590501 - Tab close (x) is dangerous in behavior

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

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

Split off from bug 590393 comment 0:

> The close image is also easy to tap by accident, causing the tab to close. 
> CTRL+SHIFT+T does undo a tab close, but no other UI is available - bad for 
> phones without a keyboard.
>
> We could hide the (x) and use a long-tap to make them visible.
> We could make the thumbnail bigger and position the (x) differently, making it 
> harder to mis-tap.

Comment 1

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

Not having undo close tab means there's a high potential for dataloss. Safari and Android Browser deal with this by ensuring that the close tab button is really small in comparison to the tab preview. Of all mobile browsers, we have the "easiest" close button to hit.

The solution here is either to provide undoCloseTab (a simple "undo" button that shows in the tabstrip anytime a tab is closed would do nicely, I think!) or to only show the close tab button on the selected tab, as proposed by blassey in bug 590393 comment 1

Comment 2

[Brad Lassey [:blassey] (use needinfo?)]

or both

Comment 3

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

I think if you get undoCloseTab then the cost of accidental tab closing is lessened to the point where you can retain the convenience of being able to close tabs without switching to them.

Comment 4

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

Hmm, the "Sync" button was just removed from the tab sidebar so we have room for an "Undo Close" button now

Comment 5

[Sean Martell]

I'll have a go at mocking something up for this.  Perhaps we should also get rid of the red X and have more of a monochromatic close button?  white x on dark bg?

Comment 6

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

Sean: if we could use bug 590393 for the change of the closebutton appearance, and this for the behavioural change, that'd be great.

Comment 7

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

See also bug 582583 for adding a simple way to undo a closed tab. This bug could be for doing something with the behavior of the (x).

Comment 8

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

Madhava - we need some UX direction on this. Do we want some change or not?

Comment 9

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

We are going with bug 582583