565771 - Don't separate windows from tabs in the undo stack

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: General, 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 some new tabs
2. open some new windows with new tabs
3. close the new windows, try to remember which tabs were open in windows

Recommendation:
In the "History" menu, group together the "Recently closed tabs" and "Recently closed windows" into "Recently closed". Also, add the recently closed tabs to the "tab menu" on the tab strip (pull down icon on the right side).

Comment 1

[Josiah Bruner [:jsbruner]]

(In reply to John Wayne Hill (UX Intern) from comment #0)
> (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 some new tabs
> 2. open some new windows with new tabs
> 3. close the new windows, try to remember which tabs were open in windows
> 
> Recommendation:
> In the "History" menu, group together the "Recently closed tabs" and
> "Recently closed windows" into "Recently closed". Also, add the recently
> closed tabs to the "tab menu" on the tab strip (pull down icon on the right
> side).

Thanks John. I'm going to take this bug, but I have a question. What do you mean by the "tab menu" on the tab strip? Is this something exclusive to Windows?

Comment 2

[:Margaret Leibovic]

(In reply to Josiah Bruner [:JosiahOne] from comment #1)
> (In reply to John Wayne Hill (UX Intern) from comment #0)
> > (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 some new tabs
> > 2. open some new windows with new tabs
> > 3. close the new windows, try to remember which tabs were open in windows
> > 
> > Recommendation:
> > In the "History" menu, group together the "Recently closed tabs" and
> > "Recently closed windows" into "Recently closed". Also, add the recently
> > closed tabs to the "tab menu" on the tab strip (pull down icon on the right
> > side).
> 
> Thanks John. I'm going to take this bug, but I have a question. What do you
> mean by the "tab menu" on the tab strip? Is this something exclusive to
> Windows?

It sounds like he's talking about the tab overflow menu. I believe it only appears if you have more tabs than fit on your tab strip (its icon is a little arrow, and when it's clicked it lists the currently opened tabs).

Comment 3

[Josiah Bruner [:jsbruner]]

I see. If that is the case, adding a restore menu there seems like a poor idea.

Comment 4

[Josiah Bruner [:jsbruner]]

And then another question. Is the goal here to add a new submenu for "Recently Closed" and keep the "Recently Closed Windows" and "Recently Closed Tabs" or are we replacing the "Recently Closed Windows/Tabs" entirely with this new "Recently Closed"?

Is this "Recently Closed" suppose to have two sub-menus inside of it for the Recently Closed Windows" and "Recently Closed Tabs"?

The bug is a little vague right now.

Comment 5

[Frank Yan (:fryn)]

(In reply to Josiah Bruner [:JosiahOne] from comment #4)
It should just be one flat list. The less sub-menus and menus, the better.
The label of the items that refer to windows (instead of tabs) should some indication of that, e.g. "Window: Gmail & 5 other tabs" or something.

Comment 6

[Jennifer Morrow [:Boriss] (UX)]

(In reply to Josiah Bruner [:JosiahOne] from comment #4)
> And then another question. Is the goal here to add a new submenu for
> "Recently Closed" and keep the "Recently Closed Windows" and "Recently
> Closed Tabs" or are we replacing the "Recently Closed Windows/Tabs" entirely
> with this new "Recently Closed"?

Comment 5 is correct, Josiah.  We currently have in menus and key commands two separate lists:
1. "Recently Closed Tabs" (cmd-shift-T)
2. "Recently Closed Windows" (cmd-shift-N)

To fix this bug would mean combining these into one list, just "Recently Closed Tabs," with cmd-shift-T being the keyboard shortcut.  

If a user last closed just a tab, cmd-shift-T would give them that tab back.
If a user last closed a window with multiple tabs, cmd-shift-T would restore that window with all the tabs in place.

The menu item would say only "Recently Closed Tabs," and the sub-menu would list both individual tabs and windows in the same list. 

Please let me know if I can help clarify anything.  :)  And thanks for picking up this bug!

Comment 7

[Josiah Bruner [:jsbruner]]

Attachment: Sketch of idea

Here's a quick mockup of what I am assuming you mean. Is this the right idea? (Excuse the poor quality, it was a very quick throw-together)

Comment 8

[Frank Yan (:fryn)]

Comment on attachment 725677 [details]
Sketch of idea

Great! Except no "Restore Everything" item please.
Chrome makes each window item into a menu, but I don't think we need to reveal that much hierarchy. What you have here is fine.
Also, the following should work:
1. Have two windows open: window A and window B.
2. Close tab B2 in window B.
3. Close window B.
4. Selecting tab B2 from the list should re-open it in a new blank window if window B has not be re-opened. Re-opening window B then re-opening tab B2 should restore tab B2 to window B.

Comment 9

[Frank Yan (:fryn)]

Ah, Jennifer noted that we already have "restore all tabs/windows" functionality. Hmm, I guess I'm rather indifferent about the existence of that item as long as it works correctly.

I think the critical, tricky part will be to make the situation that I described in comment 8 work without breaking the list.

Comment 10

[Jennifer Morrow [:Boriss] (UX)]

(In reply to Josiah Bruner [:JosiahOne] from comment #7)
> Created attachment 725677 [details]

Thanks for the mockup, Josiah!  A few comments:

1. The menu item should say "Recently Closed Tabs" rather than just "Recently Closed".  
2. The key command visible in the secondary menu should match the style & capltalization of the current commands on Windows & Mac exactly.  Probably what you meant, but wanted to be explicit.
3. As fryn notes, in Comment 8, "Restore Everything," at the bottom of the secondary menu, should read "Restore All Tabs," just as it does now.  

The summary is really that this bug should change only the parts of the menu that combine the Windows and Tabs list and leave the rest as is.  The language should refer to Tabs rather than to Windows/Tabs/Everything when the two are consolidated in one list.

Fryn's note in Comment 8 regarding closing a tab within a window is also correct.  Thanks again, Josiah!

Comment 11

[Frank Yan (:fryn)]

In my humble opinion, I think it should be "Recently Closed" not "Recently Closed Tabs". If people already know to go to the History menu, I don't think not seeing "Tabs" will make it any more confusing. If people don't know to open the menu, perhaps we should inline that menu (like Chrome does) rather than make it a sub-menu.

Also, I think the label for the restore-all button should exclude the words "tabs" and "windows".

Comment 12

[Alex Limi (:limi) — Firefox UX Team]

(In reply to Frank Yan (:fryn) from comment #11)
> In my humble opinion, I think it should be "Recently Closed" not "Recently
> Closed Tabs". If people already know to go to the History menu, I don't
> think not seeing "Tabs" will make it any more confusing. If people don't
> know to open the menu, perhaps we should inline that menu (like Chrome does)
> rather than make it a sub-menu.
> 
> Also, I think the label for the restore-all button should exclude the words
> "tabs" and "windows".

Yeah, Frank is right. They aren't tabs or windows, they are pages you recently closed. Let's keep it short and succinct. "Recently Closed" is a good menu title.

Furthermore, I don't really think we should have a "Restore All" menu option, it feels like our earlier "Open All Bookmarks" option, which ended up hurting people a lot more than it helped them. It's a rarely used operation. Let's take it out.

Comment 13

[Josiah Bruner [:jsbruner]]

Alright, but are we going to keep the "Restore All" item? If someone accidently closed both tabs on one Window and closed another Window with tabs, then I doubt it was a complete accident. Seems more like the browser was closed and they would just use "Restore Previous Session".

Is "Restore All/Everything" redundant and repetitive. :) ?

Comment 14

[Frank Yan (:fryn)]

(In reply to Josiah Bruner [:JosiahOne] from comment #13)
> Alright, but are we going to keep the "Restore All" item?

As per comment 12, no. Even if we come to a different decision later, as long as we get the tab/window restoration implementation right, implementing a restore-all button should be mostly trivial.

Comment 15

[u428464]

There may be an issue with private browsing windows : it is possible to restore normal windows while browsing a private one, but the contrary isn't so the restore order should be different between normal and private windows.

Comment 16

[Jennifer Morrow [:Boriss] (UX)]

(In reply to Guillaume C. [:ge3k0s] from comment #15)
> There may be an issue with private browsing windows : it is possible to
> restore normal windows while browsing a private one, but the contrary isn't
> so the restore order should be different between normal and private windows.

Our current behavior is that recently closed private browsing tabs are shown in this list as long as the private browsing window that spawned them is open.  Once that window is closed, those recently closed tabs disappear from this list.  That should continue to happen in this bug.  Private browsing windows should not show up in this list, and private browsing tabs should only show up if the window that spawned them is opwn.

Comment 17

[Josiah Bruner [:jsbruner]]

I am un-assigning myself for the time being. I just don't have time to work on this for a couple weeks. If somebody else wants to take this then great! Otherwise, I will be able to get back to this in about 2 weeks.

Comment 18

[Josiah Bruner [:jsbruner]]

Realized this bug has been here for years, so I decided probably nothing will change in a few weeks. Therefore, I reassigned myself to this bug, and will get back to it ASAP.

Comment 19

[Jared Wein [:jaws] (please needinfo? me)]

Josiah, will you be able to come back to this soon?

Comment 20

[Josiah Bruner [:jsbruner]]

(In reply to Jared Wein [:jaws] from comment #19)
> Josiah, will you be able to come back to this soon?

Whoops. Forgot about this bug. Yeah, I'll start working on it today.

Comment 21

[Josiah Bruner [:jsbruner]]

Attachment: WIP

Patch removes the "Recently Closed Windows" menu, and merges windows into the tab list.

Unfortunately right now we have no way to organize this data since dates/times can not be returns from the data. This patch simply places tabs first, and adds windows after those items.

I filed bug 873556 to fix this problem.

Comment 22

[Josiah Bruner [:jsbruner]]

Sorry about the delay, I've been pretty busy lately so I've only had time for easier/faster bugs. However I now have time to start working on this and the dependent bug...

Comment 23

[Josiah Bruner [:jsbruner]]

Un-assigning myself from this bug because I no longer work on Firefox (Much to busy with Thunderbird nowadays)