1666654 - Add keyboard shortcut for search in open tabs, similar to web search (Ctrl+K, Ctrl+J))

Status: ASSIGNED

(Firefox :: Address Bar, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Alex Pozharov]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Fedora; Linux x86_64; rv:80.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/80.0

Actual results:

To search for tab in url bar using keyboard I need to make Ctrl+L, add "%" symbol and press Space.

Expected results:

It would be very convenient to have single keyboard shortcut to search tabs, similar to Ctrl+k/Ctrl+j for web search: one that focus url bar and activate Tabs (%) one-off search shortcut.
Tabs that already open psychologically "closer" than web search, at least for me, and it inconvenient that I need to do more actions to get to them, compared to web search engine.

Comment 1

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

Bugbug thinks this bug should belong to this component, but please revert this change in case of error.

Comment 2

[Seth]

I'd really love to see this added to Firefox!

Especially among users that use code editors, text editors, or IDEs a lot, we rely on this heavily to quickly navigate between open tabs or open particular files. On Visual Studio Code, the default shortcut for this is CTRL + E.

I think a very good UX for it would be that when a user does whatever shortcut is assigned to it, it focuses the search bar with the search engine set to Tabs.

By default, it should show a list of the most recently accessed tabs across all Firefox windows.

Then searching will do what Firefox currently does, but I believe it should still keep the list sorted by recent access. I've noticed that when I search for tabs, I often have to hit down multiple times to get to the tab I actually want, even though it's the tab I want to access each time. ^-^'

If you disagree with the latter, then by all means. The shortcut itself is the important part of this request.

Comment 3

[Seth]

I wasn't aware Chromium had this feature until now, but looks like Chromium uses the shortcut CTRL + SHIFT + A.
They're implementing with the menu appearing at the top-right is a bit clunky imo, I do like how Firefox reuses the search bar already.

Chromium do however handling sorted in a very nice way already, similar to how I described above!

It's sorted by recent, except the current tab, which is anchored to the bottom of the list of tabs.

The UI also shows recently closed tabs by default, which is actually a nice touch.
For the most part it's a bit annoying since it's not information I need, but it's easy to close that tab so it doesn't show up in future.

I don't see how Firefox could implement that part of it as cleanly reusing the existing UI for searching tabs, but it's not as important as searching tabs itself anyway.

Comment 5

[Albert Scheiner [:alberts]]

Not sure if that would be an option, but the relatively new "Firefox View" tab has the "Open Tabs" view with a search.
Thinking of a shortcut to jump there, and focus the search bar. It would drag you away from the current tab, though.

I also saw, that you can not navigate into the list of pages with the keyboard (at least not on macOS). This could be filed as an extra ticket.

Comment 6

[Tommaso Thea Cioni]

Hello,

my current workflow would greatly benefit from this addition, I’d love to contribute a patch.
However, we first need to agree on an appropriate shortcut.

After discussing this in the Firefox Desktop Development room on Element, we concluded that the pool of shortcuts is basically CTRL+[A-Z] and CTRL+SHIFT+[A-Z], minus those reserved by the OS. AFAIK, there isn't a complete list of taken shortcuts. There's a nonzero chance that there aren't any left.

I like CTRL+E. I noticed it’s already mapped to search-find-selection-shortcut in browserSets.ftl across all platforms, even though it’s only implemented on macOS. From what I understand, the same functionality is already part of CTRL+F's behaviour on other platforms, e.g. Linux.
The same file where it’s mapped already includes platform-specific code, such as .key = { PLATFORM() -> [linux] Y *[other] J }. Maybe we could use this shortcut on platforms other than MacOS? I'm not sure what the current stance is on introducing new platform-dependent behaviour.

An alternative could be CTRL+SHIFT+A, like on Chrome, but that shortcut currently opens about:addons.

Does anyone have a shortcut in mind? If not, I can try to search for an unassigned one and report back here.

Comment 7

[Tommaso Thea Cioni]

(In reply to Albert Scheiner [:alberts] from comment #5)

Not sure if that would be an option, but the relatively new "Firefox View" tab has the "Open Tabs" view with a search.
Thinking of a shortcut to jump there, and focus the search bar. It would drag you away from the current tab, though.

No need for that—I’ve managed to get it working on my machine without switching tabs. I just need approval on a shortcut before submitting the patch.

Comment 8

[:Gijs (out until Jan 5th; he/him)]

(In reply to Tommaso Thea Cioni from comment #6)

Hello,

my current workflow would greatly benefit from this addition, I’d love to contribute a patch.
However, we first need to agree on an appropriate shortcut.

After discussing this in the Firefox Desktop Development room on Element, we concluded that the pool of shortcuts is basically CTRL+[A-Z] and CTRL+SHIFT+[A-Z], minus those reserved by the OS. AFAIK, there isn't a complete list of taken shortcuts. There's a nonzero chance that there aren't any left.

I like CTRL+E. I noticed it’s already mapped to search-find-selection-shortcut in browserSets.ftl across all platforms,

The .ftl file is a fluent localization definition file (like .properties for Java or .po for PHP, if those are more familiar to you). It doesn't cause mapping of anything by itself. It just means that if some markup code uses data-l10n-id="search-find-selection-shortcut", that element will get its key attribute set to "E" in US English (and to some other value in other locales, if their translations are different - you can explore with https://transvision.mozfr.org/ if you're interested).

So coming back to this example, this is only used on macOS so on macOS cmd+E maps to "find selection".

even though it’s only implemented on macOS.

Ah, well, unfortunately, ctrl-E on Windows is used to focus the address bar and select the default search engine, via https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/1bc0601cc5b3d4c3919d220acbe248221ebce035/browser/locales/en-US/browser/browserSets.ftl#53 and https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/1bc0601cc5b3d4c3919d220acbe248221ebce035/browser/base/content/browser-sets.inc#147,152 .

So ctrl+E as a shortcut is only available ("free") on Linux. Adding this shortcut only on Linux doesn't seem very useful...

Comment 9

[:Gijs (out until Jan 5th; he/him)]

(In reply to Tommaso Thea Cioni from comment #6)

An alternative could be CTRL+SHIFT+A, like on Chrome, but that shortcut currently opens about:addons.

Whether this works and we should "steal" the shortcut from the add-on manager is a decision up to the UX team, I expect. Aaron, who would be the right person to ask about this?

Comment 10

[Aaron Benson]

Some notes/thoughts from conversation with Emanuela (one of the desktop UX Managers) about this:

• The fact that Chrome is using that shortcut would allow us to keep muscle memory if people are thinking to switch
• Rather than going to View, it may be more expected/optimal to focus the address bar?
• The Sidebar team also noticed this particular shortcut was low on usage and they were/are considering using for toggling sidebar.

I think the case for changing the shortcut discussed in the thread above makes sense and UX is supportive but we should take this up with the appropriate PM partner as well, and coordinate with the Add-ons team. I've pinged Nicole Weber for awareness as well.

Comment 11

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

Based on a recent Redash the add-ons shortcut was used 0,17% of the times among all shortcuts, and by 0,80% of MAU. I think it would be reasonable with appropriate coordination, and a rel-note.
There's also the question whether it's effectively necessary to have a shortcut for Add-ons?
Though I'm not sure who'd be the appropriate PM in this case, does this fall under Search, or more generically Frontend? I'm pinging Loren, just as an heads-up.

Comment 12

[Chris]

I've wanted this for ages and with the new address bar search button this seems like a great time to add this.

Comment 14

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

As per bug 2000480, this came up again on Mozilla Connect: https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/keyboard-shortcut-for-quot-search-tabs-quot/idi-p/9134

Comment 15

[Logan Rosen [:Logan]]

Attachment: Bug 1666654 - Add keyboard shortcut for Search Tabs r?#search-reviewers

Comment 16

[Phabricator Automation]

Comment on attachment 9527354 [details]
Bug 1666654 - Add keyboard shortcut for Search Tabs r?#search-reviewers

Revision D272822 was moved to bug 2000480. Setting attachment 9527354 [details] to obsolete.

Comment 17

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to Marco Bonardo [:mak] from comment #11)

Based on a recent Redash the add-ons shortcut was used 0,17% of the times among all shortcuts, and by 0,80% of MAU. I think it would be reasonable with appropriate coordination, and a rel-note.
There's also the question whether it's effectively necessary to have a shortcut for Add-ons?

This has been updated yesterday, it's still 0.17% of all shortcut interactions, but MAU share is slightly down to 0.75%.