1058854 - Implement phase one of Tab Center (side tabs)

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, defect)

Description

[Michael Maslaney [:mmaslaney] ([e-mail])]

Philipp's MVP:
http://phlsa.github.io/ff-tab-center/

Final Mock:
http://people.mozilla.org/~mmaslaney/tabcenter/Tab-center.png

Spec:
http://people.mozilla.org/~mmaslaney/tabcenter/Tab-center-spec.png

Interactions & Timeline:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ja1gg6d24b88xjk/AADv90L_MsdyNamjHa-OWkJQa?dl=0

Assets:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vkagu8httge8icc/tabCenter-assets.zip?dl=0

Comment 1

[(Currently slow to respond) Philipp Sackl [:phlsa] (Firefox UX) please use needinfo]

Attachment: Phase one

Note that this bug is specifically about implementing phase one of the design (see attachment), not the whole thing.

Comment 2

[Tim Taubert [:ttaubert] (inactive)]

I think we shouldn't implement a new feature/UI exposing tab groups. Tab Groups is somewhat broken already and is de facto dead. Tab Groups itself is mainly a UI to switch between tab groups so having a simpler switcher that duplicates that doesn't sound right. I would prefer not exposing it any further before we haven't committed and started to actually care about that feature again.

Comment 3

[(Currently slow to respond) Philipp Sackl [:phlsa] (Firefox UX) please use needinfo]

(In reply to Tim Taubert [:ttaubert] from comment #2)
> I think we shouldn't implement a new feature/UI exposing tab groups. Tab
> Groups is somewhat broken already and is de facto dead. Tab Groups itself is
> mainly a UI to switch between tab groups so having a simpler switcher that
> duplicates that doesn't sound right. I would prefer not exposing it any
> further before we haven't committed and started to actually care about that
> feature again.

Just to be clear: Phase one (which is the only thing that this bug is about) doesn't include any grouping functionality. It has many benefits besides being a stepping stone towards grouping, so we should still do it.

Otherwise I agree with you: we need to figure out whether or not grouping is compelling enough to enough people for us to keep supporting it. If it is, this is a good candidate for a more straightforward UI to work with them. But that question has yet to be answered.

Comment 4

[Albert Scheiner [:alberts]]

Within this kind of UI tab groups might (finally!?) get the exposure it needs so that more people actually know about it and try it out. I showed it to a view people in the last couple if years - no one knew this functionality existed - and approx. 3 out of 10 are using it now on a regular basis.
Ever since I saw the prototype I am excited about seeing tab groups back in place ...

Comment 5

[Alfred Kayser]

Please change resource://tabcenter/skin/.. into chrome://tabcenter/skin/.. to allow themes to provide their own styling for the tabcenter. Right now, it just conflicts with themes (badly).
Please make it more open.

Comment 6

[alex_mayorga]

¡Hola!

Is this why I see the loading spinner is a white square spinner on recent Nightlies?

Here's a video: https://www.screencast.com/t/0O0bZX5upN

I do have "Tab Center" installed in "Test Pilot".

¡Gracias!
Alex

Comment 7

[David Lawrence [:dkl]]

Changing qe-verify? to qe-verify+.