1360958 - Support openerId in web extensions when middle-clicking to open a new tab

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1238314

(WebExtensions :: General, defect)

Description

[Nicholas Nethercote [inactive]]

I'm a long-term user of the Tree Style Tab extension. I've been trying out the new Tree Tabs web extension (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-tabs/) in anticipation of Firefox 57. It's not a bad start but has some shortcomings due to web extension limitations. 

In particular when I middle-click on a link, I want the new tab to appear as a child of the current tab. But when I open a new tab with Ctrl-T or a bookmark, I want the new tab to appear as a top-level tab at the bottom of the tabs. (Tree Style Tab supports this behaviour.) However, Firefox web extensions apparently cannot distinguish between middle-clicking and the other cases. The author of Tree Tabs told me this:

> There is no way to distinguish where tab came from in current API. In 
> Chrome/Opera/Vivaldi tab opened from middle click gives openerId, Firefox
> does not.

So it sounds like there is already a mechanism that could be used to support this feature, but Firefox doesn't implement it. Please consider doing so!

Comment 1

[Nicholas Nethercote [inactive]]

It's possible this is a dup of bug 1238314.

Comment 2

[Kris Maglione [:kmag]]

It is.