[Browser] Cannot favorite site when it is loading

[Merlijn Sebrechts]

Simple bug but annoying:

When a site is loading, the favourite star is not visible.

Use-case:
you get a website from a friend, or you click a link on a page when the network suddenly goes away. You want to save that page to look at it later, when your connection comes back. This is not possible because you can only bookmark pages after they're fully loaded.

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UX Comment:

We should definitely let users bookmark pages before they finish loading.

I think in cases where the page isn't yet known, we can use the URL as the bookmark name/ in place of a page title (I believe bookmarks currently work this way already). Ideally we'd also strip the protocol, to keep things cleaner.

Recommended behaviour:

1. Enter URL for large website with lots of images (e.g. theverge.com).
2. Before page loads, switch to airplane mode.
3. After a reasonable period (15-30 seconds) 'Network Error' page is shown.
4. 'Favourite/Star' icon is available in address bar throughout.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Qrd4Flfs3EH-fI79IfrYgLdAx2nce-L7ve8NKLCX324/edit#slide=id.g2a8e607ab_037

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

This is intentional (the code explicitly prevents bookmarking while loading). The rationale is that while loading the URL may be rewritten several times, and one usually wants to bookmark the final location.

Your use case is legitimate though, so I’m confirming, and adding an ubuntu-ux task in order to get input from design.

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

I think the description of the use case doesn’t match the actual bug title: the issue is that while a page is loading (progress bar filling), the star icon is not displayed, and one has to wait until the page is fully loaded (or the loading failed due to the network going down) to be able to bookmark it.

The question really is: is it valid to allow bookmarking a page while it’s loading?

[James Mulholland (jamesmulholland)]

Thanks for clarifying Olivier.
So a revised use-case would be:

1. Attempt to visit a URL with an active connection, page begins loading.
2. Active connection is lost. Page never finishes loading & 'Network error' page is not shown.
3. User can't ever tap star to favourite entered URL (as the star is never shown).

I think this case means we should consider showing the star even while loading, as well as when loading completes or is not possible:

- The site can be bookmarked with no active connection, from the 'Network error' page (will be the URL as originally entered).
- The site can be bookmarked when connectivity is lost while loading/ page loading cannot be completed (will be the URL as originally entered).
- The site can be bookmarked when loaded (will be the URL reached after the user has been forwarded, for example to a mobile site, etc).

Sound reasonable?

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

That sounds almost right, but for this detail: when the connection is lost, the loading will eventually time out, so the "page never finishes loading" is not really a use case. However it could happen that a page takes a very long time to load, and the user might want to bookmark the page before it finishes loading.

Note that when bookmarking a page before it finishes loading, or when it has failed to load, it is possible that the title of the page (which is the default value for the name of the bookmark) isn’t known (yet). Not much we can do about it, but something to keep in mind if we choose to allow bookmarking a page when it hasn’t finished loading.

[James Mulholland (jamesmulholland)]

Understood.

We should definitely let users bookmark pages before they finish loading.

I think in cases where the page isn't yet known, we can use the URL as the bookmark name/ in place of a page title (I believe bookmarks currently work this way already).
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Also, when I experimented with this yesterday I found that the interval before page loading is considered to have failed was very long (certainly long enough to appear to 'never finish loading'):

1. Enter URL for large website with lots of images (e.g. theverge.com).
2. Before page loads, switch to airplane mode.
3. Page loading appears to continue without end.
4. 'Favourite/Star' icon is never shown in address bar

Recommended behaviour:
1. Enter URL for large website with lots of images (e.g. theverge.com).
2. Before page loads, switch to airplane mode.
3. After a reasonable period (15-30 seconds) 'Network Error' page is shown.
4. 'Favourite/Star' icon is available in address bar throughout.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

A Web page script may change, add, or remove the page title at any time, during or after page loading.

    document.title = "Here I am changing the title"

So what the title of a bookmark should be doesn't really have anything to do with whether the page is loading. I guess it should be whatever the tab title happens to be at the time. That needs its own mini-spec: what it should be if you're viewing a text file, or an SVG with a <title> element, or a Web page that has a title consisting of only whitespace, or a <title> that's 20,000 characters long, etc.