268194 - Tab bar flaky with window.open when no other bars shown

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 243893

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, defect)

Description

[Scott Andrews]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041106 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041106 Firefox/1.0

Links opened with window.open that do not have either the location bar or tools
bar will not show the tabs bar when a second tab is opened.

Samples at http://www.rit.edu/~swaisd/bugtabs.html

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Go to http://www.rit.edu/~swaisd/bugtabs.html
2. Click on the first link.
3. Open a new tab.

Actual Results:  
The tab bar does not appear.

Expected Results:  
The tab bar should appear.

Keyboard navigation to the other tabs is still functional.

Comment 1

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Its pretty rare that people try to navigate within a popup window, or use
multiple tabs.  This isn't an easy bug to work around, since the window is
basically being opened without any chrome elements, so the tabs remain hidden.

Comment 2

[Vincenzo Ciancia]

It's not that rare, in the sense that if popup windows open in tabs, it happens
that:

1. I click on a link, this opens a legitimate popup, then I click on a link
which automatically opens a popup into a tab, but I don't see it, and then I
close the first popup and get a warning that I am closing multiple tabs. So a
correct (even if not completely satisfactory) answer could be "in a popup that
does not show the tab bar, never open new tabs"

Sorry for the lack of proper language but I don't know either javascript or html.

Comment 3

[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 4

[Phil]

I can recreate this bug as well...if Firefox doesn't show you the tabs in a
popup, it should at least not show you the option to create new tabs.  Although
I agree with the submitter that it would be nicer to actually have the tabs.

Comment 5

[Kevin Brosnan]

This should be resolved by Firefox 1.5 beta

Comment 6

[JT Moree]

I have this problem in a Web Application.  If i use toolbar=no to turn off the forward/back buttons then the tabs go away too.  I want the tabs.  I dont want the forward back buttons. (yes I know the user can still use fw and back even if i turn the buttons off.  it's both a space issue and an attempt at out of site out of mind.)

Was this done in Firefox 1.5?

Also, can the fix be applied to Moz?

Comment 7

[Gérard Talbot]

Folks,

When an window.open() call does not indicate to request the toolbar presence, then the tab bar will be removed from the secondary window unless the user insist to have both with an advanced user setting.

All this is explained in several documents I wrote here and there:

"In addition to the Navigation Toolbar, Mozilla-based browsers will render the Tab Bar if it is visible, present in the parent window. (...)"
http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/DOM:window.open#Toolbar_and_chrome_features

"In addition to the Navigation Toolbar, Mozilla-based browsers will render the Tab Bar if it is visible, present in the parent window.
Mozilla and Firefox users can force new windows to always render the Navigation Toolbar by setting
dom.disable_window_open_feature.toolbar
to true in about:config or in their user.js file."
http://www.gtalbot.org/BugzillaSection/Bug195867GDR_WindowOpen.html#toolbar

and also at:
http://www.mozilla.org/docs/dom/domref/dom_window_ref76.html#grpToolbarsChromeFeat

I personally fail to see how or why this behavior should be considered as a bug or as a faulty or incorrect behavior. Navigation functionality features (and its correspondent User Interface: icons, buttons) should be either complete or inexistent: it's kinda awkward, incoherent or illogical (it's definitely counter-usability for beginners) to have several tabs in a tab bar but without the navigation toolbar (including refresh and stop) or to have the navigation toolbar but without a tab bar.

A window without a Stop button might even be considered as a security issue for beginners or having possible security consequences for users.

I really think people trying to remove the navigation toolbar should not do this in the first place for lots of reasons I won't explain here. 

<a bit of rant>
Browser manufacturers like Opera and now - more recently - Microsoft are giving users more veto powers and more absolute powers over 
scripts run with window.open(). Recently, Microsoft has made the address bar permanent on all windows in all conditions (overriding even the users' preferences) for lots of reasons, security reasons (think of anti-phishing here) being decisive ones: I'm sure (and hope) Mozilla will soon follow. Same thing with the status bar: here again, Microsoft goes a bit further than Mozilla regarding security issues. The status bar in IE7 is present and visible no matter what, even overriding the users' preferences. Mozilla does not go that far, still allowing the user to allow scripts to remove status bar.
</a bit of rant>

The reporter suggested that removing the locationbar removes the tab bar but that's probably a mis-identification of the chrome bar.

I recommend WONTFIX

Comment 8

[Phil]

Actually they have already fixed this bug.  I don't think you understand what was originally proposed.  In the popup window, the user right clicked a link and selected "open in new tab".  In the old version, this would not happen, in 1.5.0.1 it appears to work fine.

(In reply to comment #7)
> Folks,
> 
> When an window.open() call does not indicate to request the toolbar presence,
> then the tab bar will be removed from the secondary window unless the user
> insist to have both with an advanced user setting.
> 
> All this is explained in several documents I wrote here and there:
> 
> "In addition to the Navigation Toolbar, Mozilla-based browsers will render the
> Tab Bar if it is visible, present in the parent window. (...)"
> http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/DOM:window.open#Toolbar_and_chrome_features
> 
> "In addition to the Navigation Toolbar, Mozilla-based browsers will render the
> Tab Bar if it is visible, present in the parent window.
> Mozilla and Firefox users can force new windows to always render the Navigation
> Toolbar by setting
> dom.disable_window_open_feature.toolbar
> to true in about:config or in their user.js file."
> http://www.gtalbot.org/BugzillaSection/Bug195867GDR_WindowOpen.html#toolbar
> 
> and also at:
> http://www.mozilla.org/docs/dom/domref/dom_window_ref76.html#grpToolbarsChromeFeat
> 
> I personally fail to see how or why this behavior should be considered as a bug
> or as a faulty or incorrect behavior. Navigation functionality features (and
> its correspondent User Interface: icons, buttons) should be either complete or
> inexistent: it's kinda awkward, incoherent or illogical (it's definitely
> counter-usability for beginners) to have several tabs in a tab bar but without
> the navigation toolbar (including refresh and stop) or to have the navigation
> toolbar but without a tab bar.
> 
> A window without a Stop button might even be considered as a security issue for
> beginners or having possible security consequences for users.
> 
> I really think people trying to remove the navigation toolbar should not do
> this in the first place for lots of reasons I won't explain here. 
> 
> <a bit of rant>
> Browser manufacturers like Opera and now - more recently - Microsoft are giving
> users more veto powers and more absolute powers over 
> scripts run with window.open(). Recently, Microsoft has made the address bar
> permanent on all windows in all conditions (overriding even the users'
> preferences) for lots of reasons, security reasons (think of anti-phishing
> here) being decisive ones: I'm sure (and hope) Mozilla will soon follow. Same
> thing with the status bar: here again, Microsoft goes a bit further than
> Mozilla regarding security issues. The status bar in IE7 is present and visible
> no matter what, even overriding the users' preferences. Mozilla does not go
> that far, still allowing the user to allow scripts to remove status bar.
> </a bit of rant>
> 
> The reporter suggested that removing the locationbar removes the tab bar but
> that's probably a mis-identification of the chrome bar.
> 
> I recommend WONTFIX
> 

Comment 9

[Gérard Talbot]

> Actually they have already fixed this bug. 

They actually already fixed this bug? Then please resolve the bug accordingly when you know this.

> I don't think you understand what
> was originally proposed. 

No, I did not understand what this bug is about then. I read every single comment and replied to what was said. Step 1 of steps to reproduce leads to an Internal Server Error page, btw.

> In the popup window, the user right clicked a link
> and selected "open in new tab". 

Where do you read this? Anyway...

> In the old version, this would not happen, in
> 1.5.0.1 it appears to work fine.

Resolving as DUPLICATE of bug 243893 then (see bug 297452 too)

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 243893 ***