Introduce Letterboxing to users
We enabled letterboxing by default in TB9.0, and some users were confused about it.
https://blog.torproject.org/comment/284569#comment-284569 https://blog.torproject.org/comment/284575#comment-284575
This ticket aims to collect the efforts to explain to users what this feature does and why it is relevant.
Activity
Trac:
Child Ticket(s): #32325 (moved)
I just made step-by-step on the Letterboxing (with the current and alpha Tor version) and when I was browsing, I got as confused as the other users. When I went to #32325 (moved) and I was relief to see I could disable Letterboxing. TBH, even though I understand the security reasons to use it, it's kinda annoying to have a scrolling bar during the whole browsing (I'm attaching a printscreen).
However, I think having an onboarding (or a Gif /me loves gif) explaining the screen fingerprint and how Letterboxing avoids it, would make a difference.
Example:::
WHAT DOES YOUR SCREEN TELL ABOUT YOU?
FINGERPRINT measure - model number - review specifications of your screen
Now you don't have to resize your screen, with the Letterboxing every screen has the same specifications
We don't recommend, but you can disable Letterboxing on your config.
So having the whole grey area clickable would probably suck from a UX standpoint (think miss-clicks when trying to use the scrollbar launching new tabs). However, an unobtrusive but visible hep link that says something like ' What is Letterboxing?' in the bottom left/right of the gutter could be good?
What do you think ux-team?
thanks y'all for the useful comments!
Yes, i agree. Having the grey area clickable is confusing, and we want to make sure that the grey area is not more annoying than what already it is.
I think the (?) icon idea is our best option now. I've made some mocks. We can discuss them during our next meeting with the entire team.
I'm using the default Help Photon icon. Our best explainer now lives at
https://support.torproject.org/tbb/maximized-torbrowser-window/. Let's link there.For the implementation, let's make sure that we are using a context-fill icon so we have a proper light filling when dark themes are enabled and vice-versa.
Should we show this icon forever? Perhaps, we can remove it after the first click.
I just closed #32587 (moved) as a duplicate of this ticket (another confused and concerned user).
Replying to antonela:
I think the (?) icon idea is our best option now. I've made some mocks. We can discuss them during our next meeting with the entire team.
One problem is that if the letterboxing width is not very large, there won't be room for the icon to show up. Users with that size would never see it.
It could move to the bottom (eg. under the web content in the letterboxed area) if there isn't width, but same problem: what if there isn't width or height? (Although since the content is now stuck to the top instead of floating, there will always be more width than height.)
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Replying to tom:
what if there isn't width or height?
Are you referring to the situations where the letterboxing area is less than the width of the icon? I've thought that it is just fine to don't show an icon if the letterboxing area is not shown, even if it is enabled.
Still, we need to decide what to do in margins smaller than 14px(?), which is the size of the small icon.
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Replying to antonela:
Replying to tom:
what if there isn't width or height?
Are you referring to the situations where the letterboxing area is less than the width of the icon?
Yup
I've thought that it is just fine to don't show an icon if the letterboxing area is not shown, even if it is enabled.
The area might be shown, it might just be small. Like 5 or 6 pixels is too small an area for the icon; but thick enough that someone might wonder what the heck that is. But you're right that the smaller the area, the less likely it is that someone would notice...
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Replying to antonela:
The easy-peasy solution is setting up letterboxing to don't go smaller than x px. But I'm sure missing something :)
That wouldn't really be possible unless I'm not thinking of something... You have to support the full range of sizes so letterboxing works effectively....
Just throwing an idea out there which could cover a few items, including this one.
If you look at https://ghacksuserjs.github.io/TorZillaPrint/TorZillaPrint.html, I added notation to the inner window measurement (which updates in real time) which provides red or green
[LB]and[RFP New Window]notation- i.e if the window is at 200's width and 100`s height capped at 1000, then RFP New Window is green, and same for LB based on the 50, 100, 200 pixel stepping. Note: if zoom is not 100%, I change to an orange notation.
What if we use a toolbar button. I realize we don't want to waste real estate (we're capped at 1000px wide) and we already have the slider and new identity (but we did take away the No Script and HTTPS-Everywhere icons, by default).
The button could present three states: for lack of better words red, amber, grey/neutral
- [a] red: new window is out, LB is off (just check the pref)
- [b] amber: new window is out, LB is on
- [c] neutral: new window is good (LB doesn't apply since LB's steps fit new windows)
When clicking the button, it's panel would always provide a very short description and a learn more link. And based on the state below, it could provide extra info
- in [a] we can recommend that letterboxing be used and link to the letterboxing UI
- in [a] and [b] we could provide an action to resize to the a default new window (see #16364 (moved))
In onboarding we could can point at the button
Three possible issues, not insurmountable
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- Users who opt in to turn off letterboxing via the UI (when it lands) might also want to "never remind me about this again" i.e not be "annoyed/distracted" by the situation in [a]
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- handling zooming, which is per tab. Switching between a zoomed and non-zoomed tabs would need to be taken into account. I assume core code can easily still get the non-zoomed measurements
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- in a default TB, it would be grey (unless resized) and not actually highlight LBing to new users or new installs. We can do that in onboarding (but that wouldn't be there forever), so we can also track if the button has ever be clicked, and when in mode [c], if never clicked then apply something like an overlay of a bouncing green dot.
This could not only be used to highlight/introduce LBing, but also educate users not to deviate from new window sizes (depending on their threat model in the learn more link), and be used for dual purposes such as #16364 (moved).
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another confused and sad user: #32986 (closed).
Replying to Yeti:
Just a question: does letterboxing also make sense, when Javascript is disabled (default for me)? Usually I need JS for sites, where I have to log in, so there's no need for letterboxing in this case...
It is possible to detect screen size without using javascript, for example with CSS.
TB previously displayed a yellow bar warning after maximizing the window.
From comment:22:ticket:7255:
"Maximizing Tor Browser can allow websites to determine information about your monitor size, which can be used to track you. We recommend you leave Tor Browser windows in their original default size. [OK]"
It was disabled in #31598 (moved).
Why not bring that back but have a letterboxing message? It could pop up once per New Identity if the letterbox border is displayed or is larger than the web content dimensions. It could have an internal preference count to display it once per New Identity up to 3 times, similar to what the yellow bar did.
See also:
mentioned in issue #32325 (moved)
mentioned in issue #32587 (moved)
moved to tpo/applications/tor-browser#32324
