1500991 - Add a shortcut for searching all containers' tabs

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Address Bar, enhancement, P5)

Description

[Steve Fink [:sfink] [:s:]]

Since it seems many disagree with bug 1479858, I would like to request an easy way to search through the open tabs of all containers. If '% foo' is going to search for 'foo' in only the active container, then perhaps '%% foo' could search all containers? Or a '*' prefix turns any search into an all-container search?

Let me describe my specific use case in case it's helpful:

I have secure bug access, which means I have been strongly encouraged to have a separate container for bugzilla. And where bugzilla goes, phabricator needs to go. Which means that a large percentage of my tabs, and a larger percentage of my time, is spent in the bugzilla container. Everything else is in my main container.

I'm a bit of a tab hoarder, so my usual way to get back to a tab (eg the tab for the try server view of treeherder, restricted to my pushes) is to do a '%' search in the location bar. This will no longer find anything if I'm starting out in the bugzilla container.

Personally, I would rather have the search always be global, but I respect that others have use cases where container-local makes more sense. So a way to be explicit about what you want would seem to serve everyone. (I suppose a preference would be another way of approaching this.)

My main hesitation is that '%' search is already a killer feature that is absolutely undiscoverable (people are very happy when I tell them about it), and this is just adding to the undiscoverability. But it would work great for my own usage, so I'm filing the bug anyway. :)

Comment 1

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

I'm not sure we should add a further special char, we are trying to keep that feature "simple". Maybe there could be an about:config pref allowing to switch global/container behavior, would that satisfy the request?

Comment 2

[Steve Fink [:sfink] [:s:]]

(In reply to Marco Bonardo [::mak] from comment #1)
> Maybe there could be an about:config pref allowing to
> switch global/container behavior, would that satisfy the request?

For my usage, yes.

Comment 3

[Matthew Elvey]

(In reply to Marco Bonardo [::mak] (Away 24 Dec - 2 Jan) from comment #1)
> Maybe there could be an about:config pref allowing to
> switch global/container behavior, would that satisfy the request?

Is there a bug for this needed pref yet?  For me too, searching has been failing to find tabs that it used to be able to find, and I was baffled as to why.  I guess bug 1479858 was the reason, and the pref is the fix I'd like to see too.  

(FYI: I don't understand why bug 1473977 is open - and I oppose that behavior being the default. Isn't the current behavior what 1473977 is for, which would mean 'fixed' would be the appropriate status for it?  That is, I see it and 1479858 as for essentially the opposite behavior - making searches of the current or all containers, respectively.  Maybe others are confused too or see this and that bug mutually exclusive default behavior.)  Surely from a users' perspective, a search that fails to find another tab that the user thinks it should is a worse problem than a search that finds a tab in another container that the user doesn't expect it to find.  (Agh! It's GONE! *vs* Oh! It's there too!)

I see support/desire for both behaviors, so the fix [::mak] proposed - a config option - as necessary.  (And I agree, "'%' search is a killer feature that is, unfortunately, undiscoverable".)

Comment 4

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

We're not planning to do this for now, there's a new pref to achieve the wanted behavior, see Bug 1479858 (it will be made public/default after some additional checks)