612189 - Mouse scroll doesn't work when moving a tab

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, enhancement)

Description

[the1soccerman]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.12) Gecko/20101026 Firefox/3.6.12 ( .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET4.0E)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.12) Gecko/20101026 Firefox/3.6.12 ( .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET4.0E)

Say you have a bunch of tabs open in a browser (30+) and you want to relocate a tab from the far right to the far left. As of now, you have to click and drag the tab and wait patiently while the tabs slowly cycle left or right. If scrolling was enabled while you click and hold a tab, you could place it where you need it much faster that waiting for the tabs to cycle.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Have many tabs open in a single browser, say 30+ total tabs
2.Click and hold a tab to select it, more noticeable if you choose on on the far right or left of the tab bar
3.Try to move the tab to the other end of the tab bar
4.Wait as it cycles through the tabs up to 30 seconds if you have many tabs open



As scrolling through tabs is already enabled while hovering over a long list of open tabs, it should not be too difficult to enable the same scrolling while you click and hold a tab for repositioning.

Comment 1

[the1soccerman]

Possible solutions: 
1. Enable mouse scrolling when moving a tab to a new location.
2. If scrolling cannot be enabled for any reason, then make the two arrow buttons (used for manually scrolling through tabs) know where the mouse is on said button when in the process of moving a tab, and have the tabs scroll at a speed relative to how far "into" the button you move the mouse while dragging a tab to a new location beyond the tabs that are visible.

Example: I want to move a tab from the far right to the far left of the tabs bar, and I have lots of tabs open (30+). I click and drag the tab to the Left Arrow Button and yawn as it cycles through the tabs. I don't want to wait forever, so I simply move the mouse farther to the left side of the button, causing the tabs to scroll relatively faster saving me time.