Really digging the bottom navigation, and this would make it fit much better.
(or an option to remove labels entirely and just use icons)
I played around with just showing icons but I fear that this might make it harder for new users. I like your suggestion. Do you know how other (podcast) apps name that screen? Is calling it âhistoryâ common?
Most users encounter âhistoryâ as a concept in web browsers, and at least Chrome and Firefox label it just âHistoryâ in their menus. They donât say âBrowsing historyâ because of course theyâre browsers, âPlaybackâ seems similarly redundant in a media player.
I think text for bottom navigation as it is wonât work well especially when translated. Right now there is not enough space.
IMHO text size should be a little bit smaller so 2 rows can be used.
Another way would be to reduce to 3 actions and the more actions.
I took a look on apps I have with bottom navigations :
- YouTube, One drive, linked in : 5 icons, for youtube middle one is a + without text
- Spotify : 3 icons
- play store , google drive : 4 icons
What I notice is that all have text smaller and above all are using one word. Maybe differents labels than the ones used for drawer should be used for bottom navigation to allow to use abbreviation or when possible a single word ?
We currently have start, queue, inbox, subscriptions, and âmoreâ. I donât really think there is one that we could remove for new users.
Renaming the playback history to just âhistoryâ would be a first step making the labels shorter
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Sure in English. But for other language it could be more difficult. For instance in French it would work but inbox would be a challenge⊠Probably changing itâs name to ânewâ and everywhere itâs referenced would be okish.
What I want to point out is that just because in English itâs shorter it doesnât mean it would be possible in every language to do the same. And it would have an impact on documentation, FAQ and so on if screens change their name.
Are there good abbreviations for screens that would work in French? Looks like in French, some of the names donât fit the screen even if we just show 3 items (+more).
Iâm a bit hesitant writing our own bottom navigation component from scratch (which would be necessary to change the design) instead of using the one designed by GoogleâŠ
I believe for :
- inbox : new (boite de reception / nouveau) but when inbox was implemented we were pretty adamant we wanted to name it inbox and not new
- queue : pretty hard to do something else maybe just list instead of playback list. It would be OK as an indication for button but naming screen just list not so great IMO
- subscriptions : a little easier to abbreviate here but I think for this one itâs shorter in French (abonnements)
- Episodes : no problem here, same word
- Downloads : not much longer than subscriptions in French (téléchargements) but it could be abbreviated (télechargem.)
- playback history : I think even though current name is better (same as English) itâs possible also to also use only history (journal de lecture / historique)
But thatâs for French. I think each languages would have itâs own difficulty if strings are shorter. Thatâs why itâs less important if strings for buttons are not exactly the same than screen.
Yet there would be a discrepancy with drawer and especially screen allowing to reorder. Easy solution would be to use same strings but it make UI less good if strings are abbreviated when user could see enough space in drawer. So it would be more logical to use different string only for bottom navigation and dynamically using corresponding strings in dialog to reorder depending on what user chosed to use.
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If we have different strings for bottom navigation and everywhere else, we might want to call it âhistoryâ only in the bottom navigation. 
Hmm, I wouldnât manually abbreviate when it just shortens the end of the string. In that case, I would just keep the original string and let Android abbreviate it when needed