1381922 - Allow modifying/restoring back-forward history for each tab

Status: NEW

(WebExtensions :: General, enhancement, P5)

Description

[Tim Nguyen :ntim]

Spin off bug 1378651

Comment 1

[Shane Caraveo (:mixedpuppy)]

Can we get a real description on this bug?

Comment 2

[Tim Nguyen :ntim]

There needs to be a way to either setting/modifying/restoring each tab's back-forward history, in the context of session managers.

Comment 3

[Worcester12345]

I think the lack of restoring/managing sessions will hold a lot of people from updating beyond version 56. Is there any way this can be prioritized, or even block version 57?

Thank you.

Comment 4

[Ralf Römling]

(In reply to Worcester12345 from comment #3)
> I think the lack of restoring/managing sessions will hold a lot of people
> from updating beyond version 56. Is there any way this can be prioritized,
> or even block version 57?
> 
> Thank you.

+1

Comment 5

[Rafał Mużyło]

@comment 4: while I *strongly* agree with the sentiment (I consider TMP and Session Manager absolutely crucial), let's bring this back to rational level.

Whenever sufficient API gets implemented, could we expect an early uplift (on near security vulnerability level of priority) if not straight to stable, then at least to beta ?

Comment 6

[david.lund]

Just to confirm the value of an API to allow access to this information. Consider this use case:

Using portions of the API that were not completed in the latest version, a user could use firefox as a tool, similar to word or excel.  We could:
 - open a series of tabs and work on them over time
 - if we closed a tab accidentally, we could reopen the tab
 - if we closed a window and needed something in that window, we could reopen that window
 - if we had an important session, we could save it to our history for recovery later

In general, this functionality makes firefox so useful, it is hard to imagine not having this functionality.

Comment 7

[TheFly]

Please fix this bug as Session Manager needs it and for many users of Firefox it is an essential addon to its usability. Quantum needs this addon or extension. I am currently using ESR version despite its lack of speed and usability. Tab Session Manager just doesn't do it.

Comment 8

[mark.s.phillips]

Is there a way to vote for bugs other than commenting? I agree with TheFly that this is a show stopping problem for many people. After all it does stop one of the most widely used plugins from being ported. I literally use it every day as I am sure lots of other people do.

Comment 9

[Robert AB]

@ Mike
This bug has almost 100 votes. Much more than many other bugs.

Comment 10

[john]

To provide more examples of the value of this feature, here are two other addons that are unrelated to session management, that I do not think can be updated without this feature. Admittedly, they do the same thing, and did not have many users, but they're a good example of the utility of a tab history API. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/backtrack-tab-history/ and https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-history/.

Comment 11

[Robert AB]

(In reply to Rafał Mużyło from comment #5)
> @comment 4: while I *strongly* agree with the sentiment (I consider TMP and
> Session Manager absolutely crucial), let's bring this back to rational level.


Mozilla should first concentrate on futures lost during Quantum/WebExtensions revolution instead of working on new ones (UI options to block notifications, microphone, camera and location will be introduced for example in Firefox 59). 
Quantum is nicely fast, but is lacking some crucial futures for me and many others caused by missing APIs for session managers; APIs should be ready way before FF57. Firefox Quantum is like new Ferrari without wheels and seats; developers were working hard on the engine but they forgot about other parts.

Lack of session managers is breaking my workflow, since I was relaying on Session Manager to save sessions with windows for different projects. I am not talking here about window colors or placement of buttons what is really secondary or tertiary. I am talking about difficulties with accessing earlier work. And this is really serious problem. The reason I started to use Session Manager in the past was that Firefox build-in session restoration system every some time was loosing my sessions after Firefox crash. And sessionstore in Firefox 57 is even more problematic (Bug 1427007/Bug 1426913).

That is why I did not switch to Firefox 57+ yet. Firefox 56-based Waterfox will be my and others' browser for a while. Some will probably stay with Firefox 56 or switch to Chrome, Opera or Vivaldi. 
Vivaldi has pretty good session restoration system. It can remember history for each tab, including scrolling state for each page. And I have never had problem with Vivaldi loosing sessions.

Comment 12

[Yves Goergen]

Fixing bugs before adding new features would be a noble policy that's hard to find out there. I don't think Mozilla can do that.

Comment 13

[don]

When you break an important feature with a new release most software companies would give priority to fixing that problem. Mozilla seems to think the FF 57+ is so wonderful that they don't need to do that. Like many others (run a search Mozilla!) Session Manager was my most important FF extension. I still have a copy of FF ESR portable so I can run it as needed. I've tried the new FF and haven't seen anything that would justify breaking such an important feature.
Robert Ab - I agree with your comments - thanks for your effort on this!

Comment 14

[Joaquin Miller]

[It will be obvious to readers of this note that I am not familiar with the selection of values for Bugzilla Status. 
But my thought will be clear.]

I see at the top of this page:

   Status (NEW bug which will not be worked on by staff, but a patch will be accepted) 

That does not fit the facts.

Isn't this the status:

    Status (REGRESSION Bug which will be prioritized with other such bugs, to restore the lost function for users) 

-----------------

[It will be obvious to readers of this note that I am not familiar with the the Bugzilla Priority system. 
But my thought will be clear.]

I see at the top of this page:

    Priority: -- → P5
    Whiteboard: [design-decision-neeed]

I expect that design decisions are tracked.

Will someone please post information on the reasons for the design decision that was made to remove this capability from Firefox?

Comment 15

[Caitlin Neiman [:caitmuenster]]

Hi Tim, this has been added to the agenda for the January 30, 2018 WebExtensions APIs triage meeting. Would you be able to join? 

Here’s a quick overview of what to expect at the triage: 

* We normally spend 5 minutes per bug
* The more information in the bug, the better
* The goal of the triage is to give a general thumbs up or thumbs down on a proposal; we won't be going deep into implementation details

Relevant Links: 

* Wiki for the meeting: https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebExtensions/Triage#Next_Meeting
* Meeting agenda: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1x80jYXicAotNjlitY5RZDcSRpRM3lmaSHp_q4co4OEg/edit#
* Vision doc for WebExtensions: https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebExtensions/Vision

Comment 16

[Caitlin Neiman [:caitmuenster]]

A design decision for this bug has been deferred pending a more holistic overview of session manager. Mike Conca to create a PRD.

Comment 17

[Mike Conca [:mconca]]

This feature may or may not be needed, depending on how other parts of the sessionStore are exposed via the WebExtensions API. One idea is to create a simple save/load mechanism that extensions could use, rather than expose each session control point (like history) individually.

Comment 18

[Robert AB]

(In reply to Mike Conca [:mconca] (Denver, CO, USA UTC-6) from comment #17)
> This feature may or may not be needed, depending on how other parts of the
> sessionStore are exposed via the WebExtensions API. One idea is to create a
> simple save/load mechanism that extensions could use, rather than expose
> each session control point (like history) individually.


Does the same applies to Bug 1378647 and Bug 1378651?

Comment 19

[Tim Nguyen :ntim]

Yeah, it does. The general mechanism Mike is describing is probably something similar to bug 1413525.

Comment 20

[quasicomputational]

I have another use-case here.

When uMatrix blocks a page in toto, it swaps in a 'blocked by uMatrix' page instead with a different URL. If you then tell uMatrix to allow the load and refresh, that 'blocked by uMatrix' page helpfully auto-redirects to the original destination... but it stays in the history and breaks the back button. See https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uMatrix-issues/issues/100

There are a couple of options here, but possibly the best one (IMO) is for the extension to be able to delete its 'blocked by uMatrix' page from the back/forwards history at the same time as it navigates to the destination, which this bug's feature would allow (well, if content scripts would be allowed to use it, which I think it would make sense to do).

(An alternative solution, which I don't think there's a bug for, would be something like a new privileged API to navigate to a URL and replace the current page's entry in history with the destination. But I don't know how many extensions would benefit from that, wheras being able to manipulate history could be quite generally useful.)

Comment 21

[Andrew Swan [:aswan]]

This already exists, see loadReplace at https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/tabs/update#Parameters

Comment 22

[Kenyoni]

(In reply to Mike Conca [:mconca] from comment #17)

This feature may or may not be needed, depending on how other parts of the
sessionStore are exposed via the WebExtensions API. One idea is to create a
simple save/load mechanism that extensions could use, rather than expose
each session control point (like history) individually.

Has there been any more movement toward this enhancement? (clearly not here, but maybe elsewhere?) Since there are no blockers listed for this bug/enhancement, it's difficult to tell. This was the last comment of any substance from over 3 years ago. Perusing meta bug 1330633, bug 1330635, and bug 1330638 I get some indication that there may be some hope in eventually getting some sort of sessionStore WebExtensions API, but not sure. A year ago in bug 1427928, :mixedpuppy indicated there isn't much hope, but maybe he was just referring to the super-meta-bug that it is, not necessarily its component parts. If so, where do we go from here? ...if not, the same question applies: Where do we go from here? Sit and wait for...?

Comment 23

[Worcester12345]

Still missing old Session Saver extension functionality and reliability. Fixing this might lessen that desire slightly.

Comment 24

[reikred]

(In reply to Worcester12345 from comment #23)

Still missing old Session Saver extension functionality and reliability. Fixing this might lessen that desire slightly.

Yup, we are still waiting for this to get fixed. One more vote that this is important.

Comment 25

[TheFly]

Same here. Still awaiting for this to be implemented however is thought best and safest. Thanks.

Comment 26

[richard]

I'm still following this too but I have little hope of it being resolved as I would like it to be. Since the rollout of FF57 and so the loss of the session manager addon I have lost data (in the form of open tabs) in Firefox on a number of occasions and whilst the session restore feature mostly works it's not a patch on what was session manager, especially in cases where a specific tab repeatedly crashes Firefox and session restore decides to just delete your problematic data in response (making diagnosis also a problem).

Comment 27

[john v kumpf]

FYI A good write-up (clear, detailed) of the value of having session manager add-ons that can save (1378651) and restore tab history is here:

https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/grs6a8/are_there_really_no_session_manager_addons_that/
Including this comment.

Also, for reference, the fairly popular "Tab Session Manager" addon has an issue entry for this problem here: https://github.com/sienori/Tab-Session-Manager/issues/27 (FYI: as of 07/26/2022 "Tab Session Manager" has 111,245 Users, 790 Reviews, and 4.4 out of 5 Stars on Firefox's addon site, and is "Recommended" by Firefox.)

(FYI you can vote for this bug by opening up "Details" at the top and clicking 'Vote', if you didnt know--I didn't ;)

Comment 28

[Shane Caraveo (:mixedpuppy)]

I'm declaring need-info bankruptcy and resetting old ni? on me. If input is still needed on this issue and it is engineering specific for the webextensions team, ni? lgreco, or ni? me again.