101973 - Disable <tabbrowser>

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(Core :: XUL, defect)

Description

[David Hyatt]

Ack!  Too much publicity.  Swamped with bugs for what is only a rough prototype
that may not even go into Mozilla 1.0.  Need to disable CTRL+T to spare my sanity!!!

Comment 1

[Brendan Eich [:brendan]]

No, be strong.  Push bugs out.  Please INVALID this bug.

I don't think you can put this genie back in the bottle.  People will want it
for 1.0 -- they'll want it as-is for 0.9.5, and mozilla.org will hear from all
the people you're trying to stifle if you "fix" this bug.  You don't have to fix
all the other bugs that are swamping you, and if others want to take them, and
you're ok with helpers, mark helpwanted.

/be

Comment 2

[Christopher Aillon (sabbatical, not receiving bugmail)]

What Brendan said.  Bugs or not, it's still better than having multiple windows
open.

Comment 3

[David Hyatt]

Attachment: Die tabbrowser die.

Comment 4

[David Hyatt]

Brendan, it needs to be disabled for 0.9.5.  We can't ship 0.9.5 with a buggy
crash-prone feature, and I don't have time to make it safe in 0.9.5.  Maybe at
the start of 0.9.6 we can turn it back on again, but I don't think it makes
sense to send it out in this state for 0.9.5.

Comment 5

[Stefan Seifert]

Actually the only way to open new tabs is pressing the undocumented keycombo
Ctrl+T, isn't it?

So if you ship 0.9.5 with tab browsing enabled but don't say anything about it
in the release notes or help text there would be no additional visible bugs for
end users, only for these regular Mozillazine watchers wich may live with the bugs.

I think as this is an opt-in feature which no one encounters that tries Mozilla
only occasionally you could leave it in for us power users who just love it even
with all the problems ;)

Just my opinion...

Comment 6

[David Hyatt]

Yes, but the <browser> widget has still been replaced with <tabbrowser>, which
could lead to instability/regressions that may not yet have been discovered. 
I'm nervous about shipping with this new widget in place of the old in an actual
released milestone.

Comment 7

[David Hyatt]

Attachment: Remove <tabbrowser> and revert back to <browser>. Remove CTRL+T key binding.

Comment 8

[David Hyatt]

Also, more than one person has hit CTRL+T by accident (as documented in 
bugs).  People are going to run into this, even without the documentation.  It 
needs to be turned off for 0.9.5.

Comment 9

[jag (Peter Annema)]

Comment on attachment 51111 [details] [diff] [review]
Remove <tabbrowser> and revert back to <browser>.  Remove CTRL+T key binding.

r=jag

Comment 10

[Jason Kersey]

Milestones are for testing new features.  Leave it in.  As Asa says "we don't
ship products."  Or whatever it is he always says.

Comment 11

[Blake Ross]

I agree this should be off for 0.9.5. sr=blake

Comment 12

[David Hyatt]

All right.  I will leave this feature on for now, but the moment a regression 
occurs without multiple tabs open, this bug is going in.  Agreed?

Comment 13

[Brendan Eich [:brendan]]

We have a conflict here.  Please don't back it out just because you have r and
sr (recall other recent bugs that didn't have consensus, but that got r/sr, went
in, and then were backed out).

Based on a face-to-face with hyatt, I propose:

1) If we feel ctrl-T is too discoverable, we pref that off for 0.9.5 but keep a
bunch of testers running with it enabled.

2) If there are crash bugs in the non-tabbed ui due to hyatt's changes, we get
other people than hyatt (you tab-loving volunteers have to step up) to fix them,
and if we can't, then we disable the feature for 0.9.5 -- but not yet!  Now is
not the time to claim risk is too high, capriciously.  We're taking all sorts of
changes for 0.9.5 that carry crash risks, and we're not yet clamping down on
such changes or stifling momentum behind fixing the crashes rather than just
giving up.

If part of the impetus for this bug is that hyatt's overwhelmed with RFEs and
non-crash bugs to do with "tabs aren't fixed width" and so on, then I strongly
believe the right answer is for hyatt to triage those bugs aggressively, and/or
to give them away to helpers (who need to step up from the ranks of those most
bugged by the non-crash malfunctions).

Rome was not built in a day, and neither will tabbed windows with all the bells,
whistles, quality, and best ui.  But mozilla.org does not cater to end users in
its nightlies, and it is pure poison to turn off a feature that sort of works,
before you really, truly need to turn it off.  That will play into, or lead to,
paranoid project management, cathedralized development, and even source forking.

Comments?

/be

Comment 14

[David Hyatt]

A true example of code taking on a life of its own.  Be free, little tabbrowser,
be free. :)

Marking WONTFIX.

Comment 15

[Hixie (not reading bugmail)]

hyatt: This is one of the best features of Mozilla's UI. It has the potential
to really swing people in favour of Mozilla based products as opposed to IE.
(At least, until the next release of IE, which will have this feature.)

You kick ass! :-D

And anyway, our printing is more buggy than the <tabbrowser> widget, but you 
don't see people turning that off! ;-)

VERIFIED WONTFIX.

Comment 16

[Marko Macek]

MDI sucks!

#ifdef 0
#endif
Perhaps a good time to start my browser chrome from scratch...

Comment 17

[Christoph]

Just wanted to say good job.  Really like the tab browser feature and use it all
the time now that that the new context menu is in place for them  Hope this
stays around 'cause I find it a really usefull feature and pretty damn cool too.  

Comment 18

[greg]

i have no problems at all with the tabs.(no crashes etc) its a really cool
feature for me, as my pc isn't the best. opening new tabs is was faster then
opening new windows. 

disabling it in 0.9.5 would be ok, but i would like to have it back in 0.9.6 of
course.

Comment 19

[Marko Macek]

My opinion: all work on Tab related bugs should be postponed for mozilla 1.1+ or
2.0 after serious UI evaluation is performed and performance reasons for them
are eliminated (new window performance being #1).

Comment 20

[Mike Schiraldi]

Is there any way to vote *against* a bug? :) I love the tabbrowser. Thanks for
making the right decision, Hyatt.

Comment 21

[Todd Cohn]

I love the tabs, too.  They seem to be working well so far.  Go tabs, go!

Comment 22

[Tim McNerney]

Is there a reason for not taking advantage of the work done on the Multizilla
(http://multizilla.mozdev.org) project? I know duplication of effort is one of
the credos of any good open source project, but Multizilla seems to be much
further along than this effort.