Closed Bug 626365 Opened 14 years ago Closed 13 years ago

new tab in the popup window opening in the regular window instead of same popup window itself.

Categories

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, defect)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
Tabbed Browser
Platform:
x86
Windows XP
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

()

Status:
VERIFIED INVALID

People

(Reporter: minervafarms, Unassigned)

References

(
URL
)

Details

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101203 Firefox/3.6.13
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101203 Firefox/3.6.13

new tab in the popup window opening in the parent window instead of same popup window.This feature is not working in the current beta version.But it was wo

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.open following url "http://www.minervasoft.in/mozilla-test/popup_page.htm"
2.right click on any link and select "open in new tab"
3.
Actual Results:  
it opens new tab in new (location bar enabled)window instead of same popup window

Expected Results:  
new tab must open in same popup window
This is the intended behavior, which has been implemented by bug 606678.
Blocks: 606678
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 14 years ago
Resolution: --- → INVALID
Version: unspecified → Trunk
Status: RESOLVED → UNCONFIRMED
Resolution: INVALID → ---
Dao, resolving again as invalid?
Whiteboard: [invalid?]
That's by design and please don't reopen bugs without giving any comment or reason. Thanks.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 14 years ago → 13 years ago
Resolution: --- → INVALID
(In reply to comment #4)
> That's by design and please don't reopen bugs without giving any comment or
> reason. Thanks.
Given wrong url above please check this url
"http://www.minervasoft.in/mozilla-test/popup_test.htm"
Status: RESOLVED → UNCONFIRMED
Resolution: INVALID → ---
Please stop reopening bugs without a clear reason. As already said multiple times it's the intended behavior in Firefox 4.
Severity: major → normal
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 13 years ago → 13 years ago
Resolution: --- → INVALID
This is by design? This is clearly a bug / bad design and negatively impacts UX. See issue 645335 for use case, but would apply to any site using a secondary window / pop-up for tickers or autoupdating content.
Dropping FF4 until this is fixed, makes FF4 unusable (for me)...not that anyone seems to care.
Will there be any fix to this in the (near) future? It really remains to be absolutely and utterly annoying. It broke in FF4.x, because it works fine in FF3.x.

As for comment 6, again, this may be by design, but the design is entirely flawed. I won't change the status yet, but hope to get an explanation as to why this makes any practical sense.
For an explanation why this was an intended change see bug 586234 comment 4 and following.
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
Whiteboard: [invalid?]
I strongly disagree with the reasoning for this change. The current implementation is bad UX and makes FF to be rather dysfunctional in the given cases. My guess is it was done this way to get out of fixing a number of other bugs, because the reasoning for the design decision is rather weak. Anyone using tickers frequently will find the current behavior to be annoying at best.
How would I need to go about to have this become a configurable behavior? Making it configurable would hopefully satisfy both camps. As expressed in 586234 having current behavior as default and the option to change it should be fine.
As shown, opening a new issue is rather pointless as it would be closed as duplicate and thus only produces useless busy work. I am hesitant to contact people directly to discuss this issue, but if that is an accepted means of exchange then let me know.
That said, how would one volunteer on the UX group to prevent mishaps like this in the future?
Feel free to post to dev.app.firefox which is been read also by the UX team. Otherwise we can at least CC some UX people on this bug.

http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.apps.firefox/topics
I rolled back Firefox 4 to 3.6 on my office PC within hours because of this -- I'm opening new tabs within popups constantly in our intranet system.

Granted, I understand that this behaviour was always unique to Firefox (IE and Opera don't permit tabs within popups anyway, but it sucks to be anyone who use those anyway ;). It just means that until I can completely re-engineer the intranet site, Firefox 4 is a no.

I also just came across the first public site that breaks because of this (since I do use 4 at home), hence going for another look in the vague hope that someone has a cure for this regression.
I posted to the forum that Henrik Skupin mentioned and got zero responses. Seems as if the developers just do not want to fix this for no real reason other than that it might be work, at least that is how the given reason sounds to me. I still don't get why the FF4 design constitutes better UX, it does exactly the opposite. Sorry for being so grumpy all the time, but this is a big problem.
If someone can, please mark as duplicate of this bug, both bug 452332 and bug 655629

My opinion is that there should be an option for choosing where a tab will open (at the parent or the child window).
Minimally invasive:

diff -r e44dad2d2745 browser/base/content/utilityOverlay.js
--- a/browser/base/content/utilityOverlay.js Wed Aug 10 11:34:14 2011 -0700
+++ b/browser/base/content/utilityOverlay.js Thu Aug 11 01:08:28 2011 +0200
@@ -57,7 +57,7 @@
       (!skipPopups || !top.document.documentElement.getAttribute("chromehidden")))
     return top;
 
-  if (skipPopups) {
+  if (false && skipPopups) {
     return Components.classes["@mozilla.org/browser/browserglue;1"]
                      .getService(Components.interfaces.nsIBrowserGlue)
                      .getMostRecentBrowserWindow();
(In reply to minervasoft from Bug 626365, comment 0)

> new tab in the popup window opening in the parent window instead of same
> popup window.

(In reply to Alice0775 White from comment #21)

> *** Bug 678819 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Not exactly a duplicate.

The scenario I encountered in Bug 678819 is worse : the tab did not open in the window of origin, it opened in another window, which I had from another day and which was completely unrelated to my navigation.
(In reply to Henrik Skupin (:whimboo) from comment #1)

> This is the intended behavior, which has been implemented by bug 606678.

In this case, the intended behaviour is a bad idea.
I don't understand.

This problem is supposed to be caused by Mozilla deleting the code that supports the tab bar in popup windows. However, on my PC -- currently Firefox 8 -- popup windows always get a tab bar (which they're not supposed to -- I have no idea what's causing this). I was getting really confused earlier as to why middle-click kept sending links to a completely different window, before I finally realised I was using a window that had been open as a popup.

Therefore, Firefox could at least check to see if a tab bar exists, and use it if so (then I could work around this problem by replicating whatever it is on my PC that, from Firefox 4 through 8, is forcing a tab bar in popup windows). If there is NO tab bar, that's a different matter, although I still deeply resent this issue.

(Basically popup windows display as regular windows, menu bar, toolbars, tab bar and all, yet the program FORCES links into a new window even though I'm staring at a perfectly good one.)


Stefan -- are you able to put your patch into an add-on in any way? Obviously altering Chrome directly will break with every update.
(In reply to Stefan from comment #20)
> Minimally invasive:
> ...

By the way, yes, that works fine. For some reason omni.jar is a defective zip file, but I was able to extract the contents, update utilityOverlay.js and rebuild omni.jar and restart Firefox.

However, if there's a way to package this, it would remove the need to rebuild omni.zip with every Firefox update!

Cheers.
(In reply to Daniel Beardsmore from comment #24)
> Stefan -- are you able to put your patch into an add-on in any way?

I'm afraid I'm not.

> Obviously altering Chrome directly will break with every update.

Maybe a preference can be implemented for this.
I found this last night -- someone has made an add-on from your changes:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bug-586234-unfixer/

It works at home where something -- and it's not Tab Mix Plus -- is putting a tab bar into popup windows (and I've never asked for that). I need to test on my laptop (with a pristine Firefox install) whether it also works when there isn't a tab bar yet.
Thanks Daniel Beardsmore! This is exactly what was needed to undo what Mozilla devs claim is 'by design' while ignoring that it is a flawed design. It works fine when there is no tab bar in the pop-up. It reinstates the functionality that exists in FF3.x and was dismantled in FF4+. Hopefully the next rapid release doesn't break this.
Now onto searching for fixes to the remaining flaws FF4 added "by design" and that Mozilla devs outright reject to fix. And there are many....
Thanks Daniel 2011-12-16 01:03:14, now I can abandon Firefox 3.6 at last. :-)

But I still don´t undertand why Mozilla developers won't fix it. This bug is repeated many times here, and they still thinks that their new "design" is the right one? Why they think, that every new window must be a popup dialog?

If the browser cannot succesfully decide if opened window is "just small popup dialog" or "another full featured application window", there should be a way to let web developers decide. Maybe by yet another parameter in window.open(), something like "tabbar=no(default)|yes". And if yes, then open new tabs in the same window, of course.
(In reply to Blc from comment #29)
> Thanks Daniel 2011-12-16 01:03:14, now I can abandon Firefox 3.6 at last. :-)
> 
> But I still don´t undertand why Mozilla developers won't fix it. This bug is
> repeated many times here, and they still thinks that their new "design" is
> the right one? Why they think, that every new window must be a popup dialog?

Because current behavior is supposedly a bug fix. And no, this won't change like many other UI features that were destroyed in FF4+....and then Mozilla wonders why so many cling to FF3.6 - that's why.
The reason why I wanted this fixed is so that I *can* run Firefox 4 upwards! (Otherwise I wouldn't care.) I like the new releases. There's a bit of adjustment to get used to, e.g. not being able to click AdBlock Plus's icon to toggle its window now that it lives in the toolbar, but since I only use it to extract object sub-requests, this isn't a big issue.

Firefox remains on the intelligent side of the fence, versus the more dumbed-down programs.
I am currently uploading a video to YouTube of the bug since I got hit by it again today. (It happens about once every 2-3 days it seems.)

The video will be at:
http://youtu.be/UgM_ksyI8J8

In about an hour or so. (Current time: 7:09am EST, 4/14/2012)

Description:
If I middle-click a link OR right-click a link and select "Open link in new tab" it switches to another window (identifier: Win-2) (the same one every time) and opens it there instead of in the current window. IF I do it from the other window (Win-2) it DOES open a tab 'correctly' in that window. I say 'correctly' since I believe the bug is still in effect and simply stuck opening tabs in one window regardless of which one the command originates from.

The video should make it more clear if that doesn't make sense.

Also, I've never made a BugZilla report for Firefox before so hopefully I have provided adequate information. The about screen says that I'm using Firefox 6.0.2. I am running Windows 7 (64-bit) and have NOT seen this bug when using the x86 Linux version, although it may exist as well.
(In reply to brent.rittenhouse@gmail.com from comment #32)
> I am currently uploading a video to YouTube of the bug since I got hit by it
> again today. (It happens about once every 2-3 days it seems.)
> 
> The video will be at:
> http://youtu.be/UgM_ksyI8J8
> 
> In about an hour or so. (Current time: 7:09am EST, 4/14/2012)
> 
> Description:
> If I middle-click a link OR right-click a link and select "Open link in new
> tab" it switches to another window (identifier: Win-2) (the same one every
> time) and opens it there instead of in the current window. IF I do it from
> the other window (Win-2) it DOES open a tab 'correctly' in that window. I
> say 'correctly' since I believe the bug is still in effect and simply stuck
> opening tabs in one window regardless of which one the command originates
> from.
> 
> The video should make it more clear if that doesn't make sense.
> 
> Also, I've never made a BugZilla report for Firefox before so hopefully I
> have provided adequate information. The about screen says that I'm using
> Firefox 6.0.2. I am running Windows 7 (64-bit) and have NOT seen this bug
> when using the x86 Linux version, although it may exist as well.

Also please note that the video DOES cut off abruptly at the end. I ran out of space and did not notice this until now. All I did was type some text explaining the bug in more detail anyway. I believe I covered the same information in the post above.
(In reply to brent.rittenhouse@gmail.com from comment #33)
> (In reply to brent.rittenhouse@gmail.com from comment #32)
> > I am currently uploading a video to YouTube of the bug since I got hit by it
> > again today. (It happens about once every 2-3 days it seems.)
> > 
> > The video will be at:
> > http://youtu.be/UgM_ksyI8J8
> > 
> > In about an hour or so. (Current time: 7:09am EST, 4/14/2012)
> > 
> > Description:
> > If I middle-click a link OR right-click a link and select "Open link in new
> > tab" it switches to another window (identifier: Win-2) (the same one every
> > time) and opens it there instead of in the current window. IF I do it from
> > the other window (Win-2) it DOES open a tab 'correctly' in that window. I
> > say 'correctly' since I believe the bug is still in effect and simply stuck
> > opening tabs in one window regardless of which one the command originates
> > from.
> > 
> > The video should make it more clear if that doesn't make sense.
> > 
> > Also, I've never made a BugZilla report for Firefox before so hopefully I
> > have provided adequate information. The about screen says that I'm using
> > Firefox 6.0.2. I am running Windows 7 (64-bit) and have NOT seen this bug
> > when using the x86 Linux version, although it may exist as well.
> 
> Also please note that the video DOES cut off abruptly at the end. I ran out
> of space and did not notice this until now. All I did was type some text
> explaining the bug in more detail anyway. I believe I covered the same
> information in the post above.

I also wanted to note that if I open a new window then that becomes the new window in which ALL new tabs that were opened from a link are created. So if I go to ANY other window and either middle-click or right-click and select "Open link in new tab" it will go to this new window.
I think you've the wrong bug here, Brent. This bug is specifically for the tabbed browsing having been deprecated from windows opened with window.open(), i.e. popup windows. This change brings Firefox in line with other browsers where you're just not allowed tabs in popups, and never were. Bug 586234 Unfixer <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bug-586234-unfixer> does an adequate job of reverting this change for people who rely on that behaviour.

Right now I have three separate windows open in Firefox, and middle-click always puts the new tab in the correct window. *However* that may be due to Tab Mix Plus unintentionally working around whatever bug you've found. It's quite possible that in fact you have an add-on causing the issue in the first place.

BTW, you say Firefox 6, but we're on 11 now. You might want to check that the bug you found isn't already fixed.
I can confirm that Bug 586234 Unfixer restores the desired and very helpful functionality. The argument that FF now works like other browsers is not valid IMHO. Just because other browsers have bad design does not mean that it is a reason to copy it. Unfortunately, Mozilla did just that by 'fixing' bugs like this one that are none and removing a lot functionality and ease of use present in FF3.x in the releases of FF4 and up.
Luckily, some smart and helpful people provide the needed add-ons, sadly it takes smart and helpful people to fix what Mozilla broke and outright rejects to fix.
From the perspective of a web designer, you can't assume that popups permit tabs. That Firefox and iCab have historically permitted this (no idea if iCab still does), doesn't make it a sensible thing to do from a cross-browser perspective, and since it doesn't work in IE, a lot of sites wouldn't even dream of trying it simply because it doesn't work for the web designer anyway.

There are only two places where I even need this behaviour: a) a site that uses popups full of internal links for absolutely no reason whatsoever (and they need to stop doing that, it's irritating), and b) an intranet site that would need a huge rewrite to get out of depending on this, although no-one else uses it in Firefox anyway so I'm the only one ever getting tabs within popups anyway.
The most popular use is for tickers. The ticker window is a pop-up that contains a script that frequently reloads an updated list of links to short articles and notifications from various sources. I use this daily for professional work and at home for news and sports feeds. Having the three line notices show up in a full screen window with all the UI around it is just annoying as heck, especially since the main window gets reanimated after it was closed.
Anything that negatively impacts user experience is bug, and this "fix" definitely impacts the UX negatively. I don't understand why a feature gets intentionally removed when there are clear use cases for it and those are presented in this and other related bug reports.
As far as web design is concerned, you cannot assume anything, not even basic formatting as local style sheets may override whatever styling you put in the source.
So just to clarify -- what would you expect users of other browsers to do?
Use Firefox instead.
Actually, I expect a link to open in a new tab to ALWAYS open in the same window. Back then the only browser who could do that was FF, one of the main reasons why I switched and used to prefer FF. There are also tweaks to make Safari do that, but that doesn't persist when applying an update.
I think the solution is a compromise to make this configurable and by all means if the Mozillas think that this dysfunctional behaviour should be the default, then make it the default. From what I recall about this "fix", it was acknowledged that the functionality will change and it was further acknowledged that there is a potential to address one issue and keep this functionality, but it would have been "more work". Laziness of developers should never be detrimental to UX. And it isn't just me who has some whacky idea, there are plenty of users who complained about this and gave several examples why removing this functionality prevents them from doing what they want to do.
Another useful feature that FF3 had and was removed for no real reason was to clone a tab 1:1. I work a lot with map data from various sources and it is extremely important to be able to locate one point on a map and then have the ability to clone that tab 1:1. Used to work fine in FF3 and below, now I have to rely on add-ons that may or may not stop working when another "major" release comes out. Although the ESR version put an end to silliness of rapid releases of major versions that used to be dot releases and in fact still are - just with the potential to break a lot of stuff.
The rise of FF was exactly because it did what users wanted and needed until that changed with version 4. I have yet to find out why the approach shifted and why Mozilla continues to alienated users.

In general, users of other browsers are users of other browsers. The entire implementation of the (in some cases too vague) web standards is different in each browser. What works in FF might not work great in Chrome and not work at all in IE. That is the crux of the implementation of varying interpretations of the same standard (or in case of IE the intentional ignorance of parts of the standard). But just because every other browser vendor does not provide for features A, B, and C should not be a reason to take these features out of FF, but that is exactly what was done. Mozilla should not look exclusively at what others do, but get back to focusing on what they excelled at in the past: make a browser that works and is highly configurable right out of the box.
Wait, are you talking about popups, or normal windows? I don't know any browser where middle-click sends a link to the wrong window, for regular windows. Popup windows do have different behaviour, but I'm struggling to determine which you're referring to here, especially as Brent suggests that there's an actual bug relating to normal windows.
I'm talking about secondary windows / pop-ups. Opening a tab should work the same for any window, regardless of primary, secondary, tertiary, or whatever-iary. Open new tab means open a new tab in the active window, not somewhere else and definitely not in a window that isn't even visible.
Blocks: 864065
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