New tabbed browsing behavior (in Firefox trunk builds)

Discussion about official Mozilla Firefox builds
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onemen
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Post by onemen »

Code: Select all

Warning: reference to undefined property tab.owner
Source file: chrome://global/content/bindings/tabbrowser.xml
Line: 1348

after open group of bookmark
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Peter(6)
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Post by Peter(6) »

onemen wrote:

Code: Select all

Warning: reference to undefined property tab.owner
Source file: chrome://global/content/bindings/tabbrowser.xml
Line: 1348

after open group of bookmark
I'm not getting any warning
nightly build threads 20040225 (FF 0.8.0+) - 20120331 (FF14a)
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toscha42
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Post by toscha42 »

mbeltzner wrote:What options would you consider the most important? It's a tricky business, preferences. We don't want to overload the user with edge cases, but we do want to let them control the things that they'll most often want to control.

At least the attempt of installing an .xpi should end up in an installation rather then in a new, empty tab combined with a download dialogue. Downloading is not what I'd expect here.
What I also dislike is that opening e.g. a PDF from a web page opens a new, empty tab. It also opens AcroReader, that's fine, but I don't have any use for a blank tab here. I'm sure I'm not alone with that impression... :)


Ciao
Toscha
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onemen
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Post by onemen »

Peter(6) wrote:
onemen wrote:

Code: Select all

Warning: reference to undefined property tab.owner
Source file: chrome://global/content/bindings/tabbrowser.xml
Line: 1348

after open group of bookmark
I'm not getting any warning


i get it on clean profile, after open group of bookmark or home pages try to close tabs


and

Code: Select all

Warning: reference to undefined property menuItems[i]
Source File: chrome://global/content/bindings/tabbrowser.xml
Line: 607

that is the cause for the bug you filled #324230 [Firefox:Tabbed Browser]-Contextmenu in last tab has too many options [All]
ByTor201
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Post by ByTor201 »

Peter(6) wrote:You are Joe First-Time-User, what would you expect to happen if you would press the [X] the last tab ?
1. The content should be replaced by about:blank ?
-- I don't think so
2. The window should close ?
-- Most likely, but it's an odd way and would probably require a dialog.. so rather not.

I'll have to disagree with you there. If you've successfully installed FF, you're pretty much going to know that an [X] stands for closing something. Loading about:blank is the most elegant way of doing this rather than closing the browser altogether. Having the [X] in the last tab is more consistant than changing the context menu and so forth.
chob
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Post by chob »

I quite like the changes. The only thing I'm not totally sold on is the close icon appearing on all tabs if there's room, or just the active tab if there are lots of tabs already open. I find that slightly strange, but there ya go.
phiw13
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Post by phiw13 »

It is rather nice implementation so far. The disappearing close button when there are many tabs open is a bit disturbing, but not a deal breaker. Maybe I'll get used to.

Themes will need to be edited, I fixed the one I use (Aronnax GrApple Zaphod), wasn't much work.

I noticed one bug, or failed logic: mousing over the close button shows an empty tooltip. Like so:
Image

This is OS X, btw
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.9a1) Gecko/20060120 Firefox/1.6a1 ID:2006012019

edit: I filed bug 324237 for this
Last edited by phiw13 on January 21st, 2006, 6:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
tobog
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Post by tobog »

I think the choosing of which tab to focus when you close a tab seems a bit random and unpredictable.
Compare the new behavior to an alternate new behavior I will mention now. When opening a tab, don't open it at the rightmost of the tab list but instead open it immediately to the right of the current tab it is being opened from if it is the first link being opened from that tab. If it is the second or third+, keep opening them to the right of each other. (For example:
Tab1 Tab2 subtab2.1 subtab2.2 subtab2.3 *V* Tab3 Tab4
And any new tabs opened from Tab2 would go in at the *V*)
Then, when closing a tab always focus the one to the left of it. The advantage of what I describe is that it when closing a tab it always does the same thing and you can predict what it is going to do.

What advantage is there to the method that is being tried here over what I described? What problem does this solve that the above method would not?

(A third possibility would be to do the above, but work more like the 1.5 tab closing behavior. What it does now is always go to the right if possible, then go to the left if there are none to the right. Do this, but do it within the hierarchy. If close subtab 2.2, go to the right to subtab 2.3. But if close subtab 2.3, go to the left to subtab 2.2, until Tab2 and subtabs are gone, then start going to the right to Tab3. It sounds more complex then it is, and would still not change state depending on if a tab has lost focus or not and would be more predictable and intuitive then the suggested new behavior).
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BenBasson
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Post by BenBasson »

toscha42 wrote:At least the attempt of installing an .xpi should end up in an installation rather then in a new, empty tab combined with a download dialogue. Downloading is not what I'd expect here.
What I also dislike is that opening e.g. a PDF from a web page opens a new, empty tab. It also opens AcroReader, that's fine, but I don't have any use for a blank tab here.

I can't imagine that you've only stumbled upon this bug with these recent changes, it's been around for years.
ByTor201
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Post by ByTor201 »

What's needed for the case when too many tabs are open is the ability to scroll through the tabs. It would eliminate the need for tabs to repeatedly be compressed to the point where the close button disappears.
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BenBasson
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Post by BenBasson »

elart wrote:I don'like it
With some extension that i don't remember i was able to close tab with a double click on it.
I don't like the close button on the tab because sometime when i choose the tab i click on it and i close tab, the double click on the tab is much better (with old two button mouse the middle mouse click don't work).

So hide the buttons. These changes benefit people who aren't going to understand tabbed browsing any other way. Or you could just use them. I'm going to wean myself away from middle-clicking because of this.

onemen wrote:1. Y close button don't show when there is only one tab ?

This is very much an edge-case, but I agree with it in principle. It doesn't make sense for a close button to change the content of the current tab (even if it is the last one), nor does it make sense for it to close the whole browser.

Peter(6) wrote:#324230[Firefox:Tabbed Browser]-Contextmenu in last tab has too many options [All]

Agreed.
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toscha42
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Post by toscha42 »

Cusser wrote:
toscha42 wrote:At least the attempt of installing an .xpi should end up in an installation rather then in a new, empty tab combined with a download dialogue. Downloading is not what I'd expect here.
What I also dislike is that opening e.g. a PDF from a web page opens a new, empty tab. It also opens AcroReader, that's fine, but I don't have any use for a blank tab here.

I can't imagine that you've only stumbled upon this bug with these recent changes, it's been around for years.


You absolutely right here. Anyhow, as 'for years' I'm using TabMixPlus at least I'm not used to this bug. ;) And when TMP can get rid of this annoyance why can't Deer Park Alpha with the tab browsing enhancements either?


Bye
Toscha
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BenBasson
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Post by BenBasson »

Tab Mix Plus is using an extremely dirty hack to solve the problem. I should know, because they based it almost entirely on my dirty hack (Disable Targets For Downloads) by the looks of things. I'm crossing my fingers that the bug will be fixed for 2.0.

Mike, can we have undo close tab as well? I'd love to hear more about how such a feature could/should be implemented with respect to holding tabs in the memory and so on.
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ColdFusion650
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Post by ColdFusion650 »

where can i find a complete list of the recent tab browsing changes? and where can i found some userchrome code for the close tab button back where it was? cause i hate the close buttons on the tabs.

edit: i found all these listed on bonsai: add close buttons to tabs, improve the reselection behavior of new tabs opened especially in single window mode, simplify the preferences available for tabs, and improve the visual appearance of keyboard-focused tabs.

is that everything?
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Ben_
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Post by Ben_ »

Any idea when the Mac OS X trunk with these features will be released and where I will be able to get it? Also, is there a site which lists changes included in each nightly build?
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