first mozilla feature requests!!!

[symbioidlj]

I have done a little contribution that I hope may help mozilla. I don't have the skills to code, but I do have a couple nifty ideas that I think could make mozilla better, so I submitted them to bugzilla:

1)

I apologize if this is not the place for feature requests, as I see no clear way
to do such a thing from the main page.

I would like to request the ability to use hotkeys to open a new tab instead of
having to use a mouse. Something similar to the "alt-tab" window switching in
windows, but using tabs instead of windows. Perhaps the tabs themselves could
be numbered left to right and alt-# would open the proper tab. Something of
this nature would be greatly appreciated.


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2)

I have had problems in Windows where the system crashes, and if I am updating my
blog, all the data lost in the form is lost.

Some word-processors have a timed saving mechanism. Is it possible to include a
similar option into mozilla so that textarea form data can be flushed to disk
every so often into a temp file?

This way, if the system crashes during a long entry, at least a portion of it
may be saved and read back.

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HOLY SHIT! Within minutes, I got a reply already to the first one. Apparently this is something that *is* implemented(ctrl-tab), but I didn't see good documentation already. I did have a coupe things, though about this.

1) I had an idea towards numbered tabs, so direct navigation could be applied instead of cycling through them.

2) Better documentation regarding this feature, regardless of whether it's cycled-tab-navigation or numbered-tag-navigation... Nowhere in the "help" text of "tabbed browsing" is this feature listed, nor is it readily available as a menu option, AFAICT.

Comments

[vega-33.livejournal.com]

Apart from Edit => Preferences => Navigator => Tabbed Browsing, check out the URL about:config -- its definitely documented online at least, I've been opening tabs with Control-T for ages.

[symbioid.livejournal.com]

i've been using tabs all the time, it's the issue with navigating not opening... i know Ctrl-T, but I didn't know Ctrl-Tab... In the documentation, apparently, it's listed *not* under the tabbed browsing, but under keyboard shortcuts, which is a decent place, but I would think that if you have a section on tabbed browsing, not only how to open them, but also how to manipulate them, should be included.

[vesicular.livejournal.com]

The tab idea is an ok, but i think in implimentation it won't be very nice. say you have 12 tabs open, you want to open #9. You'd have to count the number of tabs just to know that it's #9 you want, which takes more time than just clicking it or ctrl-tabing to it. But even then, how do you go to tab #12?

In Safari you can cmd-# to things, but they're your bookmarks, not tabs. This way you can set your top 10 favorte bookmarks to cmd-#. I use this all the time, since it's fast and consistant, and something you can remember. I wouldn't mind if Moz used this method.

[symbioid.livejournal.com]

actually, this was deleted and marked as a dupe, so I went to bugzilla and saw the original post, and one person thought it should be removed, but another thought it could be handy. Now, they had the same issue you did, but to me, it seems pretty damn obvious: put numbers on the tabs on the right hand side(in Konqueror(which safari is based off of), each tab has it's own "close" button, inefficient if you ask me... maybe the newer versions don't. But it wouldn't probably work for Konqi... in Moz, it's one button on the right hand side that closes whatever you're using.

the other issue people seemed to have is how, exactly, would you do it? ctrl-# is used for stuff, and they bitched that alt-f# wouldn't work nor ctrl-f#... I don't remember why they didn't want to use alt-#... That seems a good option to me, but maybe one OS has an issue with that.

some guy was bitching about all the keyboard shortcuts, and yeah, it sucks, but you know what, just because you like a mouse, doesn't mean I do(not *you* of course, but developers) Keyboard shortcuts are shortcuts IMO, and they work well(if thought out properly).

The other issue they had was how do you go above 10?(1-0 works for 10 tabs) Well, is that necessary? how many people use more than 10. Maybe you could make it so it reads two digits before implementing. It sucks to have to type 2 digits, sure, but it's not that bad. Or maybe, you could type something like alt-letter-##, where the letter tells the system a two digit number is coming up. And if you have more then 99 tabs open... WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm kinda pissed at the way they handled the issue with the text-editor. There's been a complaint about this since 92(ie: buffer flushing), and it died down, and just last week someone else posted a request, and now I did. But they're all like "that's not important" You know what, if open source wants to be on the cutting edge, why not do something like that? It can't be that hard. It's done in text editors all the time, and it's not been done in any other sort of web-browser AKAIK. There seems to be this cold attitude towards suggestions, and i can understand issues and arguments being made, but it seems like some of the developers on bugzilla have a bug up their ass... maybe they should call it "bug-up-your-ass-zilla"(or buguyazilla)???

[vesicular.livejournal.com]

Welcome to Bugzilla. I've been reporting bugs on there for probably 5 years now and yes, they're a cranky bunch. A lot of OSS devs are, I've found. But I'm not surprised really. They get quite a few bugs (100's?) submitted every day. I'm sure they've seen and heard everything.

From my experience, the best way to get a bug fixed is to make a simple use case and attach it to the bug, along with a lot of detail. They're much less likely to do a feature request, but mocking it up and really thinking it out in your description helps quite a bit. But I think for features they go by the herd mentality, where if a lot of people request the same thing, they're more likely to try it out.

FWIW, I still have several bugs that haven't been fixed in Bugzilla, one is 4 years old, and another is 2 years old. I've had a ton of bugs and features marked as dupes or just rejected. Such is life I guess. I use Safari anyway. BTW, I like the close tab on each tab, much quicker for me to close tabs, but perhaps I'm just used to it. And I like your tab numbering idea, but yeah, I have more than 9 tabs open a lot of times, especially when doing development.