1984420 - Add a setting to disable "drag and drop to pin"

Status: ASSIGNED

(Firefox :: Settings UI, enhancement)

Description

[08xjcec48]

There doesn't seem to be any way to disable the new "drag and drop to pin" feature. Users are complaining about it.

Comment 1

[Nodaysofff]

That "drag and drop to pin" is really poorly implemented with no "buffer" zone to it. Every single time I click on the left tab, which is my main tab btw, it becomes pinned. Extremly annoying, there must be a buffer zone to it or a treshold, since it's practically impossible not to move the mouse at least a couple of pixels when you click on a tab

Comment 2

[[:lsp]]

There's already a patch coming together in 1984210 to fix the sensitivity when grabbing the leftmost tab.
Even a buffer will still leave the left edge of the screen as pinnable area, though. I think the original discussion around this feature as "drag to pin when you already have at least one pinned tab" made more sense than how it works now.

Comment 3

[Nodaysofff]

(In reply to [:lsp] from comment #2)

There's already a patch coming together in 1984210 to fix the sensitivity when grabbing the leftmost tab.
Even a buffer will still leave the left edge of the screen as pinnable area, though. I think the original discussion around this feature as "drag to pin when you already have at least one pinned tab" made more sense than how it works now.

Or just letting the user to completly disable this feature as unnecessary, by making a flag in about:config. I dont have the info from Mozilla telemetry, but all people I know that use Dev. Edition along with me asked about the flag to completly remove that.

Its actually kinda strange to make a new feature that cannot be disabled even for Dev. Edition. Forcing user to something "better" in UI was always a bad practice, and thats the reason for all "switch back to old version" tweaks

Comment 4

[Mauro V [:cheff]]

I'll send a patch that adds a "browser.tabs.dropToPin.enabled" pref. Please let me know if theres a better name that should be used

Comment 5

[Mauro V [:cheff]]

Attachment: Bug 1984420 - Add a setting to disable "drag and drop to pin"

Comment 6

[[:lsp]]

(In reply to Nodaysofff from comment #3)

Or just letting the user to completly disable this feature as unnecessary, by making a flag in about:config. I dont have the info from Mozilla telemetry, but all people I know that use Dev. Edition along with me asked about the flag to completly remove that.

My personal preference is also to disable this feature completely. My point is "This is too sensitive" and "I would prefer this disabled entirely" are separate issues, and blurring the line between them makes it less likely the latter will be implemented. See Dao's coments on Mauro's patch.

Having tested latest nightly just now, I don't believe the sensitivity changes in 1984210 resolve this issue. I know I drag tabs all the way to the left, rather than attempting to target a narrow window between the leftmost tab and the left edge of the screen.

The new delay is right on the threshold of "could go either way" (pinning or moving) each time I move a tab.
This produces behaviour that appears unpredictable to users who don't know what's going on, which is probably undesirable.

Comment 7

[Nicolas Redfern]

This is vastly too sensitive. I've accidentally pinned a tab far more times than I've actually wanted to pin one.
Same for the grouping feature, but at least you can kind of fix that with browser.tabs.dragDrop.createGroup.delayMS (the default should probably be bigger than the current value of 240ms)

Comment 8

[Nicolas Redfern]

Found a nice workaround in the meantime though:
Just pin a blank tab. That makes it a bit harder to accidentally pin your real tabs.

Strangely you only get the animation on the first pinned tab. Is that intentional?

Comment 9

[[:lsp]]

You can disable this feature entirely--along with pinned tabs as they normally work--by pinning at least one tab and using userchrome to hide #pinned-tabs-container.

You could also downgrade to 142 and hold until the setting is implemented.

Comment 10

[Dean Lafferty]

Next up the scroll bar will trigger a magic swirling portal when you scroll to the bottom of a page.
My vote is get rid of this, stick to right click pin. I appreciate the time that's gone into it, but I've already pinned by mistake like 5 times already today and changing sensitively will help a little but won't fix the issue, the feature doesn't belong there imo.

Comment 11

[Dmitriy]

Seems like group of people trying to sabotage Firefox principles and even not trying to fix this issue during month

Testers says "give us ability to disable this, it's annoying, and we didn't even think about using this feature", one person says "Ideally an about:config pref shouldn't be needed, as the average user won't go there"
1:1 - draw
In result, even advanced users can't advice average user how to disable this - both groups will be in pain

This feature on release channel (143.0) now and we can't disable it and it's still annoying
Get ready to more negative reviews about this feature, if you don't interested in testers opinion

Good job, sabotage is done!

Comment 12

[Nikki Sharpley (:nikkis) (she/her)]

Thank you for the feedback!

The sensitivity fix that landed in bug 1984210 and uplifted to 143 does the following:

• reduced the distance you need to drag the tab close enough to the edge of the tab strip by half
  

• introduced a 350ms delay before the transition
  

• fixed the issue where it was pinning when not quite hovering over the interaction cue.
  

08xjcec48, does this solve the issue for you? We are assessing whether this fix is sufficient or if further work is required. Thanks!

Comment 13

[[:lsp]]

I hope I'm not out of line in pointing out again that even if 08xjcec48 personally ends up having been primarily concerned with sensitivity, it's clear some users are still going to want the setting to disable.

Comment 14

[juraj.masiar]

It's great that there are all these new features, but there really should be a way to disable them if they affect normal usage in an unexpected ways.

For example, I have a single pinned tab (Spotify) and I don't plan to pin any more tabs.
Yet now, if I'm not fast enough (350ms), I can pin a new tab by accident.
The additional delay helped, but the accidents still happens.

I'm really not interested in pinning tabs like this, especially when I can pin tab from the context menu.
And seeing how this bug got 6 votes already, and it's only in Beta, this doesn't look very good.
Can I at least increase the 350ms delay in the about:config?

Comment 15

[08xjcec48]

does this solve the issue for you?

I've filed this bug on behalf of all the users asking for a toggle to disable this feature altogether on support communities.

Comment 16

[[:lsp]]

Again, not trying to step on any toes, and I'll be happy myself as long as the problem gets solved, but: a pref to disable this is no good because "only advanced users know their way around about:config", but a pref to adjust the trigger delay arbitrarily high is better by that standard?

Comment 17

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to [:lsp] from comment #16)

Again, not trying to step on any toes, and I'll be happy myself as long as the problem gets solved, but: a pref to disable this is no good because "only advanced users know their way around about:config", but a pref to adjust the trigger delay arbitrarily high is better by that standard?

We're adding a pref for the delay so product and UX owners can play around with it and see if we can further increase the default value.

Comment 18

[[:lsp]]

Heard, thanks for your time.

It's possible there is no happy medium: if a delay high enough to never trigger accidentally, and satisfy everyone who doesn't want this, ends up being too high for people who do, and you reach a point where dragging-left-and-holding-to-pin is frustrating, or no longer appreciably easier than right-click -> Pin Tab.

Comment 19

[Mauro V [:cheff]]

(In reply to Dão Gottwald [:dao] from comment #17)

(In reply to [:lsp] from comment #16)

Again, not trying to step on any toes, and I'll be happy myself as long as the problem gets solved, but: a pref to disable this is no good because "only advanced users know their way around about:config", but a pref to adjust the trigger delay arbitrarily high is better by that standard?

We're adding a pref for the delay so product and UX owners can play around with it and see if we can further increase the default value.

Wouldn't it make sense if we at least had this pref so advanced users / community members such as myself could toggle it off completely until the sensitivity issue is resolved?

Comment 20

[Marko [:korisnik25]]

There really should be a setting in about:settings for this so people could easily disable the feature without messing around in about:config.

Comment 21

[KeyofBlueS]

I'd like to kindly refocus the discussion on the original request: to provide an option to completely disable the "drag and drop to pin". For some users, this behavior is unnecessary and disruptive.

While adding a preference to adjust the delay is certainly welcome for those who want to keep using the feature, that should really be addressed as a separate issue. It doesn't resolve the core concern raised here.

Best regards.

Comment 22

[[:lsp]]

I would also appreciate some transparency on what criteria are being assessed to get this implemented.

This isn't marked WONTFIX, the proposed patch is fairly trivial, and we've established some users will always want to disable regardless of tweaks to the implementation. To be blunt, these preferences aren't going to disappear after another month fine-tuning the delay.

What are we still blocking on?

Comment 23

[juraj.masiar]

There is now at least 9 posts on Reddit asking how to disable this feature (and a lot of comments in the Mozilla Connect too):
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1nnj760/how_to_remove_the_pinned_tab_function_from_the/
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1nmwx4g/how_do_we_remove_this_feature/
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1nk3604/how_do_i_deactivate_the_pinned_tab_option_when/
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1njo7js/for_the_love_of_god_how_do_i_disable_this_new/
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1nj692e/how_do_you_disable_the_new_drag_tab_to_pin/
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1n9wcm7/workaround_for_disabling_tab_pinning/
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1mz4zze/how_to_remove_the_pin_area/
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1mw4m0k/ive_been_at_work_for_an_hour_but_ive_already/
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1mjm1fr/how_do_i_remove_this_feature/

Moving tab to the first position is a common thing to do when organizing tabs in window, and this feature makes is awkward - you either need to be fast, or you need to be precise (if you were slow) or you land in between and the tab is pinned and you need to unpin it.

This makes it a clear regression of basic tab organizing feature.
This issue should be merged and uplifted to Beta or even Release if there is a hotfix inbound, there is no reason not to.

Comment 24

[Nikki Sharpley (:nikkis) (she/her)]

We appreciate your feedback and are taking everything into consideration. In the interim, in bug 1989344, we are uplifting a pref for adjusting the delay to beta and release if you would like to use this to essentially "turn off" the feature by increasing the delay. Thank you!

Comment 25

[KeyofBlueS]

(In reply to Nikki Sharpley (:nikkis) (she/her) from comment #24)

We appreciate your feedback and are taking everything into consideration. In the interim, in bug 1989344, we are uplifting a pref for adjusting the delay to beta and release if you would like to use this to essentially "turn off" the feature by increasing the delay. Thank you!

Increasing the delay to an extreme value feels more like a workaround, which isn't very suitable for a project like Firefox, and it doesn't provide the same clarity of an explicit "disable" setting.

That said, if this is all we're getting for now, then it's certainly better than nothing.
Thank you for at least making this preference available, and I do hope a true disable option can still be considered in the future, so users have a clear and straightforward way to completely shut this behavior off if they wish.

Best regards.

Comment 26

[Dmitriy]

Is there any good reason why we can adjust delay in future, but can't have ability to disable it completely?
Do developers get whipped for every disabled feature or what?
Is there more higher person in Mozilla than developers who adds this feature, or is there anarchy?
Maybe we should speak with this person, because if they don't fix this problem now, it will continue to bother everyone for many years

Delayed != disabled

For example, until I turned off tab grouping in about:config, I often caught a bug, when whole interface is "freezing" until I moved any tab
Seems like, some tab grouping scripts broken (I didn't report this issue)
Why won't it be the same issues with feature?

Comment 27

[KeyofBlueS]

(In reply to Dmitriy from comment #26)

Is there any good reason why we can adjust delay in future, but can't have ability to disable it completely?
Do developers get whipped for every disabled feature or what?
Is there more higher person in Mozilla than developers who adds this feature, or is there anarchy?
Maybe we should speak with this person, because if they don't fix this problem now, it will continue to bother everyone for many years

Delayed != disabled

For example, until I turned off tab grouping in about:config, I often caught a bug, when whole interface is "freezing" until I moved any tab
Seems like, some tab grouping scripts broken (I didn't report this issue)
Why won't it be the same issues with feature?

Be prepared that comments may get hidden as "advocacy", even when they're only pointing out factual aspects of the implementation.
It's clear someone is not really taking our feedback into consideration.

Comment 28

[[:lsp]]

Testing the new adjustable delay:

I don't really perceive a functional difference between the first default 350ms and the new default 500ms. I probably stop pinning a tab accidentally the vast majority of the time around 800-900ms. I stop pinning a tab accidentally 95%+ of the time around 1200ms+.

Obviously this is all entirely subjective. Reviewing other comments, I see a user in the biggest Mozilla Connect thread explain accidental tab pinning is problematic because they have a tremor. Their thresholds, for example, might be especially high.

I also think my earlier assumption--that drag-to-rearrange and drag-to-pin might simply be incompatible workflows--was right on the money: if I did want to pin a tab, I would find it easier to right-click -> "Pin Tab" than hold the tab at the left edge of the screen for 1.5 seconds.

Comment 29

[Dean Lafferty]

Have a prompt appear when first pin a tab through drag snap giving an option to disable drag to pin permanently. Then also give option is settings to enable or diable drag to pin. Or just get rid of this all together as it interferes too much with tab management regardless of any delay

Comment 30

[Joe]

Some people can't have this active for various reasons, can someone write a dumbed down version of how to disable this in about:config? I tried adding longer timers to browser.tabs.dragDrop.createGroup.delayMS browser.tabs.dragDrop.expandGroup.delayMS browser.tabs.dragDrop.selectTab.delayMS tried toggling some stuff that looks like it would control it to false nothing works. Thanks.

Comment 31

[[:lsp]]

The relevant pref to set the delay arbitrarily high is browser.tabs.dragDrop.pinInteractionCue.delayMS.

It was added to Dev in 144b5, which was only published yesterday.

If you're on Release (143), it isn't backported yet. You can track it in the bug referenced in nikkis' last post.

Comment 32

[Joe]

Thank you!

Comment 33

[Marko [:korisnik25]]

We want to DISABLE the feature, not add delay. Delaying won't DISABLE the feature. Again, you're implementing a "feature" no one wanted.

Comment 34

[Red-Herring]

Thank you for adding delay preference, I'm sure will help some people. However it would be great if preference to disable drag to pin would also be available :)

Comment 35

[Merci chao]

Honestly, I really think there should be a setting to disable the whole drag-to-pin behavior. That includes dropping a normal tab onto a pinned one to pin it, and dropping a pinned tab onto a normal one to unpin. It’s way too easy to trigger by accident.

I’m just trying to rearrange my tabs — not pin them. But if I drag a tab a little too far to the left and the cursor happens to touch a pinned tab (which is hidden underneath the dragged tab so I can’t even see it), boom, it gets pinned. It’s super frustrating. You have to be careful just to move a tab to the leftmost spot without it suddenly becoming pinned. That kind of thing shouldn’t be a concern for users.

Comment 36

[Mauro V [:cheff]]

Attachment: zen-impl.mp4

Hi! Im the developer of Zen, a Firefox fork.

This change is important for us because Zen maintains its own implementation of this functionality. Integrating it directly would significantly reduce the number of patch files we need to maintain and simplify future upstream merges. Since tabs.js changes frequently, keeping our patches as small as possible is always a huge help. :)

I wanted to ask, is there a particular reason why this hasn't been merged yet? If there's anything I can do to help move it forward (e.g., additional testing, revisions, etc.), I'd be happy to assist (The original patch I sent 2 months ago would work just enough for me and the many users here as well).

Comment 37

[Mauro V [:cheff]]

Sorry if im requesting info from the wrong person. IIRC :dao was the one that reviewed the original patch.

Comment 38

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to Mauro V [:cheff] from comment #36)
Hi Mauro! Based on feedback we've got, I believe we've adequately addressed the original motivation for wanting a pref in bug 1984210 and bug 1989344. That said, I'm sympathetic to having a pref if that makes things easier for Zen. Could you please rebase your patch and submit it for review?

Comment 39

[Phabricator Automation]

Comment on attachment 9509819 [details]
Bug 1984420 - Add a setting to disable "drag and drop to pin"

Revision D262785 was moved to bug 2000413. Setting attachment 9509819 [details] to obsolete.

Comment 40

[Mauro V [:cheff]]

Done, thanks a lot!

Sorry about the mess, I copy-pasted the wrong revision link into the commit message