167100 - tabs close in the wrong order (right to left)

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: Toolbars and Customization, defect)

Description

[djk]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.1b) Gecko/20020904
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.1b) Gecko/20020904

If I close a 'middle' tab (not the rightmost or leftmost), the next tab to be
focused is the one to the left of the just-closed tab.  The focus should shift
to the tab to the right.

Of course, closing the leftmost tab should still focus the tab to the right and
closing the rightmost tab should still focus the tab to the left.  (what other
tabs *would* they focus?)

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open 3 tabbrowser tabs; call them A, B, and C
2. Focus tab B
3. Close tab B

Actual Results:  
Tab A gets focus.

Expected Results:  
Tab C gets focus.

This is how Mozilla tabbed browsing works...

Comment 1

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

this is by design. this is not a bug.

Comment 2

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

verified. not a bug.

Comment 3

[David Hyatt]

Note that this behavior probably seems odd to you because there is another fix 
pending, which is to make sure links opened in new tabs open just to the right 
of the current tab (instead of always opening as the rightmost tab).

Right now the current behavior is weird because if you open three links B, C, 
and D from a tab A, you end up with this order:

A, B, C, D

so that if you head to B first and then close it you end up back at A when 
you'd like to view C next.

Once the second change goes in the order will instead be:

A, D, C, B

and you can then go read B and close tabs to end up back at A again when 
you're done with your links.

The motivation behind this fix is to keep link groups together.  In the 
current Mozilla if you had a fifth tab E open along with A, then when you open 
B, C, and D you end up with:

A, E, B, C, D

In Phoenix (once the second change gets checked in), you'll end up with:

A, D, C, B, E

So you can browse the links of A and end up back at A instead of stumbling 
back to E when you finish with the links.

Comment 4

[Hanspeter Niederstrasser]

> In Phoenix (once the second change gets checked in), you'll end up with:
> 
> A, D, C, B, E
> 
> So you can browse the links of A and end up back at A instead of stumbling 
> back to E when you finish with the links.

This method requires you to know how many tabs you opened from A so that you can
jump to the right location after stopping opening new tabs.  If you mistakenly
think you only opened 2 tabs from A, you'll read C, then D and end back in A,
skipping B.  With 3 tabs it probably won't be a problem, but open say 14 and it
becomes much more difficult.

I read the NYTimes (and other large sites) in the following manner (and have
seen others describe their actions similarly):

Main Page (Tab A). Open 4 or 5 stories from there (tabs B-F).

Mozilla has:       A, B, C, D, E, F.
Phoenix will have: A, F, E, D, C, B.

Without changing the active tab, I follow the link to "International".  Tab
order is not switched.  In International, I open another 4 or 5 stories (tabs
g-j). [And keep repeating this for the other 6 or so sections].

Mozilla has:       A, B, C, D, E, F, g, h, i, j, [tabs from later subsections].
How will Phoenix look after the 2nd checkin mentioned?
                   A, F, E, D, C, B, j, i, h, g, [snoitcesbus retal morf sbat]?
or                 A, [snoitcesbus retal morf sbat], j, i, h, g, F, E, D, C, B?

If the first example is the case, then reading according to the opening order
will require lots of juggling and remembering where B, g, etc are.  The 2nd
example would be more manageable since the user only has to jump to B at the end
and progress through all the tabs normally RTL.

Finally, is there a bug # for the 2nd checkin mentioned?

Comment 5

[Matt Kraai]

*** Bug 171134 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 6

[Fabricio Campos Zuardi]

Since this bug is marked invalid, what bug should I visit to know when Hyatt's
fix( comment #3) get landed?

Comment 7

[djk]

Can the tab close order be reverted to be the same as Mozilla's until the 'open
to the right of the parent' patch goes in?

Please?

It's annoying to have to wait until the last tab has loaded before I can start
reading, using ^W to read the 'next' tab.

BTW, is there a bug number for the 'open to the right of the parent' patch?
(Even after that patch goes in, I'd always like ^T to open as the rightmost tab.)

Comment 8

[David Hyatt]

Comment #4 is a really good point.  I didn't really take into account drilling 
behavior.  I think I'm going to revert this back to Mozilla's default.

Comment 9

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

If patience is something you lack then go get Piro's great tab browser
extensions for Phoenix at
http://www.cc-net.or.jp/~piro/xul/_tabextensions.en.html#install and make tabs
do whatever you want. 

Comment 10

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

Fixed. The behavior has been reverted back to Mozilla's. If you're unhappy with
that then use the tab browser extensions linked to in the previous comment. 

Comment 11

[David Tenser [:djst]]

verified.

Comment 12

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

Taking QA Contact