1181474 - Closing the last non-pinned tab in a window with pinned tabs should close the window

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, defect)

Description

[Daniel Glazman (:glazou) (not active in Mozilla any more)]

The Close Tab feature, called from the menus or the associated command key, is inconsistent:

From the File or tab context menu:

  - the menu item does close a pinned tab
  - selecting the menu item until the last present tab, pinned or not, can close
    the whole window

From the command key:

  - Cmd-W does not close a pinned tab
  - hitting Cmd-W cannot close the whole window

This is because _setCloseKeyState() in tabbrowser.xml is called when a tab is pinned, unpinned, deleted, selected.

I find this behaviour painful. In particular, I think the fact the window can be closed with Cmd-W if the user closes the last unpinned tab in a window containing no pinned tab vs. it cannot be closed if there is at least one pin tab is an error.

I would like to suggest a cleanup of this feature for greater consistency. Let me know if this sounds useful/interesting. I have a patch in the works.

Comment 1

[Daniel Glazman (:glazou) (not active in Mozilla any more)]

Furthermore, if I have only one window with 2 pinned tabs and one unpinned tab and I close all three tabs through the File Menu to eventually close the window, only ONE of the two pinned tabs is restored when I open a new window...

Comment 2

[:Gijs (he/him)]

I'm updating the summary to be what I think you're suggesting.

I don't think this suggestion makes sense. As a user, I don't expect closing the last non-pinned tab in a window is going to close the window and "lose" my pinned tabs, especially if it's the last window on Windows, which will close the app.

I think what you want is to just cmd-shift-w to close the window. This works even from pinned tabs, I think.

Comment 3

[Daniel Glazman (:glazou) (not active in Mozilla any more)]

(In reply to :Gijs Kruitbosch from comment #2)
> I'm updating the summary to be what I think you're suggesting.
> 
> I don't think this suggestion makes sense. As a user, I don't expect closing
> the last non-pinned tab in a window is going to close the window and "lose"
> my pinned tabs, especially if it's the last window on Windows, which will
> close the app.

I admit I did not think of Windows. But as a Mac user, pinned tabs are things I
want to see sticky, ie that will be restored as pinned tabs when I open a new
"blank" window so closing the window with the last unpinned tab does not really
matter. Also as a user, I used Cmd-W all the time to close tabs, including to close
the last tab. Not only Cmd-W does not close the window on pinned tabs, but it
does not close the tabs at all... The command key is disabled on pinned tabs while
the menus are still enabled and work. This is really, really weird.

> I think what you want is to just cmd-shift-w to close the window. This works
> even from pinned tabs, I think.

It does, but it's not what I am looking for. The whole "Close tab" feature seems
to do several different things depending on the context, and it's weird.

Comment 4

[:Gijs (he/him)]

(In reply to Daniel Glazman (:glazou) from comment #3)
> (In reply to :Gijs Kruitbosch from comment #2)
> > I'm updating the summary to be what I think you're suggesting.
> > 
> > I don't think this suggestion makes sense. As a user, I don't expect closing
> > the last non-pinned tab in a window is going to close the window and "lose"
> > my pinned tabs, especially if it's the last window on Windows, which will
> > close the app.
> 
> I admit I did not think of Windows. But as a Mac user, pinned tabs are
> things I
> want to see sticky, ie that will be restored as pinned tabs when I open a new
> "blank" window so closing the window with the last unpinned tab does not
> really
> matter.

Does that actually happen right now? I didn't think it did.

> Also as a user, I used Cmd-W all the time to close tabs, including
> to close
> the last tab. Not only Cmd-W does not close the window on pinned tabs, but it
> does not close the tabs at all... The command key is disabled on pinned tabs
> while
> the menus are still enabled and work. This is really, really weird.

Pretty sure this is intentional so that you don't accidentally close pinned tabs when you are closing many tabs by repeatedly hitting cmd-w.

> > I think what you want is to just cmd-shift-w to close the window. This works
> > even from pinned tabs, I think.
> 
> It does, but it's not what I am looking for.

Why not?

> The whole "Close tab" feature
> seems
> to do several different things depending on the context, and it's weird.

I would just argue pinned tabs are weird that way.

At this point, can you detail exactly what you want changed and how? It seems we agree that the previously-implied suggested fix isn't tractable, and without a concrete "you currently do X when I do A, B, C - please do Y instead" I think this bug is some form of invalid/wontfix. :-(

Comment 5

[Jared Wein [:jaws] (please needinfo? me)]

Clearing the needinfo and closing the bug as incomplete due to lack of response from the reporter. Please reopen if you still feel this should be pursued.