See attachments: MSIE, with Win 2K: they've made the toolbar smaller and sleeker looking: Moz needs to do the same; the most important thing for a web browser is its user interface, and one of the most important things with that is to have as much browsing space as possible. To achieve this, toolbars must be very small; also important because it makes the app look that much more professional - when I was forced to install Win 2k I found myself very impressed with the nice small, sleek and professional-looking toolbars. In particular: text-only icons (older versions of Netscape did this; they did look like awful however) as an option smaller icons What would be a great and quick improvement: remove all the text labels: there are so few buttons that it's immediately obvious what they do remove the padding from the navigation bar make the url bar's font smaller; the size MSIE uses is good (implicit is that the url bar will also be smaller) make the icons smaller so they are the same height as the navigation bar if the icons aren't going to be made smaller, an absolute requirement is that the buttons and the toolbar are the same size and lined up, without any wasted space (as at present above and below the icons, as well as around the location bar), which tends to give a clunky appearance IMHO this should be an absolute priority: the immediate appearance of the browser is fundamental in terms of the reviews the browser gets, as well as in terms of whether people use it or not, and just one or two issues are all that matters: forget the rendering engine - what really matters is how it looks and feels.

Matthew, please restrict yourself to one suggestion per bug report. Otherwise it's hard to process the suggestions properly -- to tell whether they have been fixed, rejected, marked as a duplicate of a bug report that already exists, etc. * Making the text of toolbar buttons optional is bug 22056. Turning the text off by default (once that is implemented) is an interesting idea, but there are two things militating against it. Firstly, for new users (that is, those who haven't used a Web browser before), I don't think the icons in either the Classic or Modern themes are well-designed enough to be immediately obvious without labels (especially the Reload icon). Secondly, toolbar text is helpful in that it increases the size of the buttons, making the button easier to hit. This is especially important for a Web browser, where toolbar buttons are used more often than they are in other applications. * There is little or no padding in the location bar, as you can see if you mouse over (for example) the Reload button. Judging by the screenshots, the padding is about one pixel more (on each side of the button icons) than in IE's toolbar. * Making the font for the location field smaller is worth investigating, though I think we are using your standard Windows font size for text fields here. * Making the toolbar icons smaller is also worth considering, but it would be subject to both the problems I described above -- the problem of recognition, and the reduction in target area. * Separating the Location Toolbar from the Command Toolbar (which would allow the Location Toolbar to get rid of its wasted vertical space) is bug 49543.

* There is little or no padding in the location bar, as you can see if you mouse over (for example) the Reload button. The padding is in the button itself. In particular, inherent in text is padding; text at (say) font-size: 10px will have (say) a 12px line height; in addition, even at line-height: 1, the glyphs will be smaller than the specified font size - by having image-only icons, the button will lose this padding (provided the button doesn't also have a padding declaration). Judging by the screenshots, the padding is about one pixel more (on each side of the button icons) than in IE's toolbar. The issue is more about white (or grey) space, which appears to be wasted in Moz's toolbar, especially cf. IE's. * Separating the Location Toolbar from the Command Toolbar (which would allow the Location Toolbar to get rid of its wasted vertical space) is bug 49543. But would waste more space.

I think toolbar combining is planed for FUTURE...I believe BenG said so...but don't blame me if he didnt.

Note that text icons should be done as images (possibly with an option for text ones): you can get guaranteed quality (anti-aliasing, although I'm not sure if the text would be big enough for a-a not to cause blurring) the biggest problem with text, namely that you don't know the font's metrics and therefore are forced to include too much (and undesirably variable (e.g., because of different x-heights & internal padding)) space around the text

Added URL: toolbar button style guide for MSIE; note this information appears not to be accurate for Win2k - they say 16*16 is only standard in fullscreen mode whereas it now appears to be standard across modes. 16*16 unlabelled icons are best, and are also standard across platforms (Unix, Windows, etc.), although 32* is also used where large icons are appropriate; furthermore, 16*16 (effectively) unlabelled icons are seen as acceptable in many UI areas.

I suggest splitting this bug into: 1. too much padding inside buttons: remove padding, make images bigger, or move the padding to between the buttons 2. pref for smaller buttons 3. pref for textless buttons 4. text under toolbar buttons should be part of images 5. use smaller font for location bar My opinions: 1 - I'd prefer bigger images. 2 - I don't care, but IE has it, and some people like having the option. 3 - Same at 2. 4 - Wouldn't this make internationalization more difficult? 5 - I'd like to see bug 33274 fixed but could go either way on font size. Btw, there's a pref to kill the search and print buttons now. That will save you lots of space :)

Did the bug splitting ever get done as suggested by Jesse a month and a half ago?

No -- please file separate bugs if I don't do so first, and list them here, then this can be marked invalid. Confirming, since we're in Asa's confirm-o-rama.

I just filed bug 59708 for 1. 2 and 3 are covered by bug 22056 (as mentioned by mpt earlier). If anyone still thinks that the text on the toolbar buttons needs to be anti- aliased (4) or that the location bar should use smaller fonts (5), please file another bug and mention the bug number here. Marking invalid.

Verified invalid.