should be visibly different from the other items on the status line. Otherwise no one will ever try to click on it to switch. Best thing probably would be to visibly handle it like the four icons (that allow opening a new window of sorts).

Confirming for discussion, but I don't agree. Firstly, the other items in the status bar (the padlock icon, and soon the HTML quality indicator) don't have a border either, but they are also clickable, so it's not as if this icon is particularly inconsistent. Secondly, the icon is treated exactly the same way as it was in 4.x, and I don't remember hearing lots of people complaining that they didn't know it was clickable. Thirdly, the Navigator, Messenger, Composer, etc buttons in the component bar are the equivalent of command buttons, whereas the online/offline button is the equivalent of a checkbox. It might not be such a good idea to give these differently-behaving controls the same appearance. And finally, Mozilla's offline support isn't that good yet -- so it might not be a good idea to make the feature *too* obvious. :-)

To clarify my position: In any GUI there never should be anything that is clickable that is not easily identified as such unless you want to hide the feature. So I can understand your sentiments that this toggle-button (this really is a button and not a checkbox) shouldn't be too obvious if the feature doesn't work too good. But if you add such a beast and expect it to work then why not make it clear to any user that this can be used to do anything. I would never have noticed the darn thing if I hadn't been dropped into offline mode by NS6 during my tests of that beast and hadn't noticed the change in the status line. A short count in our office (with 4 developers that use netscape daily and some sales people resulted in: 1 knew that the small icon for the security infos was clickable but the rest lived in blissful ignorance of that. My limited count means 6:1 against the obviousness of that control item. And you don't complain if you don't know something is amiss.

Another point for Matthew's position: when you point at the icon, you get a tooltip saying: "You are online. Click the icon to go offline." (Or vice versa.) But still, I also found out only by accident that this (and the padlock) is clickable.

Ah, this is the same as File - Work Online/ Work Offline (menu option changes it's name depending) The tooltip appears to be working now, although it blends in with the window and is difficult to see.

Ah, this is the same as File - Work Online/ Work Offline (menu option changes it's name depending) The tooltip appears to be working now, although it blends in with the window and is difficult to see.

Chaning the qa contact on these bugs to me. MPT will be moving to the owner of this component shortly. I would like to thank him for all his hard work as he moves roles in mozilla.org...Yada, Yada, Yada...

updating to new owner. sorry for the spam.

Working offline is a regularly needed feature. Also, it is available readily from the "File" menu, and it works. This means that the current arrangement makes everyone work harder to get it. Why this coyness? Why is a gray panel hiding the button? Also, the offline button looks like red lightening: it does not convey the function really: I prefer the directness of the "plugged/unplugged" buttons of Netscape. Even the IRC Chat button is grayed out in a similar way, but gives off a tooltip when pointed at.

>I prefer the directness of the "plugged/unplugged" buttons of Netscape. mozilla's offline button looks the same. at least in classic. also, moving bug to xp apps - UID is going away.

-> networking. This could be made more obvious. I think it might go well w/ a lot of the other RFE's that are starting to accumulate regarding network activity and UI.

-> seamonkey gui...

Filter "spam" on "guifeatures-nobody-20080610".