715288 - Restore Session All tabs in one window

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Session Restore, enhancement)

Description

[ametedinov]

Attachment: Screenshot.png

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Ubuntu; X11; Linux i686; rv:8.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/8.0
Build ID: 20111115183158



Actual results:

When presented with the Restore Session window,  one can choose which windows, or which tabs in a particular window to restore. However there is something missing from the options. 

Consider the screenshot attached below. It shows two windows with a couple of tabs in each window. One can choose to restore all tabs by clicking the Restore button but that will open an additional window. There should be an option to restore all tabs in the same window. Perhaps you can add a button "Restore All tabs in the same window" or something of that sort. 

Several scenarios exist where such a functionality is not only necessary but also essential. Here is one. Suppose one runs firefox on a virtual machine with limited resources and for a particular reason the user has opened enough windows to freeze the virtual machine. Then the only option left is force quitting firefox. Upon reopening firefox, the user is presented with the Restore Session option and all closed tabs are desired to be restored. However if the user presses the restore button, all those windows will reopen again and the VM will freeze again. However if an option to restore all tabs in one window is available, the machine will be able to handle the task or restoring the tabs without freezing. 

Perhaps I went overboard with my extensive writing already but another reason this feature is needed is simply simplicity and time-saving. Often times, one finds themselves inadvertently with a few open windows, each containing a dozen tabs and wants he wants to have all tabs in the the same window. With the existence of such an option he can force quit firefox and then in session restore choose the aforementioned option.

Comment 1

[Paul O'Shannessy [:zpao] (not bugmail, email directly)]

Thanks for taking the time to report this, but I'm going to mark this WONTFIX. See below for my reasoning.

(In reply to ametedinov from comment #0)
> Several scenarios exist where such a functionality is not only necessary but
> also essential. Here is one. Suppose one runs firefox on a virtual machine
> with limited resources and for a particular reason the user has opened
> enough windows to freeze the virtual machine. Then the only option left is
> force quitting firefox. Upon reopening firefox, the user is presented with
> the Restore Session option and all closed tabs are desired to be restored.
> However if the user presses the restore button, all those windows will
> reopen again and the VM will freeze again. However if an option to restore
> all tabs in one window is available, the machine will be able to handle the
> task or restoring the tabs without freezing. 

I think the "restore on demand" preference is good enough to cover this sort of case.

> Perhaps I went overboard with my extensive writing already but another
> reason this feature is needed is simply simplicity and time-saving. Often
> times, one finds themselves inadvertently with a few open windows, each
> containing a dozen tabs and wants he wants to have all tabs in the the same
> window. With the existence of such an option he can force quit firefox and
> then in session restore choose the aforementioned option.

I understand the desire you have to fit your workflow, but I don't think adding visual complexity to a page that only appears following a crash is the right way to go. Apart from the pref I mentioned, I think the other additions could be handled by an extension but not as part of the core Firefox.