1334430 - Synced tabs in hamburger menu UX is worse than in-content about:sync-tabs

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Sync, defect, P3)

Description

[Dirkjan Ochtman (:djc)]

Some time ago, the History > Synced Tabs was changed to point to a side menu in the hamburger menu thing. For my uses, the UX for this is much worse than the old about:sync-tabs UX, primarily:

- The new way opens a synced tab link in my current tab, which is never what I want.
- In the new way, the menu disappears after clicking one of the links, making it very laborious to open multiple tabs from another device in my current session.

To me, the use case of "bringing a somewhat-sizable set of tabs to another device" is pretty important. The old in-content does not really facilitate this use case well, but it still does a better job than the new version.

Comment 1

[Mark Hammond [:markh] [:mhammond]]

(In reply to Dirkjan Ochtman (:djc) from comment #0)
> - The new way opens a synced tab link in my current tab, which is never what
> I want.

This has been designed to work like the other similar panels - eg, a middle-click will open in a new tab. We also see similar complaints for the sidebar, but all other sidebars work the same way.

> - In the new way, the menu disappears after clicking one of the links,
> making it very laborious to open multiple tabs from another device in my
> current session.

There is a synced tabs sidebar that you might find more useful for this purpose. We also recently landed a change to the sidebar to allow you to open all from a device with a single click.

> To me, the use case of "bringing a somewhat-sizable set of tabs to another
> device" is pretty important. The old in-content does not really facilitate
> this use case well, but it still does a better job than the new version.

I suspect this will be "wontfix", but I'll leave that up to our UX team. Ryan, what do you think?

Comment 2

[Dirkjan Ochtman (:djc)]

I spend most of my time on track pads, so no middle-click.

The sidebar is much nicer, but not very discoverable as it is. Maybe it would make sense to have History > Synced Tabs (and the hamburger menu item, as far as I'm concerned) open the sidebar?

Comment 3

[Ryan Feeley [:rfeeley]]

The good news is that panels and sidebars are being redesigned for Quantum by a UX project called Quantum. I will cc: Stephen Horlander so they can take multi-select and where links open into account.

Comment 4

[Edouard Oger [:eoger]]

Ryan what do you think of not closing the menu when Ctrl+clicking or middle clicking an item? It's a quick and easy fix that would help.

Comment 5

[Ryan Feeley [:rfeeley]]

Sure!

Comment 6

[Edouard Oger [:eoger]]

Attachment: Bug 1334430 - Keep the Synced Tabs panel open when not opening a tab in the current tab.

Review commit: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/110468/diff/#index_header
See other reviews: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/110468/

Comment 7

[Edouard Oger [:eoger]]

Comment on attachment 8834612 [details]
Bug 1334430 - Keep the Synced Tabs panel open when not opening a tab in the current tab.

Not ready for review, another bug is blocking this.

Comment 8

[Mark Hammond [:markh] [:mhammond]]

Comment on attachment 8834612 [details]
Bug 1334430 - Keep the Synced Tabs panel open when not opening a tab in the current tab.

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/110468/#review111730

seems nice and simple, thanks! I think a comment that explains the intent would be nice though (ie, it's not particularly obvious from that patch exactly why the code exists)

Comment 9

[Mark Hammond [:markh] [:mhammond]]

P3 as it's not actionable until bug 1337531 is fixed.

Comment 10

[Edouard Oger [:eoger]]

Comment on attachment 8834612 [details]
Bug 1334430 - Keep the Synced Tabs panel open when not opening a tab in the current tab.

Review request updated; see interdiff: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/110468/diff/1-2/

Comment 11

[Edouard Oger [:eoger]]

Looks like bug 1349742 fixed our blocking bug, good thing I read the Quantum Flow Newsletter religiously 

Comment 12

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/2c488ee373ab
Keep the Synced Tabs panel open when not opening a tab in the current tab. r=markh

Comment 13

[Wes Kocher (:KWierso) (Not reading bugmail; email directly if needed)]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/2c488ee373ab

Comment 14

[Gerry Chang [:gchang]]

Mark 54 won't fix as it's late for Beta54.