154046 - Tab style should change state when contextual-clicked

Status: NEW

(Core :: XUL, defect)

Description

[fillup]

Enhancement request:

I use tabbed browsing.  This may or may not be a Mac-only thing.

Sometimes I want to right-click a tab, and close it, even though it's a
"background" tab -- like I no longer want to read something I thought I was
going to.  So I right-click that tab and choose "close tab".

But I always sweat it, because the only tab with any visual highlight to it is
the "foreground" tab, not the one I right-clicked.  So I have to really look
closely to make sure I've right-clicked the proper tab.  I have accidentally
closed the wrong tab before.

I would propose a three-state model for tabs.  One -- the foreground tab --
continues to be "aqua" highlighted.  Two -- backgrounded tabs -- are default
white/grey like usual.  Three -- some form of visual indicator of a
right-clicked or otherwise semi-active tab, perhaps (and I am not a designer!)
just an outline of aqua or something.

Comment 1

[timeless]

what theme? would a hover effect suffice?

Comment 2

[fillup]

Actually a hover effect would be nice to have anyway.  And maybe it would work
for this, too.

Comment 3

[Greg K.]

I think the better approach to this would be to put the tab in the active state
while the contextual menu is spawned, and then return it to the inactive
background state when the menu is dismissed. That would give enough indication
that the tab is the item on which the contextual menu will operate (that,
coupled with a fix for bug 41748).

Confirming as a trivial XP Toolkit/Widgets: Menus bug.