531778 - Add/modify options when closing a window: allow to close only the current Tab

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, enhancement)

Description

[arno]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; de; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091102 Firefox/3.5.5 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; de; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091102 Firefox/3.5.5 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

When I close a window with several open Tabs a receive a dialog which allows me to confirm closing all tabs or to cancel.
What I am mssing is the option to close the current tab only.
This is the default in IE 8 and reflects a frequent use case.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. have a window with severeal open Tabs
2. Close window

Actual Results:  
3. I receive a dialog which allows me to confirm closing all tabs or to cancel. 

Expected Results:  
3. I receive a dialog which allows me to confirm closing all tabs or just to close the current tab.

Comment 1

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

Alex, what does UX think about?

Comment 2

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

I think the best interface is to never bother the user by asking, and to support undo close window and session restore from the home tab.  IE's interface is a bizarre hack that attempts to help users unfamiliar with a tab browsing interface.  Placing the tabs on top in newer versions of windows (https://wiki.mozilla.org/File:Mockup-4-0-Vista-%28TabsTop%29-%28LocBarSearch%29.png) should help to clarify the basic conceptual model of a window that contains tabs.

Comment 3

[arno]

Of course nobody should be bothered by asking. So:
- like today the user can suppress the dialogue (if he is familiar with tab
browsing and never runs into this trap)
- the reqeust is about asking the RIGHT question; so maybe its not about ADDING a new option but modifying the existing ones -> summary changed accordingly

Comment 4

[arno]

(In reply to comment #2)
> Placing the tabs on top in newer versions of windows (...)
> should help to clarify the basic conceptual model of a window that contains
> tabs.

I agree, this will also prevent the mistake. This will probbably make the dialogue obsolete!

Comment 5

[Guy]

Well, you can count me in on this one.  Does anyone know if there is anything happening with this?