[Browser] Needs a refresh button, and address bar keeps disappearing

[Kavoura]

The web browser needs a refresh button, sometimes websites need to be refreshed. I would expect either a refresh button or dragging down from the top to refresh the page but that does nothing.
Also, the address bar keeps disappearing. If I scroll most of the way down a page and want to go back to address bar, it's a long way to scroll up before it appears again. Need an option to keep it visible at all times. Sometimes it appears then disappears when scrolling. Just leaving it fixed and always there would work so much better.

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

The browser has a refresh button: if you focus the address bar, a little icon (circular arrow) appears to the left of the URL (where the favicon would be) and allows refreshing the page.

As for the address bar, the intended behaviour is to auto-hide when scrolling down on a page, and reveal again as soon as you start scrolling up, so you shouldn’t need to scroll all the way up. This is similar to how chrome on android works. If you’re seeing it behave differently, please detail the steps you’re taking to reproduce it (including which page you’re browsing). In the meantime I’m marking this bug invalid, feel free to re-open it.

By the way, which version of the browser app is this, and on which device?

[Kavoura (kavoura)]

I am running it on the BQ Aquarius E4.5 with all latest updates. I don't know the browser version, where would I find that? It's not listed in Ubuntu Store (or else hard to find there).
There should be an option in Settings to have address bar stay visible at all times. I know it works on other browsers on other OSes the same way, where it hides, and it is really annoying there as well. Just because Google does it a certain way does not mean that Ubuntu has to copy them. Ubuntu should be different and an OS that does things better and with more user customisability, it is open source.
As for the refresh button, hiding it behind the favicon is bad design. It should be visible easily -- maybe add it to the drop down menu, or have a swipe that refreshes as in other apps -- swiping down from near the top of the web page. I am surprised that was not implemented.

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

> Ubuntu should be different and an OS that does things better and with
> more user customisability, it is open source.

More customisability doesn’t necessarily mean better, but that’s just a subjective opinion.
This behaviour has been implemented by design, not just to copy Google. A setting to keep the address bar visible at all times might be an interesting option to explore. Patches welcome!

> swiping down from near the top of the web page.
> I am surprised that was not implemented.

The design specification has a feature mapped to this gesture, but it’s not page refresh, it’s opening a new tab. Anyway, this isn’t implemented yet, it’s blocked on bug #1415952.

I’m adding an ubuntu-ux task to give the design team a chance to comment on your suggestions.

[James Mulholland (jamesmulholland)]

We should revisit over-scroll for the browser; the 'pull to refresh' pattern is fairly common across the platform.

The feature previously mapped to the gesture predates my involvement in the project, let's discuss.