978810 - Create a concept for making tab groups more visible

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox Graveyard :: Panorama, defect)

Description

[(Currently slow to respond) Philipp Sackl [:phlsa] (Firefox UX) please use needinfo]

Both in the current implementation of tab groups and in concepts like http://readyformozilla.com/panorama we have the problem that tab groups is a very invisible feature.
Also, it is hard to tell how many groups/tabs are open in the background.

We need a UX concept for how to deal with this.

Comment 1

[ithinc]

We just need a toolbaritem to represent the panorama groups.

Comment 2

[bug.zilla]

As useful as tab groups are discoverability is an issue.

My vote goes for something like the Tab Group Bar addon (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-group-bar/?src=search), an excellent little addon which makes workflow much more efficient. It's also on Github: https://github.com/IIUJ-KrzysztofDawidowicz/Tab-Group-Bar. 

This could be enhanced by: (i) showing the number of open tabs in the tab, and (ii) allowing dragging of the tabs.


PS: something similar is TabGroups Manager (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tabgroups-manager/?src=search) but frankly it's a bit too complicated / heavy for what's required.

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.

Comment 4

[bug.zilla]

For anyone else looking, try this:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/tab-groups-button/