2054899 - Explore decreasing tab max width in compact mode

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, task)

Description

[Kelly Cochrane [:kcochrane]]

In bug 2030953, it was requested that we decrease tab max width in compact mode from 225px to 180px (see spec). We've decided to break this change out separately to discuss the pro/cons of making this change.

UX has previously stated:
"My understanding is that the 180px max-width is intended to make compact mode feel consistently denser, even before the tab strip begins to overflow. It would allow more tabs to remain visible at once and prevent longer titles from taking up as much horizontal space."

Comment 1

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to Kelly Cochrane [:kcochrane] from comment #0)

UX has previously stated:
"My understanding is that the 180px max-width is intended to make compact mode feel consistently denser,

I think we're slightly getting lost in the weeds here in terms of what users enabling compact mode want and expect. This proposed change seems unnecessarily crippling.

It would allow more tabs to remain visible at once

The max-width does not make a difference for how many tabs can be visible at once. The min-width is the relevant measure for that, but we don't have much (or any, really) room to reduce that.

and prevent longer titles from taking up as much horizontal space."

This is free space, intended for tabs to take it. Most users have so few tabs that they don't ever overflow, and allowing those users to see more of page titles seems like a good thing.

Comment 2

[Sarah Clements [:sclements] | PTO until Oct 12th]

Note: we're not planning to get this into the nova release, we're going to wait for user feedback first.