I think it's worth considering implementing the back page gesture currently used in the Firefox browser, rather than the one currently used in Orion & Safari. The gesture used in Firefox seems much faster and snappier due to reduced animations, it seems as if the gesture is simply displaying an arrow on the screen, and invoking the back page button as if I had clicked it manually, in the top left.
Video demonstration:
JunkBrunstoe The gesture is part of WebKit so it is hard to change. Also Safari/Orion gesture has the "Mac aesthetic" to it, while Firefox gesture has "PC aesthetic" to it. Not that it matters to most users, but for many it does.
Vlad I understand, I would like to keep everything as close to the Mac aesthetic as possible as well, it's just this gesture really irks me sometimes, I think it's just a bad implementation on Apple's side. Would it be possible to add this feature at some point, and have it disabled by default, enabled as an option somewhere in the preferences, I know this feature would most likely be low down on the suggestions list.
JunkBrunstoe Aesthetic is part of the Apple's platform design language that took over 25 years to develop and it is not fair to cherry pick things we like or don't. Saying this because we either want apps that are native or not; the moment we make a precedent, and stray away from native/HIG we get Frankenstein-like creations (Firefox and Chrome are good examples of this).
Orion is using the same full page swipe back animation as Safari/WebKit.
I prefer the way Chrome implements it by just peeking out an arrow from left or right edge of the page, and when you complete the full gesture it just changes the page without any transition. This way it is less distracting and perhaps a better accessibility feature to reduce motion sickness.
But please don't tie it to the system reduced motion setting, as I personally don't use the reduced motion in system, but prefer some effects to be toned down, like this swipe back for example.
Another reason why I prefer it is that sometimes I am contemplating whether to swipe back and doing the swipe back gesture while still skimming through the page if there is info that I was looking for, but swiping back full page makes it near impossible to do so.
I also prefer the suggested implementation of the back/forward gesture. I have suggested this before here, I was not aware it was the same implementation in Chrome as well.
That will not resolve the main concern that is the annoyance of the transition animation itself. This transition makes sense on a phone where you actually swipe with the finger on the screen and the transition follows the finger, but not on a desktop browser. The canvas is just too huge.
frin This is a native WebKit feature and is very difficult to change. Also a large number of Mac users love this so even if we could change it we would need to have an option for it in settings which would make it awkward as it is such a nichce request. Sorry but it feels unlikely to happen at this stage.
So i tried Arc for the first time today.
And something that I immediately noticed as a major improvement is how you navigate back and forward with trackpad gestures.
In Orion you have to drag extremely far to go back or forward, further more the animation of the page coming in over the page is not very fluent and pretty disturbing. Often in Orion i fail the gesture for not swipping for enough and nothing happens, Its a bit better in Safari but also not great compared to Arc.
This leads me to often just using keyboard command or or the arrow keys in the toolbar instead
Orion:
Safari:
Arc:
Obviously you cant see how i move my hand, but just getting rid of the of the page coming in over the other, is a major improvement. The logic of Orion seems to be i have to drag the page over the half way mark for it to activate. where in Arc when the arrow sign is there i can let go
After trying some other browsers i noticed alot of them has similar behavior that also works well.
Brave:
Firefox:
Chrome:
So maybe it just comes from Chrome idk. I come from Safari as my main. All of theese are much better IMO
that's just the default chrome behavior
As a long time Brave user, I know exactly what you're referring to with the gestures. I will say, however, that the gestures in Orion are not actually any bigger or slower in my experience. Maybe what you might be experiencing is an illusion from the relatively 'slow' animation?
Interesting. Im pretty certain thats not the case on my machine. but will double check.
Edit:
on brave i have to aproximatly swipe 1cm. on Orion closer to 3cm, this is done slowly. I think maybe its also speed dependent on Orion/Safari.
Regardless its like night and day the difference, even done fast.
@Dustin can you test the difference doing it more slowly? and also double check the distance your fingers move when doing it faster?
