good idea to present/discuss the alternatives here on jdk-dev. >> 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? >> - Which version is best for navigating to an anchor within a page (e.g. >> member search or internal links)? >> - Do you experience any technical problems with your particular browser? >> Here are the three versions: >> Version 1 is the conservative fix, it retains the fixed navigation bar, >> changes are mostly under the hood: >> http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~hannesw/8223378/api.00/ >> Version 2: When scrolling down, the navigation bar slides upwards and >> disappears. When scrolling back up or starting to type for a search, it >> slides back in again. >> http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~hannesw/8230852/api.04/ >> Version 3: Like version 2, but the part of the navigation bar that contains >> the search box and page-local links always remains visible. There’s an arrow >> symbol on the left to make the full navigation bar reappear. >> http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~hannesw/8230852/api.03/ >> Hannes
