446707 - Tabs hang from toolbar, disconnected from the page being shown

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, defect)

Description

[Rosalie Tackett]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X 10.4; en-US; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008070206 Firefox/3.0.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X 10.4; en-US; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008070206 Firefox/3.0.1

I use many tabs, usually.  When I'm on a page, I look up to find the tab of the page I'm on, but it does not stand out in 3.01.  This is due to the fact that you have the tabs blending in with the toolbar, rather than the page. This is confusing, does not stand out.

In reality, tabs are logically each associated to a page, and not to the toolbar.    Why would you, code them to be attached to the toolbar?  Please put the tab back to where it associates directly with a page, blends into it, and stands out as obviously the tab for the page being viewed.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.
Actual Results:  
Use a few tabs.

Expected Results:  
The tab for the page being viewed appears to hang down from, be a part of, the toolbar, and is completely disconnected from the page.  Although it is a slightly different color than the other tabs, it is not easy to spot.  This is an illogical presentation.

I expect the tab to appear to be a part of its page, so it clearly stands out.

Comment 1

[lowbatteries]

I agree that attached tabs are much more logical. On the other hand, many parts of the individual "page" are disconnected from the actual display: the URL bar and its favicon, rss button, bookmark button, and the title bar. Only Opera and Chrome are really moving the tab to be a first-class UI citizen.

Browsers that go the "attached to page" way are:
- Windows Firefox
- Camino
- Flock
- Opera (on Mac - don't have Opera/Win)
- IE
- Chrome

Comment 2

[Rosalie Tackett]

To me it's not a matter of who's doing what, nor what else is not connected to the page.  Those other things do not belong to the web page itself.  Tabs belong as a part of the page, as in a manilla folder with tab, tabbed notebook dividers, a roladex card with tab, tabs on the side of a dictionary or book, to delineate sections, ...
Thanks for your thoughts.

Comment 3

[lowbatteries]

The component for this should really be changed to "default theme", since its a theme issue. In the meantime, if this really bothers anyone I recommend the GrApple Delicious theme for the mac, nice attached tabs that have lots of contrast when focused.

Comment 4

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

This bug was reported using Firefox 3.0 or older, which is no longer supported. The bug has also not been changed in over 500 days and is still in UNCO.
Reporter, please retest this bug in Firefox 3.6.10 or later using a fresh profile, http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/managing+profiles. If you still see this problem, please update the bug. If you no longer see the bug, please set the resolution to RESOLVED, WORKSFORME.

This is a mass search of unconfirmed bugs that have no activity on them, so if you feel a bug was marked in error, just remove the CLOSEME comment in the whiteboard within the next month.

Comment 5

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

No reply, INCOMPLETE. Please retest with Firefox 3.6.12 or later and a new profile (http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles). If you continue to see this issue with the newest firefox and a new profile, then please comment on this bug.