Closed Bug 280308 Opened 20 years ago Closed 19 years ago

Middle-click to close tabs

Categories

(Camino Graveyard :: Tabbed Browsing, enhancement)

Product:
Camino Graveyard
Component:
Tabbed Browsing
Platform:
PowerPC
macOS
Type:
enhancement
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
VERIFIED WONTFIX
Milestone:
Camino1.6

People

(Reporter: j4nu5.n6, Assigned: mikepinkerton)

References

(
URL
)

Details

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-US) AppleWebKit/125.4 (KHTML, like Gecko, Safari) OmniWeb/v563.34
Build Identifier: 

Middle-click (cmd-click) on Tab for closing it and put an option to remove the close button on tab. 

It is the way Firefox works. The only difference is that Firefox for Mac lack middle-click support. 

I have mis-clicked the close button on tab a few times. I really think the way Firefox implemented is a 
lot better.

You may even add option-middle-click (cmd-opt-click) for closing other tabs as well.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
Command-click presents issues when one considers what happens if Camino is in
the background: in that case, command-clicking a tab brings that tab to the
foreground (whereas clicking simply brings Camino to the foreground).

Command-option-click presents issues when one considers re-ordering tabs. As
command-option-drag is the OS-wide default for moving things around in toolbars,
it'd be a logical extension for us to use that for re-ordering tabs (should we
ever do so). Issues with what to do when Camino's in the background are again
raised, as command-option-click then brings Camino to the foreground and hides
other apps (because option is pressed; I'm not sure if the lack of click-through
is a bug or a feature...).

As for middle-click... well, that's a legitimate enhancement request. I'll leave
it to Those Who Make Such Decisions to ponder.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
Summary: [Suggestion] Middle-click (cmd-click) on Tab for closing it → Middle-click to close tabs
Not wanting to add "me too", but I would think that since the code is already
there, this wouldn't be too difficult to add to Camino, of course, IANAD so far
be it for me to be overly presumptuous, but this would bring tab behavior in
line with the rest of the Mozilla family.
Target Milestone: --- → Camino1.2
i'm willing to consider this but "firefox works that way" isn't necessarily a complelling argument. Seems easy to accidentally hit the wrong button and close your tab. 
After reading a recent blog entry from Ben Goodger concerning how to improve tabbed browsing, this may not be the way Firefox does it in the future: 

"Put close buttons on the tabs. This makes it a lot easier to close tabs with the mouse. People weren't seeing the close box in the usability test. It's also out of the way and not connected with what's actually being closed. Mindful of stealing space from the tab strip when there are many tabs, the close boxes on inactive tabs are hidden when the tab width falls below a certain minimum value."

I suppose it's often easy to forget how to think like the "average user", or that 95% of the world who don't live in front of their computers. After further review, and living with the current close-button implimentation in Camino for some time now, I think not having a close button would take away from the intuitiveness and ease of use we currently have. 
The issue here is that middle-click is an "open" command in the rest of the UI (middle click = command click in most cases, or it will when all the relevant bugs are fixed).  So you have an action that means "open" in 99% of the cases suddenly meaning "close" in one other, dataloss, case.

That meaning change, especially in a dataloss case, is not good.
smokey, you're right. i forgot middle click generally means open. WONTFIX.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 19 years ago
Resolution: --- → WONTFIX
*** Bug 324298 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 360043 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
The arguments on comment #5 and #6 IMHO miss the target, middle-click is not a keyboard shortcut that is expected to execute the same function all the time, middle-click is an action associated with a pointer, and it is pretty normal to expect different behaviors depending on the location of the cursor.

A link inside one page and a tab that is part of the navigator UI are very distinct elements, and we should revisit this old decision under the lights of the current scenario (firefox and ie7 using this as the standard). Please consider  reopening.

Thanks
WONTFIXed bugs need no help (so, removing "helpwanted") and the "dogfood" keyword is reserved for Mozilla developers. In this case Camino ones. Removing that as well. Finally, "compat" is for content, not chrom. Please don't add keywords until you understand what the keywords mean.
Keywords: dogfood, helpwanted
Keywords: compat
Sorry Samuel, I don't mean to spam, disturb or mess up your work flow, I guess I will install xcode here and leave the pros alone :(
About the part of the quote from Ben Goodger in comment #4 on hiding close buttons  when tabs get too narrow, has it been considered yet?
(In reply to comment #13)
> About the part of the quote from Ben Goodger in comment #4 on hiding close
> buttons  when tabs get too narrow, has it been considered yet?

It's been discussed, and the decision was WONTFIX there as well.
I don't really see what business people have middle-clicking tabs to "open?" them, yea, Middle-clicking opens up new tabs when you click on links, but what else would it do? - close the current page? come on...

As for accidently clicking the middle button - which is hard - I have had more dataloss and time-loss when I click the little close button and wait for the tab to resize and then have to relocate my mouse to the next close button.

I understand if you disagree with my point of view, but at least have this as an option (not default behavior.)

Thoughts?
Just because a Windows behaviour makes sense on Windows doesn't mean it makes any sense on the Mac when every single other instance of middle-click means "open".

This bug remains WONTFIX for all of the previously expressed reasons, and we will not be adding an option, hidden or otherwise, to introduce a destructive behaviour that is inconsistent with the rest of the UI.

Also, "accidently clicking the middle button - which is hard" is HIGHLY dependent on mouse design. There are a multitude of mice out there with which accidentally clicking the middle button is far too easy.
I was unaware that this was a windows behavior, I was simply used to using this highly-intuitive and fast feature on firefox.

Inconsistent with the whole UI, may I ask what other behavior stems from middle clicking besides opening a new tab when clicking on a link, I am not trying to be disparaging, I simply do not know. If that is the only other middle click button function that exists then it wouldn't be that inconsistent - whereas having say 15 different uses of the middle click resulting in something opening and 1 use of the middle click resulting in a close, would be inconsistent.

As for adding a "destructive behavior", I believe that you are over-exaggerating. If the option is hidden, then no harm can come from it unless people (the one's who actually want the option) are looking for it.    

ps - I just clicked on the close button by accident again.
Please read the bugzilla etiquette regarding WONTFIX bugs:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html

We are aware of the arguments; making them again because you disagree with our decision isn't productive.
Regarding to reply on comment #19, the Firefox on Mac has supported middle clicking the tab to close the tab since version 2.0. I don't see it as a Windows specific behavior anyway.

Btw, there are 2 issues here.
1) an option to hide the close button on a tab.
2) an option to support middle clicking a tab to close it.

Both of them could be make as default but that would be yet another 2 debates.
 I would like to ask, does the WONTFIX applies to both pt. 1 and pt. 2 or just pt. 1 or pt. 2? Could someone clarify it?

Regarding to #20, I still think there are walid reasons to reconsider this feature for Camino to implement at least pt 2. what else do you expect from middle clicking on tab? reload it? Come on! It is definitely an improvemnet on tabbed browsing.

Just my 2 cents.
(In reply to comment #21)
>  I would like to ask, does the WONTFIX applies to both pt. 1 and pt. 2 or just
> pt. 1 or pt. 2? Could someone clarify it?

It applies to both.
(In reply to comment #21)

> Regarding to #20, I still think there are walid reasons to reconsider this
> feature for Camino to implement at least pt 2. what else do you expect from
> middle clicking on tab? reload it? Come on! It is definitely an improvemnet on
> tabbed browsing.

While you're entitled to your opinion -- wrong though it may be -- I would suggest you use your mouse software to assign middle-click to Cmd-W in Camino if you feel so strongly that middle-clicking on tabs should close them.
Enough. Unless someone has substantial *new information* relating to the use of middle-click there should not be any more comments in this bug, period.

Anyone wanting to either rehash the existing information or start a flamewar should take this to the forums instead.
Note that there is a workaround to restore middle-click close tabs through an extension:

http://pimpmycamino.com/parts/firetabs
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