565568 - Enable "Ctrl+Tab cycles through tabs in recently used order" feature by default

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1473595

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, enhancement)

Description

[John Wayne Hill (UX Intern)]

(Note: this is filed as part of the “Paper Cut” bugs — we assume that there may be multiple existing bugs on this. Please make them block this bug, and we will de-dupe if they are indeed exactly the same. Thanks!)

To reproduce:
1. Open up multiple tabs
2. Click on one tab
3. Click on another tab not directly next to your current tab
4. using CTRL+Tab should move you back to the tab that previously had focus

Recommendation:
Using keyboard shortcuts to move between tabs should go to the last tab which had focus

Comment 1

[Wes Kocher (:KWierso) (Not reading bugmail; email directly if needed)]

What happens when you use CTRL-SHIFT-Tab? Currently, it goes the opposite direction down the list of tabs from CTRL-Tab.

Comment 2

[Alex Limi (:limi) — Firefox UX Team]

Wes: Shift-Ctrl-Tab does the same as Shift-Alt-Tab or Shift-Cmd-Tab does in Windows/Mac — walk the stack in the other direction.

Comment 3

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+1]]

(In reply to comment #2)
> Wes: Shift-Ctrl-Tab does the same as Shift-Alt-Tab or Shift-Cmd-Tab does in
> Windows/Mac — walk the stack in the other direction.

That's not true. At least not when you have enabled Ctrl+Tab and All-Tab previews. See bug 505751. Is that bug a dupe?

Comment 4

[nathaniel]

Not sure if this is the right place to protest this...BUT:

The desired outcome of this (switching rapidly between several tabs) can be easily achieved by reordering the tabs, which is extremely easy.

However, adding the stack to ctrl+tab makes all other use cases next-to-impossible: it gets very confusing on how to get to the desired tab when looking at the tabs on the bar. The only reason alt+tab works on windows is because it displays the list.

Use case: I have my hands on the keyboard and want to switch to a tab 5 tabs away. Currently I would inspect the tab bar, see that it is 5 away, then hit alt, and spam tab 5 times really fast. If stack behavior is implemented I now have to inspect which tab I am on every time I hit tab, which makes switching to the mouse much more attractive.

Also, if the user had more tabs than can fit on the screen, the experience would be very jarring as the current tab set would flip back and forth between completely different sections (worst case, obviously wouldn't happen every time).


AT THE VERY LEAST include an option to have the old behavior in the options menu (don't hide in about:config).

Comment 5

[Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich)]

An enhancement to a feature that's not enabled by default - does not block the release.

Comment 6

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to comment #5)
> An enhancement to a feature that's not enabled by default - does not block the
> release.

You're misinterpreting this bug. Ctrl-tab is a keyboard shortcut, not the name of a feature.

As it happens, this enhancement request could be fixed by enabling a feature dubbed "Ctrl-Tab" by setting browser.ctrlTab.previews to true.

Comment 7

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Attachment: patch

This has been disabled ever since bug 465076 landed, which is kind of sad, because the specification implemented there was a good one.

Comment 8

[Nicolas Mandil (:NicolasWeb)]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Not sure if this is the right place to protest this...BUT:
> 
> The desired outcome of this (switching rapidly between several tabs) can be
> easily achieved by reordering the tabs, which is extremely easy.
> 
> However, adding the stack to ctrl+tab makes all other use cases
> next-to-impossible: it gets very confusing on how to get to the desired tab
> when looking at the tabs on the bar.

We already experinced that MRU odering is really confusing with the dead-ctrl-tab feature : I totally agree with this comment !

If you really want it, can't the use of stacks be made using an other keyboard shortcut ?

At least the use of stacks under the Ctrl+tab shortcut can't come alone to be predictable and memorizable.

Comment 9

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

Comment on attachment 468288 [details] [diff] [review]
patch

Not sure if this is still relevant, am sure I'm not the right reviewer :)

Comment 11

[Evan Tseng [:evanxd]]

This is about UX change, and looks like there is no new UX input anymore. Set WONTFIX first, and feel free to re-open it again if anyone have new ideas.

Comment 12

[Evan Tseng [:evanxd]]

Let's continue to discuss the UI change.

Comment 13

[Kaartic Sivaraam]

It seems that Ctrl+Shift+Tab does not work when the "Ctrl+Tab cycles through tabs in recently used order" option is enabled. 

I use Firefox Nightly 52.0a1 on Debian GNU/Linux. 

I am able to switch between tabs in recent used order when I press Ctrl+Tab but Ctrl+Shift+Tab doesn't seem to work directly when the option is enabled. 

I am able to use Ctrl+Shift+Tab without leaving the tab view that I get using Ctrl+Tab.

Comment 15

[Timvde]

It is useful to add an option to go back, and adding shift as a modifier for that is the common thing to do. I'm also a heavy user of both interfaces, and I never saw this as a problem.

In the ctrl-tab UI, there's a button "List All n Tabs". This will invoke the interface you're looking for. You can either click it with your mouse, or just navigate to it with Ctrl-(Shift)-Tab.

Comment 16

[Kaartic Sivaraam]

Sorry, I didn't get that. Where's that Ctrl-Tab UI actually?

Comment 17

[Kaartic Sivaraam]

BTW I suddenly had a doubt. Is this the right place to discuss about the "Ctrl+Tab cycles through tabs in recently used order" feature ? or Is there a more relevant bug ?

Comment 19

[AB]

I thought this bug is about the tab order, not about showing previews.

Comment 20

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to AB from comment #19)
> I thought this bug is about the tab order, not about showing previews.

Both are controlled by the same pref.