491178 - Removal of the ability to focus tabs by clicking them has encumbered keyboard shortcut usage (arrow keys, CTRL-HOME, CTRL-END, etc.)

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, defect)

Description

[jet1972]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1b5pre) Gecko/20090502 Shiretoko/3.5b5pre (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1b5pre) Gecko/20090502 Shiretoko/3.5b5pre (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

Its not possible anymore to change from tab to tab with the arrow keys!

Some times this was the only way to change the tab when the page contains many flash animations and clicking on an another tab did not work. Now with 3.5 beta this is not any more possible! (arrow keys has no effect at all, work as it should with 3.0.9)


Reproducible: Always



Expected Results:  
Should be able to switch Tabs even if the machine is under heavy duty.

Comment 1

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

Confirmed on Windows XP latest trunk. Ctr+Tab is still working.

Comment 2

[Nochum Sossonko [:Natch]]

Is this fallout from bug 462289, i.e. this is expected? You have to first tab to the tabbar, then right-arrow and left-arrow work as expected.

Comment 3

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to comment #0)
> clicking on an another tab did not work.

What are the steps to reproduce this?

Comment 4

[Ernst de Haan]

(In reply to comment #3)
> (In reply to comment #0)
> > clicking on an another tab did not work.
> 
> What are the steps to reproduce this?

Indeed. I'd like to confirm this issue, but I there is no clear and reproducible test case. A valid test case would be something like (for example):

1. start Firefox
2. go to URL xxxx
3. click on the location bar
4. press TAB
etc.

Comment 5

[Sam]

(In reply to comment #0)
> Now with 3.5 beta this is not any more possible! (arrow keys has no effect 
> at all, work as it should with 3.0.9)

You still can move tabs with arrow keys - it's still there - hit 'Ctrl+K' then 'Tab'.
What's gone is ability to focus a tab with a click.
It's been like that sometime along 3.1b3-4pre

Mozilla gods are turning away from "minorities" like me and you.

Comment 6

[Sam]

And this is a WONTFIX, or I eat my Mac.

Comment 7

[Ernst de Haan]

This bug seems related to bug 491250.

Comment 8

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

Is Ctr+Tab not a replacement for Click+Arrow?
If so, can you give an example URL?

Comment 9

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to comment #5)
> (In reply to comment #0)
> > Now with 3.5 beta this is not any more possible! (arrow keys has no effect 
> > at all, work as it should with 3.0.9)
> 
> You still can move tabs with arrow keys - it's still there - hit 'Ctrl+K' then
> 'Tab'.

Except that Ctrl+K doesn't work if a flash animation has focus.

Comment 11

[Wolfgang Rosenauer [:wolfiR]]

That is also on Linux. Changed the flags. 
So comment #5 is the correct thing. It's not possible to focus the tab itself by a mouse click. As comment #9 says, it has to work by mouse clicks as Flash (or other plugins could have grabbed your keyboard focus)
Marked as regression and almost asked for blocking-firefox3.5 but now asked for wanted-firefox3.5

Comment 12

[Sam]

(In reply to comment #9)
> > You still can move tabs with arrow keys - it's still there - hit 'Ctrl+K' then
> > 'Tab'.
> 
> Except that Ctrl+K doesn't work if a flash animation has focus.

True, but wasn't it this way all the time?
So it's not true regression, at least not with 3.5 or even 3.0.

(This bug is about inability to gain tab focus with mouse click since ~3.1b3pre)

Comment 13

[Sam]

(In reply to comment #12)
> (In reply to comment #9)
> > > You still can move tabs with arrow keys - it's still there - hit 'Ctrl+K' then
> > > 'Tab'.
> > 
> > Except that Ctrl+K doesn't work if a flash animation has focus.
> 
> True, but wasn't it this way all the time?
> So it's not true regression, at least not with 3.5 or even 3.0.
> 
> (This bug is about inability to gain tab focus with mouse click
 since
> ~3.1b3pre)

Oh, got it, you confused Bug 78414 with Bug 462289.

Comment 14

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

No, I didn't confuse anything. Bug 462289 made it harder to move focus away from plugins, which is needed to workaround bug 78414.

Comment 15

[Sam]

(In reply to comment #8)
> Is Ctr+Tab not a replacement for Click+Arrow?
> If so, can you give an example URL?

Thing is, Ctrl+Tab is not going to cut it because: 
1) Using arrows gives you much more functionality (get tab focus & try 'Ctrl+<>' & 'Ctrl+<>+Fn')
2) Ctrl+Tab reserved for Dão's [beautiful] extension* turned [ugly] feature in 3.6 (at least that was the reason I'd abstained from running 3.6, last time I checked)

*https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5244

Comment 16

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Ctrl+PageUp/PageDown, then. Please keep counterproductive words to yourself.

Comment 17

[Sam]

(In reply to comment #14)
> No, I didn't confuse anything. Bug 462289 made it harder to move focus away
> from plugins, which is needed to workaround bug 78414.

Got it, then I'm glad that Flash's quirks might push devs to accept that we need ability to focus tabs.
Maybe it'd even push them to accept the idea that simplification of code-base [at the expense of useful, albeit less known features] is not always good idea.

So now I have to update my prayer's checklist, so that some MSFTs thingy might get in the way of Ctlr+Tab, so that [some of us] might still be able to use 'ListAllTabs' widget on a tab strip - to see a good old & simple - list of tabs.

Comment 18

[Sam]

(In reply to comment #16)
> Ctrl+PageUp/PageDown, then. 
But it's no match to what you can do with arrows ... 
Care to try?

> Please keep counterproductive words to yourself.
Yeah, that's what I do eventually. I can only shut up against mighty WONTFIX (((

Comment 19

[Matt]

Exactly, Flash focusing aside, you can no longer focus a tab with a click. The Ctrl+K + Tab does work, so I'm happy for now. The click focusing is a desired behavior, though, as you used to be able to even do a click [short pause] click to select any specific tab when multiple tabs are open, then left/right or home/end to navigate between tabs. Speaking on the subject of Flash focusing, does anyone know if they're working on fixing that or if it can be fixed? Not sure if it's FF's handling of Flash objects or if it's instead Flash itself that retains focus. Pretty annoying. But if the click focus can be fixed, I'm all for it.

Comment 20

[nivtwig]

(In reply to comment #16)
> Ctrl+PageUp/PageDown, then. Please keep counterproductive words to yourself.

It doesn't restore all lost functionality. There is a need for shortcut keys for "go to first/last tab". 
The previous behavior allowed that with the Home/End keys when the tab has the keyboard focus. The previous behavior also allowed moving tabs, not just switching between tabs, with Ctrl+arrow keys , Ctrl+Home, Ctrl+End .

The current solution, Ctrl+K and then Tab, is cumbersome and is not a good replacement for a mouse click on the tab for getting the keyboard focus to the tab.

My suggested solution is this: Either a second mouse click (a mouse click on the current tab), or a double click on the tab will bring the keyboard focus to the tab. 
The first click that switches to a new tab will not bring the keyboard focus to the tab as suggested by bug 462289, in order to allow immediate scrolling of the page of the tab with the arrow keys.

Comment 27

[Paul]

Just upgraded to latest 3.5.3, and now I can't go to the URLs entered. The arrow next to the URL does not work, and Enter key also does nothing. The URL does nothing at all. Just shows the home page URL in all Tabs.

Windows XP Pro with SP3.

Comment 33

[Andrei Purice]

Marking this as Resolved > Incomplete since the last activity on this issue was 12 years ago and it might not be relevant anymore.
The tab navigation has changed now since it requires a combination of ctrl + 1,2,3 etc.
Feel free to re-open if the issue is still reproducible on your end in the latest FF versions.