568161 - Switch to tab makes opening the correct page harder

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 596485

(Firefox :: Address Bar, defect)

Description

[Michael]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.3a5pre) Gecko/20100524 Minefield/3.7a5pre
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.3a5pre) Gecko/20100524 Minefield/3.7a5pre

Recent builds of Minefield have included a "switch to tab" feature in the location bar.  I start typing in something I want to see, and suddenly there is a "switch to tab" listing for it.  Then rather than being able to type "q" for my hulu queue, I have to watch to make sure that I'm not switching to something in an existing tab.  Additionally, the feature is very confusing.  It took me a few days to realize what it was, and why it was doing what it did.  Please provide a way to disable it, or disable it completely.  It makes it much harder to use the location bar.  Plus, I could switch to that tab just by clicking on it...

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open a tab to a location you visit frequently by typing the first letter into the location bar
2. Repeat.  a listing of "switch to tab" will appear for the tab you have open
3. Now you have to move down an additional listing to get to pages you don't currently have open.  
Actual Results:  
Getting to other results is harder, because switch to tab is in the way.  Getting to an existing result is harder, because you have to figure out if it is already open in a tab, and if what you want is different from that tab.

Expected Results:  
Listing contains urls for pages you visit frequently, not for already open tabs.

Comment 1

[Kadir Topal [:atopal]]

I agree with the report, "switch to tab" makes it impossible to develop muscle memory in combination the awesome bar. There should be an option to disable it.

Comment 2

[Edward Rudd]

Why can't there be an about:config option at minimum to disable this thing.

Comment 3

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

please, avoid cross-posting across bugs.

Comment 4

[Edward Rudd]

Can this PLEASE have an option to disable it..  It is VERY frustrating and gets in the way of my daily usage of the browser.

Or.. Can you point to which code would need to be "modified" to support ability to disable and I will provide a patch.

This "feature" alone is enough for me to stay with FF 3.6 long term or find another browser as it is exceedingly frustrating.

Comment 5

[Ian Stirling.]

This is a regression for some users.

It is not a feature which users may get used to in time, it removes existing functionality for some users.

If you want to open multiple copies of a website, or page, you can't do this through the Awesomebar.

The notification that you have this page open in a tab is valuable, as is being able to rapidly switch to it, in a familiar manner.

The inability to either turn off the feature altogether, or to say 'No, I want to open a new tab' removes functionality.

One way that would seem to be discoverable would be to have a separate 'Open new' on the right - analgous to the 'switch to tab' on the left.

Clicking on the right half of the bar allows you to open a new tab.

Alternately, if the user is confused about what's happening, and is hovering over the awesomebar item with 'switch to tab' - they may benefit from a tooltip saying 'click right-hand button to open in a new tab'.




Marco - is there another relevant bug on this issue?

Comment 7

[Ian Stirling.]

I believe this is a duplicate - it seems functionality already exists - see bug 596485 .
This bug is really a duplicate of that, as it's not discoverable.

Comment 8

[[not reading bugmail]]

(In reply to comment #2)
> Why can't there be an about:config option at minimum to disable this thing.

Actually there is.. just have to read through bug 530209 to find what your looking for, configure the awesomebar results.  Otherwise its shift or alt.

Comment 9

[patrickjdempsey]

(In reply to comment #8)
> (In reply to comment #2)
> > Why can't there be an about:config option at minimum to disable this thing.
> 
> Actually there is.. just have to read through bug 530209 to find what your
> looking for, configure the awesomebar results.  Otherwise its shift or alt.

Dennis, after personally testing each of those options in 4.0b10, I can confirm that this is absolutely not the case.  Every option shows the Switch to Tab feature if there is an available match for the filter.

Comment 10

[[not reading bugmail]]

I just meant you should follow the bug about the pref that exists behind it, whether it works as advertised or not is not what I was saying.