404081 - "Warn me when I close multiple tabs" preference can be overridden

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Settings UI, defect, P3)

Description

[Carsten Book [:Tomcat]]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9b1) Gecko/2007110904 Firefox/3.0b1

The Preference "warn me when i close multiple tabs" can be overridden and is not honored in specific scenarios.

Steps to reproduce:

-> Start Firefox and open multiple tabs
-> Close Firefox 
-> The Close Multiple Tabs warning comes up 
-> Uncheck "warn me when i attempt to close multiple tabs"
- Quit Firefox

-> Start Firefox again
-> Ensure under tools -> Options -> Tabs "Warn me if i close multiple tabs" is checked
-> Open Multiple Tabs
-> Close Firefox

- No Warning

Either, the preference "warn me if i close multiple tabs" should be honored and the warning should come again.

Or when i uncheck on closing a window with multiple tabs "warn me when i attempt to close multiple tabs", this pref should be also under tools -> Options -> tabs unchecked

Comment 1

[Justin Dolske [:Dolske]]

I can reproduce this too. Looks like it's non-Mac only, and the prompt is only skipped if there's just one window open.

The suspect code seems to be closeWindow() in toolkit/content/globalOverlay.js. Looks like the original code to add this feature (in bug 384907) only calls aPromptFunction() if there's more than one window being closed.

That's easy enough to change, but I'd want to look at what happens what |browser.warnOnQuit| is true, and if you get prompted twice.

Comment 3

[Roman R.]

I think I can also reproduce this on 20080216 build. I *believe* I'd inadvertently changed the value of the checkbox on the exit confirming message box, and now I am not able to get this box displayed in spite of the preference set to do so.

Using Vista. 

Comment 4

[Roman R.]

browser.tabs.warnOnClose is set to true

Comment 5

[Michael Schonfeld]

I don't quite understand when exactly this dialog should appear. When I close multiple tabs by clicking on the "Close other tabs", I get this dialog, understandably. But, when I quit Firefox, should I really have 2 different dialogs? The first being the save tabs dialog, and the second being am I sure I want to close multiple tabs?

Maybe I don't understand this completely, so if you guys could shed some light on this for me please...

Comment 7

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

bug 419009 should help here, please renominate if that doesn't clear up any remaining issues.

Comment 8

[krypt0n]

I can confim same bug on FF 3.0b5 using Win XP SP2.

Solution:
about:config -> changed "browser.warnOnQuit" to true

The checkbox in the FF settings changes the value "browser.tabs.warnOnClose", which doesn't affect how FF closes. I don't get prompted twice when closing FF. That warnOnQuit is the only thing I have changed in the about:config screen.

Comment 9

[udo]

Both values in about:config are TRUE here and no questions are asked.
(3.0b5 on Linux x86_86)

Comment 10

[udo]

When I change the setting to show a blank page on startup (instead of reopening the tabs) I DO get a question to save the tabs when closing the browser.
On Startup I do get the tabs restored although the setting is to show a blank page.
What is the interaction between these settings?

Comment 11

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

The "what to do when Firefox starts" setting and the "show a quit prompt" settings only interact in one way - if the former is set to "restore all my tabs", the Quit prompt is never shown. Otherwise they are independent.

Comment 12

[udo]

I do think this is not the intended behaviour.
Saving tabs makes only sense when they need to be restored.

Also: when I set FF to show me a blank page on startup the tabs ARE restored.

How is stuff supposed to work and how can I understand agree with that?

Comment 13

[pablo.bianchi]

Same or related problem here, with Kubuntu 8.04 (KDE):
about:config
  browser.warnOnQuit" is in "true"
  browser.tabs.warnOnClose is in "true"
I made a fresh install of Kubuntu 8.04, with: "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9b5) Gecko/2008050509 Firefox/3.0b5"

If I close a first window with multiple tabs, the warning box doesn't get prompted, it close immediately. If I open a second (or more) window with tabs, the warning it get prompted on both intent to close. Strange...

Comment 14

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

(In reply to comment #13)
> Same or related problem here, with Kubuntu 8.04 (KDE):
> about:config
>   browser.warnOnQuit" is in "true"
>   browser.tabs.warnOnClose is in "true"

What is the value of browser.startup.page?

Comment 15

[udo]

3

Comment 16

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

When browser.startup.page is equal to 3, we never show the quit prompt. We do still show the "close multiple tabs" dialog when you attempt to close a single window with multiple tabs (without quitting).

Comment 17

[udo]

Over here I have one window with multiple tabs. When I close the window _no_ questions are asked.
How does that fit in?

Comment 18

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

(In reply to comment #17)
> Over here I have one window with multiple tabs. When I close the window _no_
> questions are asked.
> How does that fit in?

Note the "(without quitting)" part of my statement. When you close the _last_ window, you're effectively quitting the app, and the "always save my tabs" pref (browser.startup.page = 3) will protect you in that case, so we don't show the prompt.

Comment 19

[Roman R.]

(In reply to comment #18)
> Note the "(without quitting)" part of my statement. When you close the _last_
> window, you're effectively quitting the app, and the "always save my tabs" pref
> (browser.startup.page = 3) will protect you in that case, so we don't show the
> prompt.

That's a bad decision, in my opinion. I'd know this, if you having 30, 50, and sometimes many more open tabs were part of your working style.

Comment 20

[udo]

Indeed.
Wasn't the 2.0.0.x behaviour different?
I remember being asked each time when closing the browser.

Comment 21

[Roman R.]

This issue would be easy to solve if the devs didn't doubt users' wishes:
warn about closing a window with multiple tabs (no matter whether it's the only window one of 10) if the preference option is set. Simply give the users a set of options to set in the preference UI and trust that they can mark those they are interested in, and don't overengineer anything. 

I, for one, want to have my windows and tabs saved all the time, and I want to be warned when I initiated closure of a window, and the reason being is that I sometimes click on the wrong window's close icon or press Alt+F4 instead of another shortcut, by mistake.

Comment 22

[[:Aleksej]]

Comments 16—21 are about bug 419009, probably not this one.

Comment 23

[pablo.bianchi]

(In reply to comment #14)
> What is the value of browser.startup.page?
browser.startup.page;3

Las week I have installed FF3 on a windows 2000 and it have the same problem, with one window open, it doesn't warn me, even I have checked on the option.

Comment 24

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

(In reply to comment #23)
> (In reply to comment #14)
> > What is the value of browser.startup.page?
> browser.startup.page;3

> it doesn't warn me

See comment 16. Note that we also don't show the quit prompt if there only 1 window open with a single tab.

Comment 26

[Michel]

Hi,

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=419009
-- a lot of things are explained in the above bug (419009);
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=419009#c53
-- this is a comment of mine on the matter (a few more follow in the same thread).

Actually, I see now more than one bug related to this issue (some marked duplicate):

The issue is: If you have only ONE window open, with no matter how many tabs in it; if you have set in TOOLS -> Options -> 'On startup, restore all of my windows and tabs from last time'; and you try to close Firefox 3, it closes WITHOUT any warning (in Firefox 2, it warned you!).

This may lead in some cases to data loss (filled forms over https are not saved, and some other cases), but the firefox devs up to now do not want to admit that the new FF 3.0 behaviour is not what mot of the users expect.

The discussion on bug 419009 was quite un-productive, actually.

Me (and some other people) tried to explain, that 1) we want Firefox to automatically save our session each time it is closed, and 2) we want Firefox to give some kind of a warning, before we quit/close, even if we have set the session of opened tabs to be automatically restored on next startup.

Currently, I do not know of a working workaround that may achieve BOTH conditions. I must make my session to be NOT automatically restored on next startup, if I want to see a warning on closing Firefox (with multiple tabs opened); or I must quit Firefox without any warning. Both things is not what I need/want.

I do not know of a plugin or hack or anything, which can make both things work at the same time. It is hard-coded in the Firefox core now.

Any help on that will be appreciated, though! ;-)

It is very simple: Let the user decide, if he/she wants to receive a warning when quiting Firefox 3/closing multiple tabs. This preference (warn on closing multiple tabs) should be absolutely independent of the way a person have set up in preferences what FF 3.0 should show on next startup: 1) blank page, or 2) home page, or 3) windows and tabs from last time (Session Saver - session restored). Currently, if you pick up 3, the warning is disabled and I do not know any way of making it appear again... :(

Comment 27

[Michel]

PS Strange, but 419009 was closed. And 404081 sounds a bit different, but I am not sure now, how and where should I ask for making 'Warn on closing multiple tabs' to be made again independent of the fact if the user wants a blank page/home page to be shown on startup, or the session of opened tabs/windows to be restored...

Firefox 2.0's behaviour is what I still expect, but it is unavailable now in FF 3.0. In older versions of Firefox (before 2.0) what restored the session was SessionSaver 0.2.something, a nice plugin (it was put into core after that, I think). SessionSaver also respected 'Warn on closing multiple tabs', so no matter if you wanted to restore your session or not, the warning showed up (expected behaviour). The Mozilla browser 1.x.x had the option integrated, I think (restore my tabs on next startup) and it also gave you a warning on closing multiple tabs!

Basically, from my 5+ years of experience with Mozilla browser/Firefox browser, this is the first time I see a feature I am used to and which is useful to me, to be suddenly changed in a way which is not expected by me, and is not as useful as before, because I still need my session to be restored automatically, and I still expect/need a warning before closing lots of tabs to be shown to me (as in FF 2.0 and below)...

Any ideas...? :-)

Comment 28

[Michel]

(In reply to comment #21)
> This issue would be easy to solve if the devs didn't doubt users' wishes:
> warn about closing a window with multiple tabs (no matter whether it's the only
> window one of 10) if the preference option is set. Simply give the users a set
> of options to set in the preference UI and trust that they can mark those they
> are interested in, and don't overengineer anything. 
> 
> I, for one, want to have my windows and tabs saved all the time, and I want to
> be warned when I initiated closure of a window, and the reason being is that I
> sometimes click on the wrong window's close icon or press Alt+F4 instead of
> another shortcut, by mistake.

I, for two, want it the same (I want to have my windows and tabs saved all the time, and I want to be warned when I initiated closure of a window), but, as I mentioned above, and in the other filed bug (419009), in Firefox 3 this is not possible anymore, and I do not know of a workaround... :(