648286 - panorama: new tab should work just as Ctrl+T

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox Graveyard :: Panorama, defect)

Description

[Cristian Vasile Mocanu]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0

When double clicking in an empty space on a tab set in Panorama, a new tab is created and opened.
This new tab is not created using the same code as when you press Ctrl+T. It always opens a new blank tab.

This causes problems when you have extensions like SpeedDial that replaces this empty tab with something that is actually useful.

Basically, double clicking in an empty space in a tab set in Panorama should create a tab which is identical with the one created when I press Ctrl+T (the SpeedDial in my case).
To reproduce the bug, simply install SpeedDial and see the difference.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[aravindm]

Confirmed on Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:2.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0

Pressing Ctrl+T in Panorama view opens a SpeedDial tab. Double clicking/Clicking new tab button in Panorama view, does not open SpeedDial Tab, but instead opens a blank new tab.

Comment 2

[Kevin Hanes]

If there is a good reason to do this (as far as Panorama is concerned), I have no problem with it, but we shouldn't be altering our code to create coherent functionality for add-ons. It sounds like SpeedDial just needs to update and be aware of Panorama, can you contact the add-on creator?

Comment 3

[Cristian Vasile Mocanu]

(In reply to comment #2)
> If there is a good reason to do this (as far as Panorama is concerned), I have
> no problem with it, but we shouldn't be altering our code to create coherent
> functionality for add-ons. It sounds like SpeedDial just needs to update and be
> aware of Panorama, can you contact the add-on creator?

As I see it, it's best to use the same code to create a tab as when you press Ctrl+T. One advantage is that the code is more maintainable and you also follow the principle of least astonishment (as a developer, you would expect that creating a new tab in Panorama is done in the same way as creating one using Ctrl+T).

Another big advantage, of course, is that existing extensions that listen to tab creation events will continue to work seamlessly.

Altering an extension to cater for Panorama might be possible, but when looked from an extension developer's point of view it would be only to workaround a Firefox limitation.

Changing an extension to work with Panorama should be done only when integrating functionality not previously available (like tab groups).

Comment 4

[Raymond Lee [:raymondlee]]

(In reply to Cristian Vasile Mocanu from comment #3)
> (In reply to comment #2)
> > If there is a good reason to do this (as far as Panorama is concerned), I have
> > no problem with it, but we shouldn't be altering our code to create coherent
> > functionality for add-ons. It sounds like SpeedDial just needs to update and be
> > aware of Panorama, can you contact the add-on creator?
> 
> As I see it, it's best to use the same code to create a tab as when you
> press Ctrl+T. One advantage is that the code is more maintainable and you
> also follow the principle of least astonishment (as a developer, you would
> expect that creating a new tab in Panorama is done in the same way as
> creating one using Ctrl+T).

We are using very standard way to create new tab i.e. gBrowser.loadOneTab() in Panorama.

> 
> Another big advantage, of course, is that existing extensions that listen to
> tab creation events will continue to work seamlessly.

If extensions are listening to "TabOpen" event correctly, it should detect the tab creation.

> 
> Altering an extension to cater for Panorama might be possible, but when
> looked from an extension developer's point of view it would be only to
> workaround a Firefox limitation.
> 
> Changing an extension to work with Panorama should be done only when
> integrating functionality not previously available (like tab groups).

Comment 5

[Mike]

Good time of day!

Sorry for my badly English but:
When i try to set custom page, which must open in new tabs using any addons (speeddial, fasdial or tabmix+)- it opens everywhere(ctrl+N ctrl+t buttons or menus) except in new group in Panorama. I know that it means that extensions must handle "TabOpen" event more correctly, but i dont understand why this only applies to Panorama, and not applies for ctrl+t or another ways to open tabs. it is unfair. Let addon developers will handle this event for each individual case differently.

Comment 6

[Tim Taubert [:ttaubert] (inactive)]

Will be fixed by bug 722663.

Comment 7

[Justin Dolske [:Dolske]]

Panorama has been removed from Firefox 45, currently in Beta and scheduled for release on March 7th. As such, I'm closing all existing Panorama bugs.

If you are still using Panorama, you will see a deprecation message in Firefox 44, and when 45 is released your tab group data will be migrated to bookmarks, with a folder for each group. There are also a few addons offering similar functionality.

See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tab-groups-removal for more info.

We're removing Panorama because it has extremely low usage (about 0.01% of users), and has a large number of bugs and usability issues. The cost of fixing all those issues is far too high to justify, and so we'll instead be focusing our time and energy on improving other parts of Firefox.