Closed Bug 269841 Opened 20 years ago Closed 11 years ago

Also make 'previous' history of originating tab available in tabs spawning from this tab

Categories

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, enhancement, P5)

x86
Windows XP
enhancement

Tracking

()

RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 566514
Future

People

(Reporter: Thomas_Delrue, Unassigned)

Details

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

When browsing, you build up a crumb-path of pages in the 'previous' button.
However, when you ctrl+click on a link, the new link does open in a new tab, but
the items in the 'previous'-section of the originating page are not taken allong
with the new tab.
Personally, I feel it would be very nive to have the pages that belong to the
previous-section of the originating tab are also available in tabs that spawn
from this originating page so that - when you have closed the originating tab -
you can still navigate to the page you were looking at in the originating tab
before the page on which you ctrl+clicked to open a new tab

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
n/a
Actual Results:  
n/a

Expected Results:  
see details...

See details...
I don't think that's a good idea. Normally before closing a tab I'll look up to
the back button. If it's disabled I know I've either Ctrl-clicked the link or
started on this page -- in either case, I know this page was the 'focus' of my
browsing, and I didn't find it by meandering off the point by clicking some link
on the original page. Having the back button constantly active means I would
have to keep checking it for pages that I hadn't finished reading.

You can track backwards by using a bookmarklet to go to the referrer page
<http://www.michaelhanscom.com/eclecticism/2003/08/go_to_referrer.html>
(In reply to comment #1)
> I don't think that's a good idea. Normally before closing a tab I'll look up to
> the back button. If it's disabled I know I've either Ctrl-clicked the link or
> started on this page -- in either case, I know this page was the 'focus' of my
> browsing, and I didn't find it by meandering off the point by clicking some link
> on the original page. Having the back button constantly active means I would
> have to keep checking it for pages that I hadn't finished reading.
> 
> You can track backwards by using a bookmarklet to go to the referrer page
> <http://www.michaelhanscom.com/eclecticism/2003/08/go_to_referrer.html>

This would be great, if the bookmarklet allowed you to walk back through the
history of referrers, or even worked for all pages. But it doesn't.

A nice way of implementing this in the browser might be to subtly change the
Back button when you are on the first page viewed in a new tab. This would
signal to the user that he is about to cross the line into a history which
originated in another tab. This would require marking the new-tab points in the
history list, and showing those points by changing the Back/Forward buttons
appropriately. They could also be marked by a line in the history drop-down list.
Personally, I agree with comment 1: I don't think this is a good idea (I do the
same thing).  However, I will confirm this bug and let the devs decide.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
Flags: blocking-aviary2.0?
Came up with the following proto-solution.

In cases where there is a clear originating tab, we'll preserve session history within the constraints of the single domain of the originating tab.  More than that probably isn't useful, but this could be depending on the use model.
Assignee: bugs → mconnor
Flags: blocking-aviary2? → blocking-aviary2+
Priority: -- → P5
Target Milestone: --- → Firefox 2 alpha2
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
This doesn't seem as important to focus on right now.
Assignee: mconnor → nobody
Status: ASSIGNED → NEW
Flags: blocking-firefox2+ → blocking-firefox2-
Target Milestone: Firefox 2 alpha2 → Future
I realize this is a very old issue, but I find this to be a very important missing feature in Firefox. There is an old extension that adds this functionality: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1859/ I would still like this feature to be available in Firefox without requiring any add-ons.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 11 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
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