How do I disable FF5 tab resize behaviour?

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Getbrett
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How do I disable FF5 tab resize behaviour?

Post by Getbrett »

I'd like to revert to FF4 style tab resizing. While I understand the reasons why it was changed in FF5, I dislike the feature in Chrome and I dislike it in FF5 too. I find it incredibly distracting when a flicker of movement occurs in my periphery vision. I'd like instant resizing once a tab is closed, like the FF4 behaviour.

I cannot find an about:config var to change this behaviour back, nor can I find an option in FF settings. Can it be reverted, or will I need to downgrade?
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rob64rock
Posts: 2122
Joined: November 11th, 2009, 6:16 am

Re: How do I disable FF5 tab resize behaviour?

Post by rob64rock »

Getbrett wrote:I'd like to revert to FF4 style tab resizing. While I understand the reasons why it was changed in FF5, I dislike the feature in Chrome and I dislike it in FF5 too. I find it incredibly distracting when a flicker of movement occurs in my periphery vision. I'd like instant resizing once a tab is closed, like the FF4 behaviour.

I cannot find an about:config var to change this behaviour back, nor can I find an option in FF settings. Can it be reverted, or will I need to downgrade?

Have you tried setting pref:
browser.tabs.animate; set to false.
Getbrett
Guest

Re: How do I disable FF5 tab resize behaviour?

Post by Getbrett »

Thanks, but that does not revert to FF4 behaviour, it disables tab animations entirely, so they snap into place instead of smoothly resizing. I'd like the FF4 smooth resizing back.
Getbrett
Guest

Re: How do I disable FF5 tab resize behaviour?

Post by Getbrett »

Getbrett wrote:Thanks, but that does not revert to FF4 behaviour, it disables tab animations entirely, so they snap into place instead of smoothly resizing. I'd like the FF4 smooth resizing back.

Correction: this has not changed tab behaviour, nor has it fully disabled animations. Opening enough tabs to fill the tab bar, then closing the second furthest right will still cause them to resize in the periphery vision once I move the cursor away.

I'm going to revert to FF4 for the time being.
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Gingerbread Man
Posts: 7735
Joined: January 30th, 2007, 10:55 am

Re: How do I disable FF5 tab resize behaviour?

Post by Gingerbread Man »

You must restart Firefox for the change to browser.tabs.animate to take effect.
Edit: Curses. It seems to work inconsistently. Sometimes the tabs resize anyway, and other times they behave.

Firefox 5.0 includes security fixes that 4.0.1 will not receive, so downgrading seems like an overreaction to me.
Getbrett
Guest

Re: How do I disable FF5 tab resize behaviour?

Post by Getbrett »

Yeah, I understand that. It really is incredibly irritating though, and even the security fixes do not seem worth putting up with that irritation. Hopefully there'll be an option to disable it properly in the next patch, or perhaps an addon to do so. I know I'm not the only one who finds it annoying.

Thanks for your help.
Guest
Guest

Re: How do I disable FF5 tab resize behaviour?

Post by Guest »

You're not the only one who finds the new behavior annoying. I've been searching for some CSS code or an extension to change it back, but no luck so far.
Starquest
Posts: 89
Joined: November 13th, 2008, 5:38 pm

Re: How do I disable FF5 tab resize behaviour?

Post by Starquest »

Seconded. (Or thirded.) I also find it very distracting and simply cannot understand why this behaviour was changed. I don't want to install yet another add-on to fix something that wasn't broken.
ReggieNJ
Guest

Re: How do I disable FF5 tab resize behaviour?

Post by ReggieNJ »

Tab Utilities includes a hidden option to disable this feature. This is the only workaround I know of (so far).

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-utilities/

After install, go to about:config and set 'extensions.tabutils.delayResizing' to 'false'
Starquest
Posts: 89
Joined: November 13th, 2008, 5:38 pm

Re: How do I disable FF5 tab resize behaviour?

Post by Starquest »

Changing browser.tabs.animate to false doesn't work for me. The tabs still animate upon closing when mousing away the tab bar. Are the Firefox developers so bored that they have to mess with these things? How about fixing the memory leak that's been around since v0.1?

Another thing that I've found annoying is that tabs slide off the tab bar when you have many of them opened. This was new in v4. I'd rather have them just stacked up; at least I can see the favicon and not forget I have a tab open when it's hidden. But I just gave up on that one. ](*,)
subfire
Posts: 60
Joined: December 25th, 2010, 11:08 am

Re: How do I disable FF5 tab resize behaviour?

Post by subfire »

ReggieNJ wrote:Tab Utilities includes a hidden option to disable this feature. This is the only workaround I know of (so far).

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-utilities/

After install, go to about:config and set 'extensions.tabutils.delayResizing' to 'false'

Yeah, but it isn't compatible with Tab Mix Plus, sadly.

Maybe someone can contact Tab Mix developers so they implement this feature?
Starquest
Posts: 89
Joined: November 13th, 2008, 5:38 pm

Re: How do I disable FF5 tab resize behaviour?

Post by Starquest »

Looks like I'll just have to get used to the new irritating tab behaviour. Just like I've gotten used to Firefox eventually using 1GB+ of RAM with only two tabs open...then restarting the browser and miraculously it's using 160MB. The only question is, what new annoyances will FF 6 bring? Maybe we need an O'Reilly book to cover this topic :lol:

I might come across as overbearing, but the web browser is pretty much the number one tool that any of use -- and we use it all day. It hampers one's workflow and productivity to keep having to deal with annoying new little things. We are told to upgrade due to security reasons, so we upgrade. But many of us simply don't have the time to constantly revert odd browser behaviour so we can keep working, and this is going to become a bigger issue as FF releases are coming fast and furious now.

/rant
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T0morrow
Posts: 302
Joined: April 9th, 2010, 9:16 am

Re: How do I disable FF5 tab resize behaviour?

Post by T0morrow »

Im always amazed how people manage to get 1GB+ memory usage with just a few tabs open :)
Hell i must have over 50 tabs open to get even 700MB.And that's with 10+ plugins all forced into OOPP (default only the biggest plugins run in out of process mode).30+ addons
Several hundred lines of custom CSS rules.Over a hundred modified prefs and tweaks that even icrease RAM usage as content is forced to be loaded in RAM as much as possible.

Then again this could be a windows thing.It eats more RAM per program depending how much ram you have.So i have 2GB and it eats 700MB then taht's ok.But if anyone has 4GB and it eats 1GB of that, then it's ok too.

Besides.IDLE RAM is wasted RAM :D
KWierso
Posts: 8829
Joined: May 7th, 2006, 10:29 pm
Location: California

Re: How do I disable FF5 tab resize behaviour?

Post by KWierso »

Globe199 wrote:and this is going to become a bigger issue as FF releases are coming fast and furious now.

But if less stuff changes between releases, then surely you don't have to spend as much time re-learning the changes each time?
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T0morrow
Posts: 302
Joined: April 9th, 2010, 9:16 am

Re: How do I disable FF5 tab resize behaviour?

Post by T0morrow »

KWierso wrote:
Globe199 wrote:and this is going to become a bigger issue as FF releases are coming fast and furious now.

But if less stuff changes between releases, then surely you don't have to spend as much time re-learning the changes each time?

Yes.For example im skipping Fx5 alltogether.Why bother if Fx6 comes in august :)
When Fx6 comes then ill get myself up to speed on latest UI "quirks" developers have introduced yet again and hopefully there will be some antidote by then.
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