463827 - "browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab" preferences option

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Settings UI, enhancement)

Description

[Aaron P]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1b2pre) Gecko/20081108 Minefield/3.1b2pre
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1b2pre) Gecko/20081108 Minefield/3.1b2pre

If there is only one tab open in the browser window, and you open the context menu for that tab and choose 'Close Tab', it closes the browser.

This should not close the browser. Instead, one of the following should happen:
1) The 'Close Tab' context menu option should not be available if there is only one tab open.
2) When 'Close Tab' is clicked on the only open tab in a window, it should cause the tab to go to the about:blank page.

Note: There is an existing bug 128631 that was filed based on the old tabbing behavior.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open browser (with one tab open)
2. Right-click on tab (to display context menu)
3. Choose 'Close Tab'
Actual Results:  
Browser closes

Expected Results:  
Browser does not close

Comment 1

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

I am not sure exactly what you mean by the severity marking of this bug. You marked it as Minor, while it seems like you are asking for an an enhancement, which would be marked as such. Could you please clarify on what you mean? I have changed the severity, but please feel free to reply with clarifications.

Comment 2

[leffeman]

This is a regression, Firefox 3.0.4 does not have this bug.

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2a1pre) Gecko/20081205 Minefield/3.2a1pre

Comment 3

[leffeman]

It appears a new setting called ``browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab'' has been introduced, it defaults to the true value.  There does not appear to be a way of setting this in the Preferences dialog.

Comment 4

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Bug 128631 was on SM, this is FF. I am not sure what the ending will be on this bug, but will change to the comment #3.

Comment 5

[Steve Lamb]

I consider this a bug but can't file it against developer arrogance.  Overloading the UI and making the new, rather unexpected and destructive, behavior as default just smacks of it.  Also removing the X from the single tab smacks of the same.

Here's how it is used in all previous versions.  Person wants to clear the window since what is contained in it is no longer relevant, they press X on the tab.

3.0.x and below, works great!

3.1.b2.  No X.  Right click and select close tab the browser goes away.

Do we really need more overloaded UI elements, especially one with an inconsistent display!?

Comment 6

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

The reason that the "X" has been removed from the tab when only one is open is because in 3.0 branch, the browser does not show the tab when only one is open (unless you set it too). 3.1 branch and later do show the tab bar by default (cant find that right no, but that is somewhere). There s no real need to have a X with just one tab, because it will close the whole window, just as the main close button will. It does make sense to remove the "Close Tab" toolbar option with just one tab. Different bug though.

Comment 7

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Bug 471437 is one the close tab dropdown.

Comment 8

[Zertrin]

Still no kind of checkbox "Do not close the browser when last tab close" in Option > Tabs in the very recent version i'm using :

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; fr; rv:1.9.1b4pre) Gecko/20090320 Shiretoko/3.5b4pre

Will this enhancement be implemented or not ?

Comment 9

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Marking wanted 3.5.

Comment 11

[Mike Beltzner [:beltzner, not reading bugmail]]

Huh, I thought there must be a dupe of this, but guess not.

We're not going to add a user-visible preference for this, but it sounds like we should probably remove the "Close Tab" entry from the context menu or replace it with "Close Window". I filed bug 514053 for that.

(You can see the full history of why the behaviour is this way by default in bug 455852)

Comment 12

[Stefan Hepp]

I (reluctantly) accept that this is the default behaviour. However I still don't get why the preference has to be hidden, since this preference is quite a major change in the UI behaviour (i.e. that the browser can be accidentally closed quite easily, which might be good or bad, depending on your very personal preference). Therefore I think this behaviour should be determined primarily by the user, not the developer. An option name like proposed in Comment 8 should also be quite straightforward to understand for the user, nothing fancy needed here.

FireGestures, the close button and shortcuts work around the context menu, so it does not make such a big difference what the entries in the context menu are called.