781651 - When a link opens in a new tab, back button should be available and return to previous tab

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, enhancement)

Description

[oom]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; rv:17.0) Gecko/17.0 Firefox/17.0
Build ID: 20120809030541

Steps to reproduce:

Click in a link that opens in a new window (with target="_blank", cmd/ctrl key pressed or any other method)


Actual results:

A new tab is created that loads the page. Because is a new tab, the back button doesn't work.


Expected results:

Technically, the new tab is created and the page is loaded because we have clicked in a link, so back button should be available and go to previous tab. Many people do not realize a new tab is created and find confusing that sometimes the back button works and sometimes don't. I think would be a good improvement in usability.

Comment 1

[(mostly gone) XtC4UaLL [:xtc4uall]]

I'd think changing the Meaning/UX of the Back Button dependent on some pre-action confuses more (at least for me :-)).

The New Tab should've been opened in Foreground anyways, no?

Comment 2

[oom]

(In reply to XtC4UaLL [:xtc4uall] from comment #1)
> I'd think changing the Meaning/UX of the Back Button dependent on some
> pre-action confuses more (at least for me :-)).
I think it is not changing the meaning but it's completing its function. Back button function is to go to the previous page, it's a back step in the navigation history. Currently the back button works also with iframes, so in my opinion, it would be usefult if work with new tabs too. I found a lot of people (beginner users) that do not realize when new tabs are created.

> 
> The New Tab should've been opened in Foreground anyways, no?
Yes

Thank you :)