Overflow menu order for forward and back buttons should be "closest in history closest to the button"

cgottsch

I know you cant take this suggestion lightly as many users undoubtedly are used to how navigation works now, so changing this will inconvenience many and throw a monkey wrench into their workflows. But i didnt see this discussed yet and if this is to change, the earlier the better.

A side note: I enjoy that iOS Orion feels like "Safari but with all the functions youd expect". It was very easy to transition as a Safari user and it felt like i powered up my game. So i am a bit biased with what i am about to suggest. But i think it makes sense regardless.

The issue: It is unintuitive that the history overflow for the back and forward button are "oldest at the top". I would love to hear the reasoning as it seems arbitrary to me. I expected it to be (like Safari) where the "nearest" item is closest to the nav button depressed, ie the oldest in the history is at the bottom. The Safari way feels very much like dragging my finger down a timeline, where the current way feels like im merely opening a menu and then looking for an entry in a list.

Maybe this is intuitive for some users, but i cant help but wonder if the average new user finds the Safari way more intuitive. Thus, changing this would allow better onboarding for new users and ease the strain for current users who, like me, are failing to get used to this awkward way of navigating.

jeanetienne

Hi cgottsch thank you for taking the time to report this issue!

Just to make sure I understand what you mean, this topic is rather coinfusing 😅, I'll establish the current context, on iPhone portrait orientation, for both Safari and Orion:

After navigating the following sites in that order:

Kagi
Wikipedia
Reddit
Hackernews
The Guardian
Kagi Translate

Then I hold the back button → first screenshot.
Then I navigate back to the start and hold the forward button → second screenshot.
This is what I see:

I only see a difference between Orion and Safari in the forward button behaviour, right. And I agree with you the Orion "forward" button should be reversed, to match Safari's order.

So, in summary I think we should have the order of the overflow list of the buttons as follows:

The order of the menu should be such that the item closest to the button is the item that would be navigated to, if the button had received a short touch.

This means that compared to the current state, the work to be done is:

for iPhone portrait, reversing the forward menu, and
for iPhone landscape, and iPad, reversing the backward menu.

Does that seem right to you?

Thank you for your help in making Orion a better browser!

Yannick

Hey @cgottsch,

You're right to mention it; that's also why Orion is still in Beta. We implemented it without realizing the implications and then had to get used to it.

But you're right, it would be more like Safari, and it makes a bit more sense, thank you.

Safari but with all the functions you'd expect
Exactly! 🙂

Yannick

cgottsch

jeanetienne Thank you for your help in making Orion a better browser!

np, happy to

sry for the delay, seems my email notif got lost

jeanetienne This means that compared to the current state, the work to be done is:
for iPhone portrait, reversing the forward menu, and
for iPhone landscape, and iPad, reversing the backward menu.

i didnt catch the difference until you pointed it out
but yeah that solution looks right
i guess another way of saying it is for the nav bar at the bottom, reverse the forward menu, and for the nav at the top, reverse the back menu, yeah?
interesting situation
hopefully a simple change

cgottsch

cgottsch my email notif got lost

nvm, i forgot i didnt finish reading it hehe, false alarm

jeffdaley

When you have a long navigation history the most recent link requires scrolling. Should be accessible without scrolling.

cgottsch

jeffdaley This is a separate issue, so it should be put into a new thread, yeah? Although im not sure how to title it...

jeffdaley

These UIs should agree.