525746 - Exception to "open new window in new tab" is too rigid, breaks tabbed browsing on Mac.

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 314721

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, defect)

Description

[Max]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.2b1) Gecko/20091029 Firefox/3.6b1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.2b1) Gecko/20091029 Firefox/3.6b1

I use Firefox in a maximized window on a Mac. Unlike MS Windows, Mac does not provide a tab for every window. I choose "open new window in new tab" so I have a tab for every web page. This is basic navigation.

The help page for tabbed browsing shows, "Note: If you have chosen to open pages in new tabs, Firefox will ignore this preference and will open a new window from a link if the page author specified that the new window should have a specific size, because some pages can only be displayed correctly at a specific size." This is nonsense. Size and tabs are different issues!

In fact, Firefox shows the popup in a new window that's sized too small. I must manually enlarge the new window to show the page, whereas it would have fit just fine in a new tab in the maximized window (if it could fit at all). But that's just a bug, not a design defect.

The real problem is when the unwanted new window disappears behind the big window. Then there's no sign of it until the big window goes away, and it isn't accessible without an extra layer of window selection. The whole point of tabbed browsing is to avoid this!

The fact that the documentation for "open new window in new tab" requires a note explaining its strange behavior is the first sign of a design problem. A second sign is that the current design doesn't even check whether the popup can fit -- it assumes there's a problem even if there isn't. The issue of "popup too big" is a separate issue that needs its own options.

There are several possibilities for handling popups too big for the current window:

* Enlarge the current window.
* Show the popup with scroll bars.
* Create a new window.

No doubt there are other possibilities too. Users need the ability to choose among tradeoffs according to their style of browsing. Please don't let the minor issue of "popup too big" break tabbed browsing.




Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Choose "open new window in new tab" option.
2. Click on link that specifies window size.
3.
Actual Results:  
New window appears.

Expected Results:  
New tab appears.

Comment 1

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+1]]

Can you please tell us an example url? Thanks.

Comment 2

[Max]

Go to http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/travel/01ridgeway.html?ref=travel and click on the popup map for Ridgeway Trail. Thanks for looking.

Comment 3

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+1]]

The situation here is that when you click on the map link the size of the popup will change which is something you will probably not have in your current browser window. That's why those links opened by Javascript are opened as a new window instead of a new tab. See bug 313300 for details. You can modify the hidden pref 'browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction' to allow that it gets opened as a new tab.

Jesse I wonder if bug 186708 has been fixed by another patch meanwhile. Opening such a popup in the same window as a new tab will not trigger a resize of the window.

Is this WFM?

Comment 4

[Jesse Ruderman]

Neither default for browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction is perfect for all situations.  See bug 314721 and bug 313300 for history.  Bug 379055, asking for the pref to be made more visible, has been marked as wontfix.

This isn't really Mac-specific, except that it's easier for small windows to get "lost" on Mac.