505821 - "Open new windows in new tab" option has changed behaviour from previous versions

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Firefox :: Settings UI, enhancement)

Description

[Patrick O'Callaghan]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1) Gecko/20090630 Fedora/3.5-1.fc11 Firefox/3.5
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1) Gecko/20090630 Fedora/3.5-1.fc11 Firefox/3.5

In previous versions of FF, I could click on a URL in other apps (e.g. my mail reader) and get a new window, but if I clicked from *within* a FF window I'd get a new tab. I liked this behaviour, but it seems to be impossible to get with FF 3.5. The option only allows new windows always, or new tabs always.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Click on a URL in mail reader
2.
3.
Actual Results:  
With Preferences->Tabs->"Open new wondows in a new tab" is set, I get a new tab, but the main FF window is often on a different virtual desktop from the mail reader, forcing me to switch desktops to see it. Alternatively, with the option turned off, every URL click gets a new window, which is clumsy.

Expected Results:  
Open the URL in a new window on the same desktop, but if I click on a URL inside a FF window, open it as a new tab. This is what previous versions of FF did and it seemed to me correct.

Comment 1

[Patrick O'Callaghan]

An alternative to adding yet more options to the Preferences dialog would be to have a command-line option "-new-window" (perhaps also "-new-tab" for completeness). Then the action to be taken from other apps -- which generally allow the user to specify a Shell command to execute on clicking on a URL -- could be set up individually for each app. Note that the existing "-no-remote" option is useless for this, at least under Linux (complains that FF is already running).