undo new tabbed browsing behavior

Discussion about official Mozilla Firefox builds
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ColdFusion650
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Post by ColdFusion650 »

i'll post a link to the exenstion that puts the close tab buttons back the way they used to be. im not going to update my site because the author of tabx hasnt given his permission for me to call it tabx backwards yet. here it is.
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Mossop
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Post by Mossop »

Of course you could just not rush into things and wait until the original close button is restored as a option in firefox:

Bug 324227[Firefox]-Implement old tab close button as a preffable option. [All]
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ColdFusion650
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Post by ColdFusion650 »

well, i didnt know about that bug. and when you saw me ask about it in the feedback thread, you didnt point out that bug. but i guess you were too busy calling me dumb for even asking about it being brought back.
supernova_00
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Post by supernova_00 »

He may have just found that bug or when he read it Mike hadn't responded and said it will be added. Just because a bug is created doesn't mean it is going to be fixed.
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ColdFusion650
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Post by ColdFusion650 »

i just didnt like him saying that i "rushed into things" when i had no idea that that bug existed. a stickin attitude.
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Mossop
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Post by Mossop »

As it happens I didn't know about that bug until it was approved, something that now looks like it might not happen though that's up to the devs to argue about, however whether that bug exists or not I would still consider you to have rushed into things. This experimental change had been on trunk for less than a day and already you have something to counteract it. Firstly you may find in a week or so's time that you've wasted your time in developing such a thing because the behaviour may well change. Secondly I would consider this detrimental to the point of this experiment. Give people a quick way out of something that is new and strange and they will take it rather than actually use the new behaviour and provide useful feedback. Of course there are other extensions that do exactly what your does anyway but still.
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a;skdjfajf;ak
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Post by a;skdjfajf;ak »

The 'X' on every tab has to go, it takes up too much space, is not intuitive it does anything since its grayed out until moused over, so why not just dump the X until the tab is moused over?

Personally, I think it adds clutter to the over-all interface.
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Zulithe
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Post by Zulithe »

I strongly disagree, Littlemutt. How is it not intuitive? From a usabilty standpoint, having a close button on each tab makes MUCH more sense. And Google (with Ben in their ranks) did a pretty in-depth study on the issue which is what lead to the changes in the first place. It isn't as customisable as what you can achieve with tabmix but then that isn't what Firefox is trying to do anyway. They are aiming for the best "default" behavior and I think thye are heading in the right direction, not backwards. Opera has it, Safari has it, and I believe IE 7 also has it.

Naturally people who prefer the old style can hack away at their Firefox configs and/or use extensions to achieve this, which was always and will always be an option. Still, I prefer the new behavior (though I'll still use tabmix to tweak the settings ever so slightly to my personal tastes)

RE: "Implement old tab close button as a preffable option" -- read Ben's latest blog post which I think applies to this issue:
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/ben/archives/009620.html
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Durian_CS
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Post by Durian_CS »

I agree to Littlemut. I hate the clutter, and prefer having no close buttons in the tabs. From a usability standpoint, as is argued elsewhere, a fixed single close button can be a lot easier than finding the right button in a long row of tabs. And I'm not really impressed by the "pretty in-depth study", as long as the majority of people is still satisfied with MS products.

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ColdFusion650
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Post by ColdFusion650 »

Zulithe wrote:I believe IE 7 also has [close buttons on tabs].

not as of beta 1. i don't know if they have added it since then.
supernova_00
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Post by supernova_00 »

You can't really have the button hidden until mouseover because if you click that area while switching tabs then you close the tab.
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ColdFusion650
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Post by ColdFusion650 »

well, ben just wontfixed the bug to make a pref for bringing back the old close button. he says it should be an extension. so now my "rushed extension" is a "timely solution".
Cosmoxl
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Post by Cosmoxl »

At work I'm stuck with lotus notes which is tab based with the "X" on each tab. After using it for a bit, I'm always expecting to find the "X" on firefox tabs. Up 'till now I had to catch myself and click the button on the right. Now, they are where I want them. I like the change.
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hhh
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Post by hhh »

ColdFusion650 wrote:i'll post a link to the exenstion that puts the close tab buttons back the way they used to be. im not going to update my site because the author of tabx hasnt given his permission for me to call it tabx backwards yet. here it is.

Excellent! Fan-freaking-tastic! Seriously, thanks.
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Fox On Fire
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Post by Fox On Fire »

ColdFusion650 wrote:i'll post a link to the exenstion that puts the close tab buttons back the way they used to be. im not going to update my site because the author of tabx hasnt given his permission for me to call it tabx backwards yet. here it is.


Thank goodness!

I had been considering dumping the newer trunk builds because of the change to the close tab buttons.

The last thing you want is all your real-estate gobbled up by close buttons, just because you "make the most" of the tabbed interface.

Why there isn't (at the very least) an option to retain a single close tab is beyond me.
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