264535 - close multiple tabs dialogue doesn't support most common use case

Status: RESOLVED EXPIRED

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, defect)

Description

[Greg Phillips]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040913 Firefox/0.10.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040913 Firefox/0.10.1

The "confirm close" dialogue box that appears when a user clicks the window
close control directly supports only one of the two most common use cases for
that control. The use cases are: 

1. the user actually wanted to close the window
2. the user meant to close just the front tab

... plus of course the "oops" case. In my personal experience, use case 2 is the
most common (i.e., I make this mistake frequently). However, if I did mean to
close the current tab, the required sequence of steps to accomplish this goal,
after the dialogue box appears, is:

1. select [Cancel] in the dialogue
2. close the front tab using one of the other available mechanisms.

I believe there is a clean interface that can do better; see "expected results"
below.


Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. In | Tools | Options | Advanced | Browsing |, ensure "Warn when closing
multiple tabs" is selected.
2. Have multiple tabs open in a browser window.
3. Click the window close control.

Actual Results:  
A dialogue like this is displayed:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Confirm Close
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your are about to close two open tabs. Are you sure you want to continue?

[x] Warn me when I attempt to close multiple tabs

[[Close tabs]]  [Cancel]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Expected Results:  
The interface would be cleaner if it allowed the user to close just the front
tab (or even a selection of tabs) from the dialogue box. Here's a possible redesign:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Close window or tabs?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Did you want to close the window, or just some tabs?

[X] favicon and title of front tab
[ ] favicon and title of another tab
...
[ ] favicon and title of last tab

[X] Warn me when I close a window with multiple open tabs.

[Close Window] [Close Selected Tabs] [Cancel]
--------------------------------------------------------------------

With this design, the user can close either the window or just the front tab
with a single click. As a bonus, the user can close a selection of tabs as well,
with just a teensy bit of extra cognitive overhead.

Comment 1

[José Jeria]

Common users dont know what a favicon is. Also I dont understand what you mean
by closing a selection of tabs. I have to say that I find your dialog very
confusing. 

Comment 2

[Greg Phillips]

Attachment: Mock up of simple improved dialogue

Comment 3

[Greg Phillips]

Attachment: More complex improved (?) dialogue

Comment 4

[Greg Phillips]

(In reply to comment #1)
I've attached a couple of mockup screen shots, showing what I believe would be
improved dialogues. The first is the simplest solution I can come up with to the
problem I explained in my original bug report. The second is the solution I
originally outlined, which probably has more complexity than it really needs.

Where I said  "favicon and title of front tab" in my primitive ASCII-art, I
meant "fill in this space with the favicon associated with the tab (if it has
one) and the tab title". I actually do know that the average user has no idea
what favicon means :-). I hope my intent is clearer in the posted image.

Comment 5

[Worcester12345]

There are a lot of similar and duplicate bugs on this by searching on "close
multiple tabs" (without quotes) on bugzilla. 

Bug 218039 was marked "WONTFIX".

Comment 6

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
copy) or, for feature requests, if it's not present in the latest version and
you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
(given at the top of this mail) and add a comment to that effect, giving more
reproduction information if you have it.

If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
changed in any way in the next two weeks, it will be automatically resolved.
Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
Firefox:     http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releases/1.5beta1.html
Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Comment 7

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This bug has been automatically resolved after a period of inactivity (see above
comment). If anyone thinks this is incorrect, they should feel free to reopen it.