1414748 - Order list of synced tabs by according to the order in the browser

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Sync, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Michal Stanke (Mozilla.cz) [:mstanke][:MikkCZ]]

This request we have got as a feedback during OpenAlt conference this weekend. A Firefox user suggested to add an option to sort the tabs according to the order in the source browser. At this moment the order is according the the time opened.

Comment 1

[Thom Chiovoloni [:tcsc] (ex-moco)]

I came across a patch for this when clearing out my 'already merged bugs' list. It's a few weeks old, IIRC I had written it after realizing (in bug 1416313) that the reason it's the way it is right now is just a side effect caused by the way we trim old tabs.

(In it I also took the opportunity to make a rather opaque function we use in our test code better documented and make what it's doing more obvious.)

It is worth noting that this changes the behavior always, and isn't an option as suggested. So it's possible it needs sign-off by rfeeley. IIRC this is why I didn't bother pushing it.

rfeeley: This changes the order of synced tabs to be the order they appear in the remote browser, instead of sorting them by your last use. WDYT?

Comment 2

[Thom Chiovoloni [:tcsc] (ex-moco)]

Attachment: Bug 1414748 - Change order of synced tabs to the order they appear in the browser

It also takes the opportunity to refactor/rewrite the window enumerator
mocking (for tab tests) since it was awkward to call, had a bunch of
positional parameters that weren't documented and had non-obvious meanings.

Review commit: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/204458/diff/#index_header
See other reviews: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/204458/

Comment 3

[Thom Chiovoloni [:tcsc] (ex-moco)]

Comment on attachment 8933510 [details]
Bug 1414748 - Change order of synced tabs to the order they appear in the browser

Review request updated; see interdiff: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/204458/diff/1-2/

Comment 4

[Thom Chiovoloni [:tcsc] (ex-moco)]

Comment on attachment 8933510 [details]
Bug 1414748 - Change order of synced tabs to the order they appear in the browser

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/204458/#review209982

::: commit-message-fed6b:1
(Diff revision 2)
> +Bug 1414748 - Change order of synced tabs to the order they appear in the browser r?markh

Adding an issue in mozreview just to prevent me from forgetting that this can't land without rfeeley signoff.

Comment 5

[Mark Hammond [:markh] [:mhammond]]

(In reply to Thom Chiovoloni [:tcsc] from comment #1)
> rfeeley: This changes the order of synced tabs to be the order they appear
> in the remote browser, instead of sorting them by your last use. WDYT?

FWIW, I prefer the current behaviour - given "new tab" opens on the right, IIUC, this change is likely to move the most recent tab from the start of the list to the very end - and in my personal case, the first few tabs listed are most likely to be the most stale. And given we "page" tabs in the synced tabs menu, it's quite likely I'd *only* see stale tabs listed, and would need to click "show more" multiple times before I get to the tab I want (because IME using this feature, the tab I want is almost certainly going to be near the top when sorted by "recently used", but near the bottom when using "browser order".)

So while I could see an option might be valuable for some users, without an option I'd rather see no change.

But this is Ryan's call :)

Comment 6

[Mark Hammond [:markh] [:mhammond]]

Comment on attachment 8933510 [details]
Bug 1414748 - Change order of synced tabs to the order they appear in the browser

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/204458/#review214032

Clearing review request while we wait for Ryan.

Comment 7

[Thom Chiovoloni [:tcsc] (ex-moco)]

Clearing my assignment, since I'm not working on this and it seems unlikely that I will work on it soon. (Markh's comments about not wanting to take it as-is are good anyway, in all likelihood, the right solution is a setting allowing users to choose).

Comment 8

[Ryan Feeley [:rfeeley]]

I would not be opposed to an about:config option, but think that the current order suits more users most of the time, and don't want to clutter the sidebar with another UI control.