

Firefox 5 Enters Beta Channel With CSS, Speed Improvements - pdelgallego
http://www.webmonkey.com/2011/05/firefox-5-enters-beta-channel-with-css-speed-improvements/

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twistedanimator
I noticed that they have copied the close tab behavior from Chrome. That's a
pleasant surprise I didn't see mentioned in the release notes.

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wtallis
What behavior is that, for those of us who can't install the beta at the
moment to compare?

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twistedanimator
The following link is a pretty thorough explanation. Much better than I could
do in a few lines.

<http://www.theinvisibl.com/2009/12/08/chrometabs/>

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wtallis
Good explanation, but the only difference from how my Firefox 4 installation
works is the delayed resizing, which isn't as important since I can close a
tab by middle-clicking anywhere on the tab.

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drivebyacct2
Reconsider that. You're missing a large part of the point. The delayed
resizing is important because it means it's consistent in allowing you to
close tabs both successively and very quickly without moving your mouse.

Trust me, once you get used to it, going back to the Firefox 4 behavior is
just very frustrating.

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sjwright
Anyone who manipulates tabs with anything other than a middle-click is missing
out on a wealth of delicious UI consistency. A middle-click on a tab closes
it, and you can aim for any part of the tab (Fitts' Law approved).

Arguing about how efficient you can be /after/ you've targeted a microscopic
UI element with your mouse cursor seems odd.

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drivebyacct2
No, you're still missing the point. I never said anything about not using the
middle click to close tabs. That's _precisely_ how I close tabs. When you have
as many tabs open as I often do... the resizing ruins the ability to quickly
close tabs in succession.

I would again ask that you actually go try it rather than assume you know what
I'm talking about. Trust me, the way I can target a tab and rapidly close lots
of tabs (YES, by using the middle click SPECIFICALLY) does NOT work in Firefox
4. Please try it yourself rather than force me to make a video of it.

Open 8 tabs in Firefox. Target the third tab and without moving your mouse,
close tabs 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. It's not possible. The tabs resize and you end up
closing tabs 1 and 2. I don't know how you browse the web, but I _daily_ find
myself opening numerous tabs and then wanting to close the last several after
opening lots of pictures or articles on reddit. (But then again I'm in Linux
and scroll on my tabs in Chrome so I move my mouse very little as it is and it
suits my browsing habit.)

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wtallis
In that scenario, I'd put my cursor over the last tab, and middle click 6
times, possibly having to move the cursor for the last one or two. Or, I'd
more likely have tabs 1 and 2 pinned as app tabs (probably gmail and pandora,
in my case), in which case I can flail with any close tab action without
problem.

Also, I browse with browser.tabs.closeButtons set to 3, which gives me a
fixed-position close button at the end of the tab bar. (And on my laptop, I
close tabs with a gesture that doesn't require me to move the cursor at all.)

Delayed resizing is a neat feature, and one that Firefox should copy, but it
is not as critical as you make it out to be.

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drivebyacct2
>Delayed resizing is a neat feature, and one that Firefox should copy, but it
is not as critical as you make it out to be.

How on Earth can you possibly say this? Besides it being a matter of opinion,
it's highly lauded as good UX (which I believe and have heard numerous other
Chrome users swear by), and you can't possibly know how often I use it or how
frustrating it is to use Firefox with it's default behavior.

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bbrewer
No support yet for NavigationTiming :(

<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=570341>

Soon? Pretty please?

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drivebyacct2
And does it still take a life time to start in Linux? It's crazy how slow it
is. Chrome can open and I can manually middle-click six bookmarks to check my
social sites before Firefox is even started. And that's with me clicking it's
launcher first.

Even the tab behaviors are all considerably less responsive. Every once in a
while I'll use a colleague's computer with Firefox 4 in Windows and I'm blown
away by how functional it is. It looks nice, it's fast, it doesn't feel
sluggish.

It's just a slap in the face of Firefox's original base of users that it
_feels_ so inferior to Chrome on the Linux desktop.

