Closed Bug 1506120 Opened 6 years ago Closed 6 years ago

Provide the option to restore session only next time

Categories

(Firefox :: Session Restore, enhancement)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
Session Restore
Version:
63 Branch
Type:
enhancement
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED WONTFIX

People

(Reporter: gerhard.grossmann, Unassigned)

References

Details

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:63.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/63.0 Steps to reproduce: I refer to the bug https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1487547 which is marked as Resolved Invalid – so I have no hope anything will change there. Actual results: There are a lot of comments and duplicate bugs of users who want the choice back when quitting (!) Firefox to decide if the session should be restored next time. Existent workarounds are not sufficient (see referenced bug). Expected results: My suggestion: Modify the dialogue which warns when closing a session with more than one tab open. Add a third option: You are about to close X tabs. Do you want to continue? [✓] Warn when more then one tab will be closed [Cancel] [Restore Session Next Time] [Close Tabs] When the checkmark is removed and not [Cancel] was chosen, after that the browser always could either restore the last session or restart with a black session. Sorry, English is not my mother tongue, alternative wordings for the button would be better like “Re-open Next Time”, “Re-open on Next Session”, “Restore on Restart”] PS: Wasn’t that solution there in much earlier browser versions? Why did it get lost?
Hi Gerhard Großmann, Since you described your suggestion about how to deal with the matter that was debated in Bug 1487547, I will mark this bug as an enhancement and add the component for it. Hopefully, it will get the right answer. Thanks for your report and involvement.
Severity: normal → enhancement
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Component: Untriaged → Session Restore
Ever confirmed: true
Call it an enhancement if you will, but let's be honest: - it's restoration of a really useful facility (that should never have been removed in the first place,) - many people have requested, pleaded and argued that it be returned, it was marked "Invalid" - some other loosely related enhancements were added -- from those a "workaround" suggested: sorry but unsuitable - in short the crowd downvoted that as a workaround. It's not. yes you are volunteers so thanks for the work, good job. but you did promise to listen to the users, and the crowd is asking for this feature to be restored
Hopefully this example will open everyone's eyes at Mozilla: I'm one of those people who like to have as starting page Google News. I'm also one of those who found "Save and Quit" really useful. It was perfect: I could close the browser if I was done. If I needed to save I would hit save. SIMPLE AS THAT. Now this morning I helped my sister buy a train ticket online. I opened the browser and I was greeted by the last page I was browsing the night before: an Amazon page with the Christmas gift I was planning to get her. All of this because the suggested ""solution"" was to have Resume Session enabled at all times. This is a dumb example but it should get the point across: - We want to decide to save the session WHEN WE ARE CLOSING THE BROWSER - 95% of the time we DON'T CARE about resuming our old session - Manually resuming later upon opening the browser IS SIMPLY USELESS because we may very well forget what we were doing - Automatically resuming is just as dumb. How can you not understand? This is a BLATANT removal of a very useful feature - for no reason. So for the love of God bring back "browser.showQuitWarning". Damn if I'm ****.
Dear folks working on Firefox, please consider enabling that option again! You are spending so much time volunteering to improve this project. What are you doing it for? You want people to actually _use_ Firefox, don't you? Where is the point in removing a feature that people relied on? This just makes Firefox _less_ useful for them. Therefore it also makes your hard work on Firefox less useful. That is not what you want, is it? I used this feature very often and for many years now, at home as well as at work. When I had to shut down my computer while not being finished with what I was doing, I saved the tabs so I could continue work/reading when I started firefox the next time. Using "show my windows and tabs from last time" when firefox starts is not an option as I need my home page to show when there is nothing to finish. The necessity to close lots of tabs from your last session each time you start firefox is not useful. "Restore last session" is also not an option as when I start firefox the next time I will most likely not remember that there was unfinished work or some "read-ons" left.
I want it back, too!
I've made my case in [Bug 1487547], but hopefully this will get some traction here. This was a great feature that got pulled out of the options and buried in about:config and then sadly killed, presumably for lack of use. If showQuitWarning was available in the options, I think it would have been much more popular. It really did set FF apart and it is one of the reasons I came back to FF. For now I'm staying with v62 and when that becomes untenable I don't know what I'll do. Please bring back this eminently useful feature. Closing 1487547 as "invalid" and not suggesting an alternative was a cop out.
I would like to add that this feature REQUIRES a THIRD Button in quit confirmation. When closing multiple tabs, the key thing is Firefox should ASK if the user would like to (on next start): 1) Do not restore session (you can manually restore via menu) "Close tabs" 2) Automatically restore session "Restore tabs on restart" 3) Cancel It is an independent decission (irrespective of user's session restore settings) made by the user when quitting what should Firefox do on the next startup. Firefox should Save the session and restore tabs on next start, EVEN when user has disabled session restore otherwise. *back to using buggy 60.3 ESR *grumbles**
I want quit warning back too. Went back to 60 ESR as well but some addons aren't compatible. Very frustrating having to use the older version just because they "fixed" what wasn't broken.
See Also: → 1487547
:Gijs, any thoughts on this? It seems to be "Undo bug 1438499" which makes it a prime candidate for Wontfix. Please also have a look at bug 1487547, which is "the preference intentionally removed by bug 1438499 doesn't work anymore". If you find the resolution correct on that one, please restrict comments there to those with editbugs privilege if you can.
Flags: needinfo?(gijskruitbosch+bugs)
I too cannot understand how you can suggest that restoring the previous quit warning function can be classed as an enhancement. This is an abuse of the English language; it is simply the restoration of a function which should never have been removed!
(In reply to Gingerbread Man from comment #9) > :Gijs, any thoughts on this? It seems to be "Undo bug 1438499" which makes > it a prime candidate for Wontfix. > Please also have a look at bug 1487547, which is "the preference > intentionally removed by bug 1438499 doesn't work anymore". If you find the > resolution correct on that one, please restrict comments there to those with > editbugs privilege if you can. As the reporter of this bug I want to stress that this bug has a) nothing to do with a quit warning which does or doesn’t show up on closing multiple tabs (bug 1438499). To decide whether to restore tabs in the next session is completely different from a warning whether it was accidental to close the browser. b) nothing to to with a preference that does not work any more (bug 1438499). I don’t care what the deactivated preference did or if it should be restored. I just want the choice back. On closing it’s exactly the right time to decide if reopening the tabs on the next session is necessary or nonsense. A general preference to always/never restore the tabs automatically is not sufficient enough – as said by so many comments. See also :Gjis’ comment from 10 months ago → https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1438499#c5
(In reply to Gerhard Großmann from comment #11) > As the reporter of this bug I want to stress that ... I just want the choice back. (In reply to Gerhard Großmann from comment #0) > My suggestion: Modify the dialogue which warns when closing a session with > more than one tab open. Add a third option: > > You are about to close X tabs. Do you want to continue? > [✓] Warn when more then one tab will be closed > [Cancel] [Restore Session Next Time] [Close Tabs] The discussions Amy, Markus, the rest of the UX team and I had didn't touch directly on this, but I think the consensus was we wanted to change as little as possible here. The reason I removed the original dialog (which was already behind a hidden about:config pref that has no UI in Firefox, and hasn't for many, many years, so I therefore assumed was barely, if at all used, by anyone) was that otherwise, you'd have 2 quit dialogs in this case. That would make no sense - you don't want to say "close tabs" the first time and then get a second dialog saying "but are you really sure, and maybe do you want to save them, or not quit!?". And the UX opinion in bug 1438499, that quitting should show *the same* close tabs dialog that closing the window did, made it pretty clear that that dialog was the one that should stay. I don't have a strong opinion about modifying that dialog to have a "save once" option (however we word it). On the one hand, I think it adds confusion, because now there are 3 options instead of 2. I fully expect that if we were to add such a button, some other subset of users will complain and want a hidden pref to turn off the extra button. It also seems a lot of space to give to something that, if the comments in both bug 1487547 and this bug are anything to go by, is rare - *mostly* the people who use this button want to just close the browser and "lose" their tabs, but *sometimes* (maybe "rarely"?) they want to save the tabs. Adding friction to the common case of wanting to just wipe the browser seems unhelpful. Bookmarks (bookmarks > bookmark all tabs, cmd-shift-d on mac, or right click a tab > select all tabs > bookmark tabs...) would do this job just as well, in most cases. On the other hand, I am somewhat sympathetic to the argument in bug 1487547 comment 15: (In reply to Matt from bug 1487547 comment #15) > But SOMETIMES I have a bunch of important tabs and I need them the next > time. As you might be able to understand, the next time you open firefox you > don't think about your last session. That's mostly the reason for writing a > memory note the moment you have the idea and not the moment I need the > idea... Or your shopping list - you don't write them at the store. > > So since the second is more important, I have to restore the tabs always. > For me this wastes a lot of time. The other option would be to try to add something into about:newtab to make restoring the previous session a more obvious thing, where it's clearer what data you would get back that way, rather than having "restore previous session" be a bit of a box of chocolates - you never know what you're going to get! In any case, the decision is up to Amy and Markus, I think, not me.
Flags: needinfo?(mjaritz)
Flags: needinfo?(gijskruitbosch+bugs)
Flags: needinfo?(amlee)
(In reply to :Gijs (he/him) from comment #12) > (In reply to Gerhard Großmann from comment #11) > > As the reporter of this bug I want to stress that ... I just want the choice back. > > (In reply to Gerhard Großmann from comment #0) > > My suggestion: Modify the dialogue which warns when closing a session with > > more than one tab open. Add a third option: > > > > You are about to close X tabs. Do you want to continue? > > [✓] Warn when more then one tab will be closed > > [Cancel] [Restore Session Next Time] [Close Tabs] > > > The discussions Amy, Markus, the rest of the UX team and I had didn't touch > directly on this, but I think the consensus was we wanted to change as > little as possible here. The reason I removed the original dialog (which was > already behind a hidden about:config pref that has no UI in Firefox, and > hasn't for many, many years, so I therefore assumed was barely, if at all > used, by anyone) was that otherwise, you'd have 2 quit dialogs in this case. > That would make no sense - you don't want to say "close tabs" the first time > and then get a second dialog saying "but are you really sure, and maybe do > you want to save them, or not quit!?". And the UX opinion in bug 1438499, > that quitting should show *the same* close tabs dialog that closing the > window did, made it pretty clear that that dialog was the one that should > stay. Oh, and in fact, bug 1438499 comment 46 seems to address this specifically. Oh well. I will leave the needinfo in case Markus and/or Amy have other ideas about what we could do in this space in the future.
Hi, I can foresee additional complexity of adding a 3rd option here and the user deciding if they want their session restored at the moment of quitting instead of a pref. This would require the user to always have the warning dialogue on in order to have the choice. If we give the user options in the warning dialogue AND in prefs, there's potential conflict. There can be room for discussion around a solution but I don't think we should make any immediate changes without thinking through the impact it will have.
Flags: needinfo?(amlee)
Hi Amy, I'd say that the current state of NOT giving any warning at all on quitting (save session on quit is on) is also problematic, as it means people can accidentally quit without meaning to. Having to remember whether you want your tabs back or not on startup (save session is off, hitting history -> restore session on startup) is also prone to errors if a user quit and couldn't remember if they had useful stuff saved in the session or not. Sure, I agree that the previous way where you had two sort of conflicting settings was not totally clear, however it was a useful thing to have. And I am particularly annoyed by the no confirmation on quit when you have the session save enabled. I find that can completely destroy you concentration, probably require you to physically wait to get back to your work (if you have to load all tabs) and can even outright wipe out what you were doing (all incognito tabs are immediately closed). The moment of hesitation of whether to save the session or not when quitting seems really tame by comparison.
(In reply to VLD from comment #16) > Hi Amy, > > I'd say that the current state of NOT giving any warning at all on quitting > (save session on quit is on) is also problematic, as it means people can > accidentally quit without meaning to. > > Having to remember whether you want your tabs back or not on startup (save > session is off, hitting history -> restore session on startup) is also prone > to errors if a user quit and couldn't remember if they had useful stuff > saved in the session or not. > > Sure, I agree that the previous way where you had two sort of conflicting > settings was not totally clear, however it was a useful thing to have. And I > am particularly annoyed by the no confirmation on quit when you have the > session save enabled. I find that can completely destroy you concentration, > probably require you to physically wait to get back to your work (if you > have to load all tabs) and can even outright wipe out what you were doing > (all incognito tabs are immediately closed). The moment of hesitation of > whether to save the session or not when quitting seems really tame by > comparison. There's a bug that gives you to option of enabling a warning on quit with session restore on here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1506173

Closing this bug as I fully agree with Amy and Gijs. I had stated in the past that showing 3 buttons every time makes for a too complex choice[1] for most users. There are other ways for people that want to sometimes close all tabs, and sometimes have all restored [2], esp. if one considers closing of unwanted tabs, and closing of the browser separate tasks, there are plenty of extensions that help with closing all tabs [3] before closing the browser.

I am sympathetic to the described cases, and use such behaviors my self from time to time. Closeing this as wontfix, as we want to keep the default case simple and working for most users, and we have shown that there are alternatives ways for people that want more control:

  • manual tab closing before closing the browser
  • extension to close all tabs before closing the browser
  • manual session restore after restarting the browser

[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1438499#c6
[2] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1438499#c46
[3] https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/search/?q=close+all+tabs

Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 6 years ago
Flags: needinfo?(mjaritz)
Resolution: --- → WONTFIX

May I remind you on the topic of this bug? It’s “Provide the option to restore session only next time”. It’s not about closing tabs and not about the possibility to restore tabs after I opened the browser. Please also consider that my suggestion for providing a third button was just a suggestion for this removed feature. If you don’t think it will work, try a better solution but don’t declare the bug as won’t fix. And maybe I should remind you that the third button would only be visible as long the user hasn’t decided for or against a permanent restoration of tabs.

I think the actual problem is that at the moment different things are mixed together. Maybe we should start be listing the different choices:

On Closing Tabs:
1 Warn when closing more than one tab

On Quitting Firefox:
2 Warn on quitting Firefox
3 Save this session for next time

On Opening:
4a Automatically restore my open tabs from the last session
4b or Start without restoring (blank page, website, start page)

The options cover different needs. Sometime they prevent accidental close, sometimes they prepare for the next session, sometimes they help starting a session. Some options are independent, some overpower others (e.g. 3 overpowers 4b, and makes 2 obsolete but not 1; 2 makes 1 obsolete when quitting while more tabs are open). Maybe there are further options of these three different use cases that I forgot.

Could we please analyse what is needed and think about settings that provide users the best experience and choice? My first (not to thoroughly thought about) idea would be:

[✓] Warn on closing more than one tab.
[ ] Warn on quitting Firefox

Session Restore on Opening: [Always/Never/Ask on Quitting]

The idea at https://mozilla.invisionapp.com/share/Y8PAV5TNSW7#/screens/333590626 to subordinate the quit warning under Session Restore is mixing different things. In my opinion Session Restore is completely independent of a close/quit warning and it also is a none binary question (compare activating plug-ins: Always, Never, Ask).

Please tell me that this bug does not have to be filed another time to not be brushed off again?

Status: RESOLVED → REOPENED
Resolution: WONTFIX → ---

What baffles me most is this is being called a "bug" and now it's "wont fix"???

  1. it's not a bug, it's a very useful feature that was removed from firefox.
    (or let's be frank: if there was a bug it's in the thought process of the person that removed the feature.)

  2. "wont fix" - ??? what's to fix ???

There is no bug, there is nothing to fix,

OK, sure if it's too hard then leave out the third button

Please, just put back what was taken out

And please all this "maybe you can use this," or "use that that plus some of those"
--- There is NO effective solution NOR workaround provided ... including by way or the addition of Add-Ons.

(In reply to Gerhard Großmann from comment #19)

Please note the bugzilla etiquette, and specifically:

No obligation. "Open Source" is not the same as "the developers must do my bidding."

(In reply to Gerhard Großmann from comment #19)

May I remind you on the topic of this bug? It’s “Provide the option to restore session only next time”. It’s not about closing tabs and not about the possibility to restore tabs after I opened the browser. Please also consider that my suggestion for providing a third button was just a suggestion for this removed feature.

We have considered it. There were extensive comments both in the other bug and here. We decided not to attempt to fix this bug, one way or another. Any issue raised by anyone is tracked as a "bug" on this site, that doesn't mean that it is valid or that every issue deserves fixing. "Firefox doesn't provide an option to do X" issues are valid issues to raise, but as a project, we have to decide which things to do and which things not to do. It would make Firefox unusable (and we'd never fix any other issues) if we implemented every feature requested (irrespective of whether it was implemented before). This is one of those cases. We've decided not to provide an option for this at this time. Please do not reopen this bug (or file duplicates) again - they will not help us to "not brush the issue off", they will only waste time.

Status: REOPENED → RESOLVED
Closed: 6 years ago → 6 years ago
Resolution: --- → WONTFIX

Thank you for this honest answer. It hurts to hear “Sorry, your problem is not important for us”, but it’s okay and now I know there’s no need for arguing or having hope any more. Thank you for your time and for at least discussing my issue.

I started bookmarking those pages I want to keep for the next session. Hopefully others will find their workarounds, too. All the best, keep your motivation for working on this great browser!

Absolutely baffling. And they are now trying to play the victim card by saying Firefox can't implement every feature asked by the community, when this feature was already IN - and they took it away claiming it was a bug, without even wanting to fix it.

We have considered it. There were extensive comments both in the other bug and here. We decided not to attempt to fix this bug, one way or another. [...] We've decided not to provide an option for this at this time.

But why? What extensive comments? There's literally no explaination to why you did this, or why you aren't planning on fixing this 'bug'

You only claimed that the 3rd button would cause confusion, but this third option only ever appeared to people who specifically went to enable browser.showQuitWarning. How can they be confused? It's literally what they asked for.

There's currently no workaround or solution as solid as the old "Save and quit". I want to see my homepage when I open the browser, unless I specifically asked to save my session earlier. I've been able to do that for over 10 years, now I can't do it anymore.
How can you not see that?

This, coupled with the recent removal of the quick "Right click > Reload all tabs", is really showing that Mozilla lost its way. Never thought I'd see this day.

As MR says this feature was available for years and did not cause problems. I cannot understand what thought processes led to the decision that it should be removed.

(In reply to MR from comment #23)

There's literally no explaination to why you did this,

There is, it's in comment 12, as well as in the bug that actually did the removal. We couldn't "just" keep the old feature.

or why you aren't planning on fixing this 'bug'

There is, it's in comment 12, bug 1438499 comment 46, comment 15, comment 17, comment 18. You clearly disagree with the decision and therefore disagree with that explanation, which is fine but doesn't mean it's not there.

I've been able to do that for over 10 years, now I can't do it anymore.
How can you not see that?

We do see it, but your very real inconvenience is unfortunately not the only factor in play. If there was 0 cost to fixing everyone's Firefox problems, of course we would do that, but there never is. That's not "playing the victim", it's just being realistic and attempting to explain why we make the decisions we make.

I had stated in the past that showing 3 buttons every time makes for a too complex choice[1] for most users. There are other ways for people that want to sometimes close all tabs, and sometimes have all restored [2], esp. if one considers closing of unwanted tabs, and closing of the browser separate tasks, there are plenty of extensions that help with closing all tabs [3] before closing the browser.

I don't really like this comment. Not because it's disagreeing with us, but because you are not giving us any example of extensions to back up your claim. Thats just quibbling. But then, if the perfect extention exists and you show it to us, it then means its kind of endorsed by FF devs (or you) which is like giving the extension special treatment. Either way not a good argument.

The reason I removed the original dialog (which was already behind a hidden about:config pref that has no UI in Firefox, and hasn't for many, many years, so I therefore assumed was barely, if at all used, by anyone) was that otherwise, you'd have 2 quit dialogs in this case. That would make no sense - you don't want to say "close tabs" the first time and then get a second dialog saying "but are you really sure, and maybe do you want to save them, or not quit!?". And the UX opinion in bug 1438499, that quitting should show the same close tabs dialog that closing the window did, made it pretty clear that that dialog was the one that should stay.

You need to see it the opposite way. What does it say about it when many of us are complaining over the removal of this "hidden" pref. Doesn't that show how important it was for us?

I think the devs are over thinking it. I don't see why you need 3 buttons, or 2 dialogues.

This is whats happening right now.

  1. If the "Restore previous session" option is unchecked, it asks if you are okay with closing multiple tabs. (2 buttons)
  2. If the "Restore previous session" option is checked, it doesn't ask anything. It just saves the session for next time. (0 buttons)

All we want, is when (2) show us 2 buttons instead of 0. Thats it.
Since it's already acting as a confirmation dialogue, you dont need an additional dialogue for accidental close.

On the one hand, I think it adds confusion, because now there are 3 options instead of 2. I fully expect that if we were to add such a button, some other subset of users will complain and want a hidden pref to turn off the extra button.
Like you said, this was a hidden pref for a while.

First of all, if you were to, you are just bringing back the button. What you did add, is the option to restore the session, which was hidden for a long time. What you are saying is that, long time users you guys have to bear with the change so the new users wont complain about it. So, you don't want us to be a long time user?

For those who doesn't want to show this dialogue, there used to be a "don't show next time" checkbox. Why not just bring it back?

All in all, what you needed to do is simply link the "Restore previous session" option to "showQuitWarning" pref and there wouldn't be any problem at all. You guys came up with a new solution to the problem that doesn't exist, and end up with worse product.

(In reply to :Gijs (he/him) from comment #21)

We have considered it. There were extensive comments both in the other bug and here. We decided not to attempt to fix this bug, one way or another. Any issue raised by anyone is tracked as a "bug" on this site, that doesn't mean that it is valid or that every issue deserves fixing. "Firefox doesn't provide an option to do X" issues are valid issues to raise, but as a project, we have to decide which things to do and which things not to do. It would make Firefox unusable (and we'd never fix any other issues) if we implemented every feature requested (irrespective of whether it was implemented before). This is one of those cases. We've decided not to provide an option for this at this time. Please do not reopen this bug (or file duplicates) again - they will not help us to "not brush the issue off", they will only waste time.

So in simple terms what you are saying is:

  1. too many people are asking for too many features and you wont bother doing any of these because it's a waste of time
  2. removing features that "you think people aren't using" is very important
    2-addendum: checking if assumptions are true or not is never on the table...
  • that would mean listening to the people; AKA in your own words "A waste of your time."

am I being too rude?
Well like it or not "Rude and Direct" is actually far more valuable than "Nice and Deceitful" (as in "there are Add-Ons and Workarounds" - NO THERE ISN'T ANY OF EITHER

Ok, that's quite enough of that.

Hi, everyone. My name is Mike Hoye; I'm the community manager for Firefox.

Bugzilla is our professional working environment as much as it is our issue tracker, and the fact that we value and encourage community involvement in Firefox development does not give anyone permission flood bugs with hostile and counterproductive comments.

Even if "restore previous session" is unchecked in the startup section of your preferences, you still have the option, in the "history" menu, to restore your previous session's open tabs with a mouse click if that's what you want. Further, A casual search on addons.mozilla.org suggests that there are many extensions that perform various types of post-restart tab management:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search/?platform=windows&q=tab

At a glance it looks like a number of those would meet the requirements laid out in this bug, but if none of them meet your specific requirements you are welcome to seek out the authors of those addons and discuss your feature request with them. In-product, however, this bug has been resolved by the designers responsible for that part of the product, and while you may disagree with them their decision will stand.

I am restricting comments in this bug for the time being. If you would like to discuss this, feel free to email me directly.

Thank you.

Restrict Comments: true
See Also: → 1575620
See Also: 1575620 →
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