Closed
Bug 105589
Opened 23 years ago
Closed 23 years ago
[RFE] new tabs should not necessarily load home page
Categories
(SeaMonkey :: Tabbed Browser, enhancement)
SeaMonkey
Tabbed Browser
Tracking
(Not tracked)
CLOSED
WONTFIX
People
(Reporter: neady, Assigned: hyatt)
References
Details
Currently, if you have a home/start page set, not only does the browser load it on startup, and the Home button (if you have it visible) loads it, and new windows, but also new tabs opened via Ctrl-T load your home page as well. When I open a new tab, I would often like for it not to load my start page. It would be nice to have a pref to get it to load something else instead: perhaps a blank page, or a search engine, or maybe even a user-specified "new tab" page. Though I'd be happy just being able to set it so new tabs start blank. This RFE does not apply to new tabs opened specifically for certain content, as in the link context-menu item Open in New Tab, which should continue to do as it does.
Assignee | ||
Comment 1•23 years ago
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Fixed. I just made all tabs blank. I don't believe tabs should ever load the hom e page now that I've played with it.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 23 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
Reporter | ||
Comment 2•23 years ago
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Fine by me. If someone does want new tabs to open the start page, he can reopen this RFE or file a new one, but this resolution does what I want.
Comment 3•23 years ago
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IMHO it is the better solution, thx
Comment 4•23 years ago
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IMHO, new tabs should function identically to new windows. The only difference is in the "presentation". Having new tabs automatically come up blank should only be acceptable if new windows automatically come up blank - which is not the case. Personally, it's not a big deal, although I'd lean towards preferring having my home page come up in new tabs. But I'm sure that this is a matter of preference, and that it should be treated in the same way as the new window preference. I do not have sufficient rights to reopen this bug.
Comment 5•23 years ago
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BTW: This newly introduced behaviour (making tabs blanked) has had negative affect on the Multizilla project. See: http://mozdev.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=617 Jason.
Reporter | ||
Comment 7•23 years ago
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Okay, the resolution does what I want, but with others objecting and a whole sub-project affected, it seems clear this should be reopened and made a preference as the RFE originally suggested.
Status: RESOLVED → UNCONFIRMED
Resolution: FIXED → ---
Assignee | ||
Comment 8•23 years ago
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Sorry, this has been resolved. I'm not going to waste time with a preference for something so minor.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 23 years ago → 23 years ago
Resolution: --- → WONTFIX
Assignee | ||
Comment 9•23 years ago
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This should not have had any effect on Multizilla, which is presumably using its own functions/methods for opening tabs (it does not use the tabbrowser).
Comment 10•23 years ago
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David, you're right, this is not a problem for MultiZilla, but I was looking for the patch to see what had changed.
Comment 11•23 years ago
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It seems it was a code change, and not the functional change of new tab behaviour, that caused the MultiZilla problems. So I owe David an apology for that, as well as others for the bandwidth. I'm still disappointed with the result of this bug, but, having already stated my opinion, I'll say nothing more on the subject here.
Comment 12•23 years ago
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David. Could you PLEASE reopen this, assign it to "nobody" and mark it "future" I perfectly understand that you do not want to spend time making the pref, but a "WONTFIX" prevents somebody else from doing it. I was severely disappointed when my tabs started coming up blank. I know for some people that may be the preffered behavior, but for myself, they are now much less useful :(
Comment 13•23 years ago
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*** Bug 107395 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 14•23 years ago
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Didn't find this bug and posted comments to another bug. If you're not going to add a new preference for tabs, tabs should load the same page that is loaded by new windows. I don't see where the expectation is coming from that there should be a distinction between the expected behavior of a new tab and the expected behavior of a new window.
Reporter | ||
Comment 15•23 years ago
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Really, this bug was originally about providing the ability (as an option) to do what is now the default. Rather than WONTFIX, this bug should probably be marked FIXED, and Bug 107395 should then not be a dupe (but could be marked as Future or WONTFIX or whatever).
Comment 16•23 years ago
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No. If you read the Summary, the bug is about creating a pref for whether or not to load the home page in new tabs. The bug was NOT a request to default (with no choice) to loading a blank page. The "fix" that was put in does not address this bug. If it's to be marked as anything, it should be "WONTFIX" (as it is), not "Fixed" (because it is not). However, as per a recent comment and given the number of complaints about how it's been handled, it should be reopened, assigned to nobody and marked future.
Reporter | ||
Comment 17•23 years ago
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The summary is just a summary. Read the description. This bug has been FIXED.
Summary: [RFE] Pref for whether new tabs load home page → [RFE] new tabs should not load home page
Comment 18•23 years ago
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<OT> Not to belabour the obvious, but here's the description: "It would be nice to have a pref to get it to load something else instead: perhaps a blank page, or a search engine, or maybe even a user-specified "new tab" page." There is no pref as stated in the description. It's been made default behaviour. This is *not* FIXED, it's WONTFIX. No change in status required. </OT>
Comment 19•23 years ago
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Either this bug, or it's dup, bug 107395 needs to be re-opened. "Because Hyatt doesnt feel like doing it right now" is not a valid reason to WONTFIX a bug :)
Comment 20•23 years ago
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Here you go. How about this: /xpfe/browser/resources/content/navigator.js, line 786 -- function BrowserOpenTab() currently goes like this: function BrowserOpenTab() { gBrowser.selectedTab = gBrowser.addTab('about:blank'); setTimeout("gURLBar.focus();", 0); } Patch it to do this instead: function BrowserOpenTab() { if (pref && pref.getBoolPref("browser.tabs.use_new_page_default") && getBrowser().localName == "tabbrowser") { var handler = Components.classes['@mozilla.org/commandlinehandler/general-startup;1?type=browser'].getService(Components.interfaces.nsICmdLineHandler); var startpage = handler.defaultArgs; gBrowser.selectedTab = gBrowser.addTab(startpage); }else{ gBrowser.selectedTab = gBrowser.addTab('about:blank'); } setTimeout("gURLBar.focus();", 0); } Sorry I couldnt format that as a real patch, I do not have a build system. I would re-open and accept this bug, but I dont have sufficient bugzilla permissions
Comment 21•23 years ago
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Yes, please re-open and accept MozillaUser's patch! I also believe that the behavior should follow that of opening new windows. Having this patch should satisfy those who think like me as well as those we always want a blank page. The "fix" for this "bug" is causing many other bugs to be filed to fix this "fix" (such as 107395 and 108178).
Comment 22•23 years ago
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Please reopen and either put the behavior back the old way (new tabs follow preferences) or put in the preference for new tabs to follow preferences. Wouldn't that be a circular preference? Anyway, why is this "wontfix" when the RFE was actually incorporated?
Reporter | ||
Comment 23•23 years ago
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> Please reopen and either put the behavior back the old way Please do not put the behavior back the old way. I put in this RFE in the first place precisely because I do not want new tabs to load my home page. > (new tabs follow preferences) New tabs have not had a preference for what to load at any time, so that would not be "the old way". The old way was for new tabs to do what new windows do -- but new tabs are not even remotely the same thing as new windows. > or put in the preference for new tabs to follow > preferences. Wouldn't that be a circular preference? That doesn't make sense at all. If a preference is added related to this bug, it should be a preference for what (if anything) new tabs should load. > Anyway, why is this "wontfix" when the RFE was > actually incorporated? I have no idea. It was FIXED once, but when someone claimed that the fix impacted Multizilla (which turned out to be incorrect information) I reopened it, trying to be gracious, and it ended up as WONTFIX as a result.
Summary: [RFE] new tabs should not load home page → [RFE] new tabs should not necessarily load home page
Comment 24•23 years ago
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> Please do not put the behavior back the old way. I put in > this RFE in the first place precisely because I do not want > new tabs to load my home page. But obviously, many, many people *do* want new tabs to load the home page. I don't think it's reasonable for you to make this change against everyone's wish! > new tabs are not even remotely the same thing as new windows. How in the world can you say that with a straight face? They are almost *exactly* the same thing as a new window. It has it's own history, just like a new window. I can open & close tabs without affecting other tabs, just as I can open & close windows without affecting other windows. > If a preference is > added related to this bug, it should be a preference > for what (if anything) new tabs should load. I think John Fredlund meant that we could have a preference that would cause new tabs to follow the same behavior as new windows (as far as what page to load when one is created). I like that idea, but I would not be opposed to a tab-specific "homepage" preference either. I find the current behavior useless and a bit of a pain, as I have to both create a new tab, then pick "Home" from the "Go" menu.
Comment 25•23 years ago
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> I put in this RFE in the first place precisely because I do not want > new tabs to load my home page. The RFE you requested was "to have a pref to get it to load something else instead: perhaps a blank page, or a search engine, or maybe even a user-specified 'new tab' page." I've quoted this back twice now, and you're the person who wrote it, so you should have no problem understanding what you requested originally. You did NOT request that new tabs be hard coded as blank pages. You requested a preference. We didn't get that. > new tabs are not even remotely the same thing as new windows I have no idea how you can say that. They are exactly the same except for being in an MDI format. Why is it so hard to get new tabs to function as people want? That way everybody can be happy. You can get your blank pages, and other people can get their home pages.
Comment 26•23 years ago
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SIMPLY - A new, blank tab page is useless. In order to load a page into it, one must actually type an URL, or go to bookmarks, or somewhere else to get content. When I open a new tab or window, I want content. If all the cc's don't want to load up this bug report with spam, perhaps someone could schedule a discussion on irc.mozillazine?
Reporter | ||
Comment 27•23 years ago
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> Please do not put the behavior back the old way. I put in > > this RFE in the first place precisely because I do not want > > new tabs to load my home page. > > But obviously, many, many people Half a dozen people are obvious; the rest are conjecture. > *do* want new tabs to load the home page. I don't think > it's reasonable for you to make this change against > everyone's wish! I didn't make the change, and I think it should be obvious from the way I worded the initial request that had I done so, I would have made it a preference. The reason I would have done so is because my philosophy is to have hundreds of thousands of preferences (I'm an Emacs user, if that says anything about my view about having lots of user options), and because I don't like to force my own (sometimes esoteric) settings on other people. However, the person responsible for this component of the browser has a different philosophy: "I'm not going to waste time with a preference for something so minor." There are people -- a lot of people -- involved with the Mozilla project who feel that a few preferences are good but that lots of preferences for every imaginable user desire are too many, for one reason or another. (Usual reasons: they confuse people, they add bloat that makes the app larger, or they slow things down and result in poor performance.) This is not my view, but it is a view with enough support in the Netscape camp that I don't feel comfortable disputing it too loudly here. In any case, this bug is FIXED. The current behavior is the behavior I requested. The ability to go back to the former behavior, which I consider broken, should be a separate RFE (and one I am not interested in following). > > new tabs are not even remotely the same thing as new windows. > How in the world can you say that with a straight face? Because tabs are useful for fundamentally different kinds of things from what windows are useful for. Tabs are a valuable way to compare related pages, or queue pages for sequential viewing. For example, when I am tracking a bug in Bugzilla, I may do a bug search in one tab, open the bugs that are found each in their own tab, open yet another tab for a related search, a google search of n.p.m.* for context, or whatever. Windows are another animal altogether. Separate Windows are useful for completely unrelated content. While I am doing a bugzilla search as above in one window, I might receive an email message or be interrupted by a family member and as a result open another browser window to view a completely unrelated page (or set of pages). It is convenient to have my home page in each window, because that way I don't need to go hunting for it, it's always there in the leftmost tab in each window. But multiple copies of it in each window would be 100% pointless. Now that I think about it, however, it is not obvious to me that all new windows should open the home page. I can easily conceive of a usage patter that would want a certain page loaded (perhaps a daily comic like User Friendly) once when the browser starts but would not want to consume bandwidth loading it again for each and every new window. Now that I think about it, this should be three distinct preferences: [*] On browser startup, load this URL: http://www.mozilla.org/ [*] New windows should load this URL: http://www.google.com/ [ ] New tabs should load this URL: (Unchecked options would result in a blank page.) However, this should be a separate RFE. > It has it's own history, just like a new window. There is an RFE open to propagate the parent window's history to child windows, and I agree. But history is not really important to the issue of what distinguishes a tab from a window. We could just as well say "new tabs share the same cache, just line new windows", but that is entirely irrelevant. > I can open & close tabs without affecting other tabs, > just as I can open & close windows without affecting > other windows. This is vacuous. I can click on links and open them in the same tab, just as I can click on links and open them in the same window, too. But a tab displays side-by-side with the other tabs, and the whole set of tabs are governed by the window containing them; I would say, a tab is to its window as a window is to the whole browser. Sure, there are similarities, but there are also important differences. > I've quoted this back twice now Badly out of context both times, and both times missing the primary thrust of my statement: # When I open a new tab, I would often like for it # not to load my start page. [...] I'd be happy # just being able to set it so new tabs start blank What I requested has been done. I worded my request softly, with the possibility that it might be made an option, because an option would have been good enough for me and because I was not confident that others would agree with my request. (The guy who is responsible for the tabbed browsing component did agree with me, it seems.) Be that as it may my request, however softly worded, was not for an option as such but for the ability (possibly as an option) to have new tabs start blank. Your heavily-snipped requotes miss the entire focus of my request and take advantage of the non-dogmatic way I worded it to try to pass my request off as one for opposite behavior -- but nobody is fooled by this because they can read my request for themselves. > SIMPLY - A new, blank tab page is useless. Not one quarter so useless as a meaningless additional copy of the page already loaded in the first tab. > In order to load a page into it, one must actually > type an URL, or go to bookmarks, or somewhere else > to get content. The usual pattern is to click an entry on the Personal Toolbar. On the occasion that I open a tab with Ctrl-T, this is just about always what I do. (I used to also open tabs with Ctrl-T and type a URL, but that is no longer necessary, since typing a URL in and hitting enter opens a new tab now, which is wonderful.) I have already a copy of my homepage in the other tab, so that is never the page I want loaded, always it is some other page. Needing to hit stop is an extra step, but it is worse than that, since Mozilla now resumes loading the previous page until it gets a reply from the new site, needlessly chewing up yet more bandwidth that I don't have to spare. This bug was FIXED and is RESOLVED and VERIFIED. You want a preference to go back to the old behavior, open a separate RFE as was said when this was first resolved (see comment #2).
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
Comment 28•23 years ago
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Yes, yes. no need to argue about this. This bug is closed I have posted new bug 109551 asking for a pref.
Comment 29•23 years ago
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> Half a dozen people are obvious; the rest are conjecture. More people have complained about having tabs started up as blank pages than have complained about tabs starting at the home page. Yes, I'm extrapolating, but I think that's reasonable. > "I'm not going > to waste time with a preference for something so minor." If that was the thinking, then I wish he hadn't bothered making the change. :^) > The ability to go back > to the former behavior, which I consider broken, should > be a separate RFE (and one I am not interested in > following). And I filed one last week, Bug 108178. But someone closed it as a duplicate of this bug, so I've been arguing about it here ever since. > Tabs are a > valuable way to compare related pages, or queue pages for > sequential viewing. Everything that you stated for tabs, I can do the same thing using windows. I really don't see them being all that different, except that I find the tabbing interface to be much more convenient. > I might receive an email message Personally, I would love to be able to read email in a tab too. I believe there is already an RFE open for this though. > But multiple copies of it in each window would be > 100% pointless. Only to you. To me, having multiple blank tabs is 100% pointless. I have my homepage setup with my most popular links. I find it very convenient to use as my starting point. A blank page, on the other hand, does nothing for me. > There is an RFE open to propagate the parent window's > history to child windows, and I agree. Oh, I hope no one listens to that one. > This is vacuous. That was uncalled for. It is simply a difference of opinion. Don't make it personal. > > SIMPLY - A new, blank tab page is useless. > > Not one quarter so useless as a meaningless > additional copy of the page already loaded in > the first tab. And this is where I and others *STRONGLY* disagree with you. > The usual pattern is to click an entry on the Personal > Toolbar. No, that's *YOUR* usual pattern. *MY* usual pattern is to have a homepage that acts as a starting point. And do you want to know why? It's because I DON'T ALWAYS USE MOZILLA!!!! Sometimes I use I.E. Sometimes I use Lynx. Sometimes, I'm using a friend's computer. Therefore, I have a homepage that actually works as a starting point, so that it's useful from any browser on any computer. Using a personal toolbar as a starting point is not a very network-centric way of using the web. It goes against the whole philosophy.
Reporter | ||
Comment 30•23 years ago
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Followup-to: bug 109551 > > The ability to go back to the former behavior, > > which I consider broken, should be a separate > > RFE (and one I am not interested in following). > > And I filed one last week, Bug 108178. But > someone closed it as a duplicate of this bug, so > I've been arguing about it here ever since. However, now there is bug 108178 (which would be a duplicate of 109551, except that 109551 is erroneously marked as a dupe of 105589). > > Tabs are a valuable way to compare related > > pages, or queue pages for sequential viewing. > > Everything that you stated for tabs, I can do the > same thing using windows. A vacuous statement. True, but meaningless. Notice: "Everything you stated for windows in Mozilla, I can do the same things using libwww-perl by rendering the HTML with W3 and viewing the images separately". "Everything you can do with C++, I can do with Intercal." But would you *want* to? Capability isn't the point. The point is what the design of the user interface makes it *convenient* to do. All user interface issues are issues of convenience. If convenience were unnecessary, we could take the Gecko layout engine and hook it up to ghostscript, and you could pass URLs in on the commandline and get back PostScript. That would give you all the same capabilities as Mozilla gives you (in the browser; it wouldn't handle mail and news and stuff, of course). But that would be grossly inconvenient. > I really don't see them being all that different, > except that I find the tabbing interface to be > much more convenient. Windows are convenient for some things, and tabs are convenient for other things. That was my whole point. > > I might receive an email message > > Personally, I would love to be able to read > email in a tab too. I believe there is already > an RFE open for this though. I don't use Mozilla for mail or news. It isn't sufficiently powerful or convenient for my needs. > > But multiple copies of it in each window would be > > 100% pointless. > > Only to you. To me, having multiple blank tabs > is 100% pointless. I have my homepage setup > with my most popular links. I find it very > convenient to use as my starting point. So leave your homepage loaded in the leftmost tab of each window. You only need one copy of it per window to function as a starting point, and you can open the links from it in their own tabs. This is the pattern I follow when using Bugzilla; I leave the search results ("bug list") in one tab and use them as a starting point. I don't need multiple copies of my starting point, though. > > There is an RFE open to propagate the parent > > window's history to child windows, and I > > agree. > > Oh, I hope no one listens to that one. I wouldn't care about it myself, but if you've ever watched end users try to use the internet, you will notice that almost none of them grasp the concept of multiple windows, so when javascript or an href target opens a new window in front of the old one, they don't understand why the back button doesn't work. Even an advanced user can occasionally not realise that a new window has been opened by the page, (although when an advanced user sees the back button disabled he knows why). The end user's expectation is that when he clicks the back button, it goes back to the previous page -- always, irrespective of whether a new window has been opened ad interim. > > The usual pattern is to click an entry on the > > Personal Toolbar. > > No, that's *YOUR* usual pattern. *MY* usual > pattern is to have a homepage that acts as a > starting point. And do you want to know why? > It's because I DON'T ALWAYS USE MOZILLA!!!! There's no need to shout. I don't always use Mozilla either (although IE is not one of the other browsers I use), and I certainly understand having a home page that functions as a starting point. But I still don't understand why you need multiple copies of your starting point. That is the point that needs explaining. Please post your rationale for this in comments to bug 109551. > Sometimes I use I.E. Sometimes I use Lynx. > Sometimes, I'm using a friend's computer. One presumes that when you use a friend's computer, you don't mess with his home page settings. Most people don't take kindly to that. > Using a personal toolbar as a starting point is > not a very network-centric way of using the web. It is network-centric, or it will be once the RFE to allow you to store your bookmarks and prefs in a central location is implemented. The real reason not to use it would be if you couldn't fit enough links there and needed a whole pagefull. But I said, I understand using a homepage as a starting point; the only thing I don't comprehend is wanting multiple copies of it in each window. Compare workflow: My Way: * I'm looking at page A in a tab, and I want to look at page B in another tab. * I click once on the leftmost tab (which has my starting-point page). * I ctrl-click the link to page B. * I click once on the tab for page A and go back to reading it while page B loads. * When page B is done loading, I click that tab and view the page. Your Way: * You're looking at page A in a tab, and you want to look at page B in another tab. * You open another tab with Ctrl-T, and if bug 109551 gets the resolution you want, page C (your starting point) starts to load in that tab while you read page A. * When page C is done loading, you click on that tab, then click the link to page B. * You click on the tab for page A and go back to reading that page while page B loads. * When page B is done loading, you click that tab and view the page. Your way is not any more convenient, in terms of the number of clicks required, than mine. It does require waiting for an extra page (page C) to load, whereas with my way it is already loaded. If your start page is on the local drive, this is not a substantial difference because it will load in no time flat, but you stated that your reason for wanting this is because your start page might be stored elsewhere, right? Then why would you want to reload it again and again and again for every new page you want to visit? With the addition of tabs to the browser, it is now convenient to keep a page loaded for reference, for use as a starting point, or whatever. We *could* do that with windows, but it was inconvenient, more trouble than it was worth generally. With tabs, it is now convenient. That is the *value* of the tabbed browsing feature. The usage pattern you seem to indicate would seem to me to derive from an old usage pattern formed when separate windows were the only way to have multiple pages open, and it seems to me that it doesn't take full advantage of the tabbed browsing feature. Anyway, I don't mind if you want a pref to go back to the old broken behavior, but further advocacy should be done in bug 109551. Bug 105589 is VERIFIED and will not be reopened, so further debate here is pointless.
Comment 31•23 years ago
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I think I finally understand why we have such a
difference of opinion.
You apparently use Mozilla in a low-bandwidth
environment, and I use it in a high-bandwidth one.
Your workflow example is appropriate for someone with
a slow network connection. But with a fast connection
it should be updated as so:
Your Way:
* You're looking at page A in a tab, and you want to
look at page B in another tab.
* You click once on the leftmost tab (which has
your starting-point page).
* You ctrl-click the link to page B (which also changes
focus to that new page, if you set preferences as I do)
and read it.
My Way:
* I'm looking at page A in a tab, and I want
to look at page B in another tab.
* I open another tab with right-click->New Tab
(or CTRL-T), which both loads my homepage and
changes the focus to the new tab.
* I click the link to page B and read it.
The steps are basically equivalent (two clicks each), but
your way wastes what I consider valuable tab real-estate
by having a tab hang around solely to act as a starting point.
My way requires more network access, but in my situation
that access is extremely fast & cheap (at least it is for
my homepage), so I would rather save the tab real-estate.
> > Using a personal toolbar as a starting point is
> > not a very network-centric way of using the web.
>
> It is network-centric, or it will be once the RFE
> to allow you to store your bookmarks and prefs in
> a central location is implemented.
In other words, it hasn't been networks-centric, it
currently isn't network centric, but it might become so
in the future, but probably only as long as you use
Mozilla.
A homepage, on the other hand, has always
worked and continues to work with all browsers.
Reporter | ||
Comment 32•23 years ago
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> You apparently use Mozilla in a low-bandwidth
> environment, and I use it in a high-bandwidth one.
I use Mozilla both at home (over a dialup) and at work
(over a T1 shared with half a dozen other computers).
The workflow I described is correct at either of those
speeds. I suppose if you live in the Yahoo headquarters
or on a major telecommunications satelite, things might
be different, but a shared T1 is the fastest connection
any typical user is likely to have.
Status: VERIFIED → CLOSED
Comment 33•23 years ago
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Please stop spamming this bug. Perhaps the best solution would be to reopen 107395 and ask users to vote for this bug or 107395 (one solution for which would be to back out the solution to this bug) and base the decision on that. To me, a blank tab with a title of (Untitled) is looks like broken behavior until I'm told otherwise; I wonder if the same would be true of other users.
Updated•16 years ago
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Product: Core → SeaMonkey
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Description
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