4 ms·

> Remember what was really cool in Firefox? Tabs! Ah how this resonates with me so much, I remember the difference of tabless IE and oh so magical Netscape / F

by myfonj 6y ago

> Remember what was really cool in Firefox? Tabs! Ah how this resonates with me so much, I remember the difference of tabless IE and oh so magical Netscape / Firefox when those were new. I consider myself Mozilla fanboy to this days. But alas, every time I try clean installation with default settings I cannot believe how … bad this became and how far it diverged from original experience: by now Firefox is browser with the WORST user experience regarding tabs usage, from my perspective. Current defaults are: - Super slow Ctrl+Tab modal tab switcher, mimicking OS alt+tab app switching mechanic. But slow. And distracting. And not pretty. And considering tab bar, mostly redundant. - Ctrl+Tabbing order is, naturally, in most recently used order, so visual tab proximity means nothing. - Ctrl+Shift+Tab does mostly nothing [1]. No, it does not select the least recently used tab. No, it does not switch to tab to the left. When tabs don't fit the tabs bar width, Ctrl+Shift+Tab opens another (vertical) tabs list and lets you read titles and navigate with arrows. But usually you just instinctively press Ctrl+Tab to "undo" it, but now you stare on that Modal over the opened list and question your browser choice. From there Ctrl+Tab finally stops working predictably and whole experience breaks into horrible mess. Don't get me wrong, Ctrl+PgUp/PgDown still operates well. You can still change some settings to get even Ctrl+Tab working the way original Firefox popularized. But still, this state of things makes me very sad. I'd really like to spread Firefox, but with such details that I cannot explain even to myself it is impossible. [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1576130 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1576130

wackget 6y ago
Christ. I forgot about the default visual tab switcher. It's truly horrendous. That, and the "insert related tab after current" behaviour, are the first things I turn off. Horrible.
mmphosis 6y ago
I've yet to be sold on tabs. I sometimes modify the user chrome to hide the tab bar - although it is problematic. Currently, I have the hn comments in one window, and the article in another window, and hn front page in another window on a "smaller" 2K monitor. Customized for compact density, os tab bar moved to the right, menu bar off (the default) and still the 30 links on the hn front page don't fit on the page. Why can't the tab bar be hidden when there is only one tab? I don't need to see a tab with a truncated title that already appears in the title bar. I guess I am supposed to hide the title bar, and learn to love a Lotus Notes era "Tab" interface. In my opinion, tabs are not cool.
- jeffchien 6y ago
  Have you tried vertical tabs like Tree Style Tab? https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...
tpxl 6y ago
This is the Linux experience I find (running Ubuntu) and is also driving me crazy. On my Windows7 installation Ctrl+Tab switches to the next tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab switches to the previous tab. New tabs are open after the current tab. This might be related to the window manager or the Linux build defaults?
- minitech 6y ago
  It’s just a newer Firefox default that wasn’t applied to old installations, and you can turn it off right at the top of about:preferences (”Ctrl+Tab cycles through tabs in recently used order”). The first thing I turn off with every installation too.
  - tpxl 6y ago
    > you can turn it off right at the top of about:preferences Thanks. Whoever though it's a good idea to make behaviour non-transparent to users -.-
joveian 6y ago
The major issue I have with tabs is that there seems to be no way to tell Firefox to never ever, under any circumstance, create a new window for a profile. When switching tabs via mouse it is way too easy to accidently cause it to open a tab in a new window and I also occasionally accidently open a new window via the right click menu. Not once in at least 5 years (most likely longer) have I actually wanted more than one window for a profile. I don't mind customizing things the way I want them, but it would be helpful if there was an easier way to share setting between profiles.

by myfonj 6y ago

wackget 6y ago

Christ. I forgot about the default visual tab switcher. It's truly horrendous. That, and the "insert related tab after current" behaviour, are the first things I turn off. Horrible.

mmphosis 6y ago

I've yet to be sold on tabs. I sometimes modify the user chrome to hide the tab bar - although it is problematic. Currently, I have the hn comments in one window, and the article in another window, and hn front page in another window on a "smaller" 2K monitor. Customized for compact density, os tab bar moved to the right, menu bar off (the default) and still the 30 links on the hn front page don't fit on the page. Why can't the tab bar be hidden when there is only one tab? I don't need to see a tab with a truncated title that already appears in the title bar. I guess I am supposed to hide the title bar, and learn to love a Lotus Notes era "Tab" interface. In my opinion, tabs are not cool.

jeffchien 6y ago
Have you tried vertical tabs like Tree Style Tab? https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...

tpxl 6y ago

This is the Linux experience I find (running Ubuntu) and is also driving me crazy. On my Windows7 installation Ctrl+Tab switches to the next tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab switches to the previous tab. New tabs are open after the current tab. This might be related to the window manager or the Linux build defaults?

minitech 6y ago
It’s just a newer Firefox default that wasn’t applied to old installations, and you can turn it off right at the top of about:preferences (”Ctrl+Tab cycles through tabs in recently used order”). The first thing I turn off with every installation too.
- tpxl 6y ago
  > you can turn it off right at the top of about:preferences Thanks. Whoever though it's a good idea to make behaviour non-transparent to users -.-

joveian 6y ago

The major issue I have with tabs is that there seems to be no way to tell Firefox to never ever, under any circumstance, create a new window for a profile. When switching tabs via mouse it is way too easy to accidently cause it to open a tab in a new window and I also occasionally accidently open a new window via the right click menu. Not once in at least 5 years (most likely longer) have I actually wanted more than one window for a profile. I don't mind customizing things the way I want them, but it would be helpful if there was an easier way to share setting between profiles.