497222 - Add about:config / UI setting to control tab dragging to new windows

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, enhancement)

Description

[Tobias (:Tobbi) Markus]

In Firefox 3.5 there's a feature implemented that allows the user to drag tabs off the Firefox window to a new window. However, many people don't seem to like that feature so that I would like to request implementing an about:config entry / maybe even a setting under Options / Tabs to control (enable / disable) the feature.

Comment 1

[Will Osborne]

I'm not opposed to the feature. I do in fact like it on my desktop pc, but on my notebook pc it is a problem. My notebook pc has a shorted out left mouse button, so if I disable tap clicking I then have a useless mouse. With tab clicking enabled this feature creates new windows on without the user ever intending to.

Comment 2

[Will Osborne]

a few corrections on my post: "tab" *tap clicking* "windows on"  *windows*

Comment 3

[Jeff Baily]

I second this suggestion, I hate this feature and it should have an off button, I do it by accident too often and it is annoying when you have extra ram wasted for a whole new window when you don't want one or having to retype address, especially if in the middle of a java based website that you can not simply retype address you have to then get back to where you were just a lot of extra work to put your tabs back in same window. Also what about all those notebooks that have touch pads its even easier to accidentally do this and very annoying there as well.

Comment 4

[Jeff Baily]

I have this same problem in newest build sad they ignored this that long almost a whole year later and same issues.

Comment 5

[Jeff Baily]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.3a3pre) Gecko/20100302 Minefield/3.7a3pre

Comment 6

[Jeff Baily]

looks like 3.7 will be a disappointment in this area as well so far anyway.

Comment 7

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

This shouldn't be hard to do, we'd probably take a patch.

Comment 8

[Jeff Baily]

cool, If ya mean you would like a patch done for you for the new version I can look into it, possibly I could get a programmer friend to compile something simple to do this, if you mean you will work on one awesome. Let me know if ya need anything. I do know a friend or two who just finished college for programing software, so I might be able to contribute through them. I have only skills in using and bug testing pcs and software.

Comment 9

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Yep, that's basically what I meant. See https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Creating_a_patch and https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Developer_Guide/How_to_Submit_a_Patch for the technical details. Let me know if you need anything.

Comment 10

[Eduard Babayan]

I think this should be left ON, but functionality should be changed to require user to do more conscious gesture to activate it.

I think the easiest thing is to set minimum distance at which tab should be dragged for new window to be created (say 150-200px on desktop, maybe half the window on mobile device). Also a shaded window frame should appear under the cursor (only after dragging more than this distance) so the user will be aware of what he/she is doing, and in can drag back in order to cancel the operation.

Comment 11

[Will Osborne]

(In reply to comment #10)
> I think this should be left ON, but functionality should be changed to require
> user to do more conscious gesture to activate it.
> 
> I think the easiest thing is to set minimum distance at which tab should be
> dragged for new window to be created (say 150-200px on desktop, maybe half the
> window on mobile device). Also a shaded window frame should appear under the
> cursor (only after dragging more than this distance) so the user will be aware
> of what he/she is doing, and in can drag back in order to cancel the operation.

I like that as a solution too, hope they find someone to work on this.

Comment 12

[Jeff Baily]

(In reply to comment #11)
> (In reply to comment #10)
> > I think this should be left ON, but functionality should be changed to require
> > user to do more conscious gesture to activate it.
> > 
> > I think the easiest thing is to set minimum distance at which tab should be
> > dragged for new window to be created (say 150-200px on desktop, maybe half the
> > window on mobile device). Also a shaded window frame should appear under the
> > cursor (only after dragging more than this distance) so the user will be aware
> > of what he/she is doing, and in can drag back in order to cancel the operation.
> 
> I like that as a solution too, hope they find someone to work on this.

sounds great, sadly I do not have the expertise to create any patches tho and my only friend who does, does not have or ever use firefox, and just to work on the code he would have to download a ton of stuff he does not want on his pc, so I can't help best of luck to whoever does work on this, and I hope it gets fixed by version 4.0 at least.

Comment 13

[Ricky Rosario [:rrosario, :r1cky]]

Attachment: Adds "browser.tabs.dragToNewWindow" setting

I attempted to write a test for this using `synthesizeMouse` but kind of got stuck. I looked around for tests related to dragging tabs to use as a guide, but couldn't find any?

Comment 14

[Tiziana Sellitto [:tiziana]]

I'm looking at old "good first bugs" not touched for a while. 
Dao, do you think this bug is still valid? it could become a mentored bug? is this something you can help with?

Comment 15

[Mike Hoye [:mhoye]]

Dao, can you mentor this bug?

Comment 16

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

It looks like there wasn't much interest in this bug during the last couple of years, so I think we're good without a pref.