Files app toolbar design adjustment

[kra-mo]

Buttons should be rearranged as shown in the following mockup:

Additionally, a dropdown menu should be added to the current item in the path bar. It should contain actions you can take on the folder, as well as a "Refresh" action which would do the same as single-clicking the item currently.

The standalone share button should be removed in favor of the share action in the menu.

Folder description, recent files, Search everywhere button, etc. should be below the toolbar.

Original issue

Currently, you can click the last item in the path bar:

This is quite confusing as doing so (presumably reloads the view and) presents a spinner that finishes and then in most cases, nothing happens. This can be especially confusing to new users as to them, it may not even be clear that this is a path bar. They just see a button labelled "All files" that (seemingly) does nothing when clicked.

It also causes a visual glitch with the New button as there is no padding between them.

This button should not do anything when hovered or clicked and should just act as a label.

cc @nextcloud/designers

[CatherineKiiru]

Hi @kra-mo I'd like to contribute to the design issues, starting with this one

[soham04]

Hi @kra-mo , I’d like to contribute to this issue.
I’ve gone through the description and understand that the goal is to make the current folder (last item in the path bar) behave as a label instead of a clickable button preventing unnecessary reloads and fixing the spacing issue next to the “New” button.

Will open a PR soon, please let me know if there are any specific design or behavior guidelines I should follow.

[marcoambrosini]

@CatherineKiiru and @soham04 thanks for your initiative, would you like to collaborate on it?
Yes @soham04 you got that right.
If you'd like a guest account on our Nextcloud instance please send me an email at marco.ambrosini@nextcloud.com with your preferred email address for it.
Thank you both :)

[CatherineKiiru]

@marcoambrosini since @soham04 is opening a PR soon, he can proceed with the whole task, I'll pick up another issue.

[susnux]

This is intended behavior are you sure we want to remove it?
The reason for it is to reload the current folder without having to navigate to parent and back to reload without having to reaload the full page which is much heavier.

The use case is updating the view after e.g. client changes etc. Its quite heavily used by users - at least as far as I know from support and my own instance. (I also personally use it quite regularly).

So I would ask to not remove without a replacement for this behavior.

This is quite confusing as doing so (presumably reloads the view and) presents a spinner that finishes and then in most cases, nothing happens.

As the title says it reloads the content of the current directory - usually nothing changed, but this is different when you e.g. use clients - upload something from your phone and then want to work with it on desktop.

It also causes a visual glitch with the New button as there is no padding between them.

This one we can of course fix.

[susnux]

As this is not a design change but removing a feature, also cc @skjnldsv and @sorbaugh

[kra-mo]

The reason for it is to reload the current folder without having to navigate to parent and back to reload without having to reaload the full page which is much heavier.

This is not expected behavior. OneDrive, Google Drive, and local file managers do not do this and there is nothing about the button that tells you what it does without hovering it.

As the title says it reloads the content of the current directory

Tooltips are not accessible. Also, most people do not look at them, especially not if the button already has text.

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First, the page should automatically update. If it can't due to technical limitations (which I'm guessing is the case), users can already reload the full page in their browser and I'm guessing most do that anyway, even if it is heavier, because it is expected…

…but if this is really preferred and we can't do anything about it, we should add a dedicated button somewhere instead. I'm thinking of redesigning some of the top bar of Files in general, it could probably fit in somewhere.

But until then, since this is essentially a workaround, I'd be more in favor of assigning this to a single-key R keyboard shortcut or something instead of putting it in a place users might discover in 5 minutes of logging onto Nextcloud and get confused by it.

At the very least, make the button tertiary-no-background or something to make it appear less like other buttons and more informative.