Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.1a2pre) Gecko/2008080620 Minefield/3.1a2pre ID:2008080620 We are using the search boxes on several places, e.g. Download Manager, Add-ons Manager, sidebars, and others. Mostly every instance has the magnifying icon placed on the left side, except the web search and the Add-ons Manager. We should unify the position to give these boxes a uniform look. To be consistent with other OS X applications the icon should be placed on the left side. Now that bug 388811 is fixed we could use a modified version of the search widget all over the place?

The position of the magnifying icon isn't the same for each instance of the search textbox widget. See the last one on the bottom which comes from Safari and is used overall the system.

For the search widget on OS X we should probably go for the platform native behavior of a search icon on the left that doesn't actually do anything. This would effect places like the the bookmarks sidebar and library window. For the search engine field in the main window, we want to keep the search control in the non-platform native location of the right of the field for cross platform UI consistency. This is of course intentionally inconsistent, but I think it is the most logical balance between fitting in on the platform and making it easy for users to transition to Firefox on different platforms.

(In reply to comment #2) > For the search widget on OS X we should probably go for the platform native > behavior of a search icon on the left that doesn't actually do anything. This > would effect places like the the bookmarks sidebar and library window. > > For the search engine field in the main window, we want to keep the search > control in the non-platform native location of the right of the field for cross > platform UI consistency. This is of course intentionally inconsistent, but I > think it is the most logical balance between fitting in on the platform and > making it easy for users to transition to Firefox on different platforms. Alright, this is what's currently implemented.

Yes, looks consistent now. Verified with Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.1a2pre) Gecko/20080814020606 Minefield/3.1a2pre ID:20080814020606

As far as I can see, in the search field in the Add-ons Manager's "Get Add-ons" pane the search icon is still on the right.

(In reply to comment #5) > As far as I can see, in the search field in the Add-ons Manager's "Get Add-ons" > pane the search icon is still on the right. Because the icon acts as a button.

Unfortunately, this kind of searchfield doesn't exist anywhere on Mac OS X and feels kind of awkward. The author of the GrApple theme went for a nice solution that doesn't feel out of place: the search icon is still on the left, but there's an arrow button on the right. I think we should adopt a similar design. Search icons on the right aren't right. :-)

I believe we should track this by its own bug, because it also affects the web search field. Markus, can you file a new bug?

I've filed bug 450800 for the toolkit search fields. I think the web search field should be given its own bug if we really want to change it. However, comment 2 sounds like the search engine favicon should stay on the left, and I fully agree about that - I constantly get confused which engine is active when I use the GrApple theme (which hides the search engine favicon).

Comment on attachment 333903 [details] Screenshot of searchfield with button in an upcoming version of the GrApple theme This feels primarily consistent with snapback on Safari, which isn't really the interaction we want to reference, and is itself not really visually consistent with the rest of the platform.

I made the button look like the cancel button, just with an arrow. Does that look better?

Comment on attachment 339516 [details] how about this search button? For better or worse search is achieved in all other instances on OS X with hitting the enter key, and I feel being platform native is probably worth the slight loss of discoverability.

Great, that's even better!