On Tuesday, October 3, 2017 at 3:36:40 PM UTC-5, Jeff Griffiths wrote: > Hi! > > tl;dr we changed the default pixel value at which we overflow tabs, > and I want your feedback. > > We just added a change to m-c[1] that does to things: > > 1. it reintroduces an old preference 'browser.tabs.tabMinWidth' that > contains a pixel value that controls the minimum width of a tab. > > 2. it sets the default value of the tab to 50, previously this value > was hard-coded at 100. > > Work is being tracked in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1404465 > > We did this based on some early feedback from a few different sources > that people coming from chrome ( or in some cases, existing users ) > thought that the Firefox behaviour of scrolling the tabstrip was > off-putting. We looked into this and I generally agree with the > comments: chrome's "infinite tabs visible" approach results in a much > higher usable/visible tab count in a given window than ours does. This > change puts us roughly at par. > > To put this in numbers: > * in chrome I can open ~ 24 tabs before the tabstrip's usability is > degraded a lot > * in current firefox, I can open ~ 12 tabs before tabstrip scrolling kicks in > * with this change applied I can open 25 tabs with the pref value set to 50px > > ( Caveats: this was on the built-in display on my Macbook Pro with the > default theme, your mileage may vary, etc ) > > I want feedback on this change from these lists, and will also be > looking for feedback from the original sources of this complaint. In > particular: > > 1. do you prefer the existing behaviour or the new behaviour? > 2. if you prefer a value for this pref different than 50 or 100, what > is it? Why? > > One aspect that I would like to stress about this change: most > existing Firefox users will never see it, because they are unlikely to > open m,ore than 10 tabs at any one time. So what we are really talking > about is a change that will trade being able to see more tabs vs being > able to read more text in each tab title. > > Moving forward there are a few different options: > > 1. uplifting this change into 57 ( possibly with a different default > value ) If we think the patch has a generally positive effect and no > downsides, we may decide to uplift into 57 Beta and let it ride the > trains. > > 2. keeping the change in 58, possibly with a different value. > > 3. keeping the change in 58, preserving the current setting of 100px > and providing an alternate pref ( probably a toggle or predefined > values ) for "skinnier" tabs. > > Longer term I intend to propose a more in-depth study of tab behaviour > among different user segments and assess different strategies for > heavier tab users including things like horizontal tab scaling, > vertical tabs, etc. I can't see that happening before Q1 next year. > > cheers, Jeff > > [1] https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/a75e0386aad8
57 is unusable for me..I keep 35-50 tabs open at any given time and I used Custom Tab Width legacy extension to prevent scrolling. I CANNOT stand scrolling thru tabs. I don't need to read the tab- I KNOW where they are. It should be simple to allow tabminwidth to go lower than currently configured. Then the user could decide how THEY like it. If this doesn't happen soon I will be reverting to an older versio nof FF or switching browsers altogether. btw..there is still some memory leak with FF. After a day I have to restart FF or it would eat all remaining Mem on my 8G system. _______________________________________________ dev-platform mailing list dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform
