308934 - 'wanted' pop-up windows maintain tabbed capability without tab control

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 243893

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, defect)

Description

[Aime Watts]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050716 Firefox/1.0.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050716 Firefox/1.0.6

If a browser pop-up window (like watching a 'gameday' view at mlb.com) is the
active window and a link from another source is clicked, the URL shows in the
pop-up window instead of the active browser. Then there no controls on the
pop-up to take you back to the desired view. Closing the pop-up prompts the
warning about closing multiple tabs, yet there is no way to just close the
current one.

My work-around is to be sure that the main browser window is 'on top' of the
pop-up first, then click the desired link. That way the URL comes up in the
browser instead of the pop-up.

Either pop-ups should have tab controls; or they should not allow tabbed
browsing, thereby allowing the 'back' control (shown by right clicking) can
return to the true pop-up window.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. have a secondary application, such as Outlook, open that has 'hot links' on a
document
2.Go to www.mlb.com in a Firefox window, find an ongoing ball game and click on
the "gameday" button beside any game, thus invoking a pop-up with the running
ball game.
3.While the pop-up is on top of the main browser, switch to the app that has
live links in a document and click a link.
4.The URL will now show in the 'gameday' pop-up window.
5.There is no way to get back to the 'gameday' view on the pop-up.
Actual Results:  
At the point of being redundant, the pop-up was usurped by the new URL,
ostensibly in a tab, but without tab controls (or tab views) there is no way to
switch back to the original tab in the pop-up.

Expected Results:  
The pop-up should show tabs or have tab controls on the right-click dialogue;
or, the pop-up should not be tab-ready so that the 'back' control would be
useful; or pop-ups should not respond to further outside web requests. Take your
pick, either would solve the issue.

This is not a critical issue, but rather very annoying and disruptive. 
IMHO pop-up windows should only be used for the unique application they're
called for. Barring that, if they're allowed to function as tabbed browsers they
should display the tabs or at least have tab controls in the right-click
appellate. You shouldn't have uncontrolled tabbing.

Comment 1

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

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