Closed Bug 259865 Opened 20 years ago Closed 20 years ago

"Open in tabs" command will close existing open and tabbed windows

Categories

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, defect)

x86
Windows XP
defect
Not set
normal

Tracking

()

RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 216346

People

(Reporter: golmstead, Assigned: bugs)

Details

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040913 Firefox/0.10
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040913 Firefox/0.10

Suppose I have 5 tabbed windows open in my browser. I also have a folder in my
Bookmarks, an that folder has 2 bookmarks. If I choose "Open in tabs" from the
folder with 2 bookmarks, the 5 tabbed windows that are currently open are closed
and only the 2 windows corresponding to the 2 bookmarks are opend. It is
reasonable to expect that the 2 windows would be opened in addition to the 5
that i currently had open.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. open 5 tabbed windows
2. select "Open in Tabs" from any bookmark folder.
3. the 5 tabbed windows are replaced with the tabbed windows from the bookmarks
folder



Expected Results:  
when the "Open in Tabs" command is selected, the tabs should be opened in
addition to the existing tabs instead of replacing them.
That's by design.

To change it, go to about:config and set browser.tabs.loadFolderAndReplace to false.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 20 years ago
Resolution: --- → INVALID
(In reply to comment #1)
> That's by design.

But that doesn't necessarily make it right. Default behavior, even if by design,
can be considered a bug, if it doesn't meet user's expectations.

I got bit by this "feature" and I consider it a bug. It causes data loss, and
reverses prior behavior. Even without prior Firefox experience, my expectation
would be that either 1. a new window would be opened for the new tabs, or 2. new
tabs would be added to the existing window. Under no circumstances would I
expect existing tabs to be closed.

Additional research shows that this is probably a dupe of Mozilla bug 134800,
and related Mozilla bug 203960, which is about adding a user preference to
control this behavior, contains extensive discussion of the "clobbering" effect
itself, with dozens of users opposing the feature.

The history seems to be that this feature existed in Mozilla a long time ago
(2002) and was considered bad (bug 153016 Comment #3) by the developers, and so
changed to make the new tabs append to existing tabs. (The last time I tried
"open in tabs" I was apparently using a Firefox derived from that era of
Mozilla.) Later (2003), as reported in the initial comment to bug 203960, an
undisclosed (bug 243740) usability study prompted the change to the current
behavior.

Frustratingly it appears the decision has been made on this, and the dissenting
users have lost. I'll hold out some hope that just because it is a closed issue
in Mozilla that it doesn't have to be in Firefox, and maybe someone will reopen
this bug.
Status: RESOLVED → UNCONFIRMED
Resolution: INVALID → ---

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 216346 ***
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 20 years ago20 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
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