909019 - [MP] Change - Clarify and simplify BrowserUI.newTab API

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox for Metro Graveyard :: Browser, defect, P2)

Description

[Matt Brubeck (:mbrubeck)]

Attachment: patch

In bug 895921, Ally pointed out that BrowserUI.newTab and Browser.addTab overlap confusingly and the differences are not obvious. This patch does two things:

1) Change the name from "newTab" to "addAndShowTab" to make it clear that this function does not just instantiate a Tab object, but also performs visible actions to display it to the user.

2) Simplify the API.  In most cases we briefly show the tab bar when opening a new tab, but there are a few exceptions.  This removes the exceptions, making the API simpler *and* providing more consistent user feedback.

Dev note: The second change above was prompted by re-reading http://ariya.ofilabs.com/2011/08/hall-of-api-shame-boolean-trap.html recently.  There are a *lot* of "boolean traps" in our front-end internal APIs; this is just one of many.  It would be too invasive to clean up most of them, but we should think about it when adding/changing methods in the future.

QA and UX note: This patch changes the behavior of the "Open in new tab" context menu commands.  After the patch, these commands will cause the tab bar to briefly appear when the new tab is created.

Comment 1

[Marco Mucci [:MarcoM]]

Hey Matt, can you provide a point estimate for this bug.

Comment 2

[Matt Brubeck (:mbrubeck)]

p=1

Comment 3

[Allison Naaktgeboren :ally]

Comment on attachment 795047 [details] [diff] [review]
patch

Thanks for cleaning this up! When you land, please drop a line to juan & kamil to highlight the expected changes in opening tab behavior in the end of iteration testing. (You've already noted it clearly here, but I'm sure they would appreciate a reminder)

Comment 4

[Matt Brubeck (:mbrubeck)]

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/fx-team/rev/3194bc73870e

Comment 5

[Ed Morley [:emorley]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/3194bc73870e