Spawned from bug 105722 comment #8. "Actually, users will probably expect tabbed windows to act like taskbar windows in Windows 9x - closing one will show the last one you had open. So all you need is an internal list of when each tab was last viewed, and work back through the list in chronological order as windows are closed." I think this is the right thing to do, and as it is different from the original bug 105722, I open this bug.

isn't this bug mutually exclusive to bug 105722? I prefer fixing THIS bug since it is more consistent with the way most applications work (e.g., Windoze) :)

Let's try to do things "well", which is not necessarily the same as "like Windows" (though often is).

*** Bug 117313 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

A cleaner behaviour than returning to last-opened tab would be to return to the "parent" tab. That is, the tab from which the closed tab was opened (either by right-click-O or by a script). That's what Opera does... this user's response on first encountering the behaviour there was "what the...ah!". So Joe.Sixpack@aol should get it after a week or three... :-)

In reply to comment #4, there is a separate bug for that - bug 105722. And that is *NOT* how Opera works (I just tried it). When you close a tab in Opera, it shows the last window that you were looking at, which is often, but not always, the tab that you opened it from. In other words, Opera acts like the description for this bug, not bug 105722. I don't know of any program that does things by parentage; does anyone else know of one? I know Opera and the Windows taskbar work by last-viewed time. Do the Gnome and KDE taskbars work this way as well?

*** Bug 117803 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

The title of this bug should be changed to "Closing tabs should return to last viewed tab." to be less confusing.

should this or bug 105722 be the way to close tabs? nominating nsbeta1, over to ui to give input.

I think the currently implemented behavior (close causes switch to tab on left, if it exists, else tab on right) is about as simple and predictable as we could get. I don't think I could ever predict the behavior of any scheme that considered 'parenting' (which I think is a foriegn concept here) or 'last-opened'. Besides, the current implementation also matches the latest Opera and NetCaptor releases, despite comments above. I think this bug should be resolved as 'invalid' or 'worksforme'.

NetCaptor does something clever. It always opens a tab to the right of the current selected tab, e.g., if you're at tab 2, and you open a tab, the new tab will be at position 3. This leads to a natural return to the parent tab in most cases when you close up and is easier to implement then really tryign to remember some sort of parent relationship.

RE comment #9 by PTrudelle: I strongly disagree with PTrudelle's "reasoning". I, as a frequent tab user, often have more than one search engine open, and from there open all kinds of search results. when i close a search result, i definetely do NOT want to go back to some other search result (especially not one presented by another search engine, and maybe even on another search query). I usually want to go back to the search engine (i.e., the tab i just came from!). The same argument goes for when i surf starting from more than one "parent" page (e.g., download multiple custom maps for Wolfenstein :) starting from from multiple RTCW maps pages (e.g., http://www.planetwolfenstein.com/ and http://wolfensteindaily.gdcn.de/). After initiating the download of a map, I usually want to go back to the list of maps to download the next one (not some potentially unrelated tab that *happens* to be on the left of my current tab). The same goes for any number of usages involving spawning child pages from *multiple* parents (porn video downloads also come to mind - don't know why)! After all, spawning (multiple) child tabs and going back to the (multiple) parent tab(s) is one of tab's greatest assets. Concerning "predictability": Novice hyperclickers (you know the type - those who click before they think) who open multiple tabs from multiple tabs will probably be more confused if when they close some tab, they are returned to the tab on the left which is completely unrelated to the tab they just closed AND unrelated to the parent of the tab they just closed. Most users will likely want to stay withing the "subject" they are currently working on (not some unrelated tab that happens to be on the left of the tab they just closed). Also, the fact that PTrudelle suggested to resolve this bug as "worksforme" makes me wonder if he understands what is being talked about here. How is what is being asked here currently working? PS. RE comment #10: I think pushing tabs out that way may be better for the tab(s) currently worked on, but it seems it will cause loss of overview for all other tabs. PPS. Some decision is going to have to be made eventually on whether to fix this bug or bug 105722. Although this bug would be the easier to fix, I think fixing bug 105722 would be the more complete and elegant solution.

I wouldn't say users have no model for this type of behavior. As someone already pointed out, this is how the ultimate tabbrowser (the Windows taskbar) behaves. Given Internet Explorer windows [A][B], if I open a link in new window [C], and then close [C], I expect to be returned to [A]. That's how Windows behaves.

er, given that you opened the link from [A], of course. Forgot to mention that.

wordperfect 8 jumps back to the previously active mdi window. the interesting thing is.. wordperfect has something akin to a tab bar.

<Omitting repetition of bug 105722 comment #22> Windows don't go back to the last opened, they go to the last active; but in any case the windows taskbar is not equivalent to tabs in a browser, it has visible layering of apps, and layering of windows within apps. Tabs in a browser window have no such visible layering, and there is no necessary relationship between tabs just because they were created by a link from another tab. With loading of new pages and possible rearranging of tab order, any attempt to introduce a concept such as 'parent' or 'last opened' soon becomes as hard to follow as a shell game.

I agree with trudelle on several points, the most important being that the inflammatory, _ad hominem_, long-winded advocacy/argumentation comments must go, or else bugzilla privileges will be curtailed. BTW, I like what hyatt describes in comment #10. Though such a change has no bearing on this bug, and deserves its own bug. Someone please file one and cite the number here. /be

from comment #15: > Windows don't go back to the last opened, they go to the last active. Then let's rename this bug to "...last active...", or should another bug be opened? [OT] RE comment #16: The only thing i may have done wrong is to put quotes around the word reasoning in my first sentence of comment #11 - my apologies to Peter Trudelle. The other 90% of my comment was a logical reasong of why this bug has merits, plus some real life examples to support the reasoning (far from "ad hominem"). This bug should be discussed in the NG's, but in absence of that, I was forced to clarify the merits of this bug here. Brendan, to threaten revocation of bugzilla proviledges because of this is a gross misuse of your power. [/OT]

this is crazy, can you guys *please* argue in a newsgroup < news://news.mozilla.org/3C39A266.C84C0B52@mozilla.org >? i can't keep track of the order in which i create windows, of course, i have 4 workspaces, a few screen sessions, some vnc sessions, and many windows on each, but i don't expect my mom to keep track of the order in which she opened windows. nor do i expect her to remember which window she had active before she activated the current one. beyond that, i don't expect bugzilla users or managers to keep track of two debates. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 105722 ***

I vote to return to the last active tab. This is coherent with usual Windowing GUI: if you open several windows, when you close one of then the new active window will be the more recent active window.

marking verified as a duplicate. if you decide to reopen this bug, please clarify why. search string for bugspam removal: SalviaGuaranitica

I think this bug should be reopened and duped to bug 144207.