565570 - When closing a tab, switch to last focused tab (i.e. stack tabs in order of most recently used)

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, defect)

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. Move to a tab in the middle
3. Move to a tab not next to the current tab
4. Close the now current tab

Recommendation:
Tab focus should switch to the last tab which had focus upon closing a tab that currently has focus

Comment 1

[Frank Yan (:fryn)]

Changing ctrl+tab behavior is not dependent upon changing the "stack" ordering when selecting and closing tabs.

Also, if and when bug 578327 gets fixed, this bug will be WONTFIX'd, since that bug's solution arguably makes more sense for the common cases of selecting and closing tabs.
To illustrate why, imagine the disorientation of having the first of 20 or even 100 tabs selected, opening a new tab with the new tab button, browsing for a bit, opening some links in new tabs, closing those and their opener, and watching the tab container scroll all the way back to the first tab.

Comment 2

[Frank Yan (:fryn)]

(Side note: I recall dupes of this bug from a long time ago but not their numbers.)

Marking this WONTFIX, since we don't consider the tabs to match the stacking model of a stack of cards or file folders, and other solutions are mutually exclusive to this one. Bug 578327 and the bugs that block it reflect the currently planned direction.

MRU does has value with regard of tabs, but it is probably better applied to ctrl+tab or other tab switching mechanisms.

Comment 3

[lwz]

Now that instead of loading the previous session on start-up, Firefox only loads the selected tab, I find it really irritating that Firefox now keeps loading the tabs on the right of the tabs that I close, that I had not viewed in the current session at all. I hope an option can be added to focus on the last viewed tab when closing tabs.