765422 - [meta] Improve Panorama user experience

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox Graveyard :: Panorama, defect)

Description

[Chris Lee (:cleer)]

Panorama, the tab group feature introduced into Firefox and since hidden from the main UI, has good potential to change the way people browse, but due to implementation and design difficulties, hasn't reached that potential yet. We hope to rethink Panorama, the users it targets, and what kind of problems it's solving. Hopefully, by the end of this task, we'll have a feature that can be seriously considered for [discoverable] integration into the core Firefox product.

Panorama aims to allow users to easily organize the tasks they do on the web, including those that they do regularly over multiple sessions. Scoping the browser into one task a time helps users focus on a task at hand and avoid being distracted or overwhelmed by other possible tasks. Panorama should help users do this in a way that minimizes effort from them and maximizes this benefit. There are certainly questions of the degree of automation versus manual control, simplicity versus hierarchy, and the general userbase versus "power users".

Immediate goals:
Grid-based automatic layout: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=764224
Let windows ~= groups, flattening hierarchy: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=611194
Show tabs from all groups in all windows: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=578512 (related to above)

Related thoughts (for consideration only; the direction we are taking will not necessarily be the same - many people have completely different, opposing views on the direction this feature should take):
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Improve_Panorama_interactions
https://wiki.mozilla.org/User:Broccauley/Fixing_TabCandy
http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/2/2010/07/23/firefox_tab_candy/
https://etherpad.mozilla.org/browsing-v3
http://autonome.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/unbookmarking-the-future-of-browsing/

Related bugs (not blocking; will not necessarily be implemented):
Panorama for device sync: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=652040
Tab stacking: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=642100
Undo closing groups: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=611921
Spring-loaded Panorama button: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=589401
Detaching last tab of a group: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=657097
Merge groups via drag-and-drop: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=658732
Persistence of groups despite clearing history: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=640777
Indicate current group in browser UI: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=760359
Use Panorama as home page: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=592893

Comment 1

[u428464]

I know there is no consensus about bug 596017, but I think it's important to add it to the list.

Comment 2

[alntnm]

What about "Allow Panorama workspace to be larger than window size" : https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=671810 ?
I think it shouldn't be hard to implement and would be a great usability boost on low resolution netbooks and pseudo-HD(1366x768) notebooks  etc.

Comment 3

[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.