pagaltzis hates software: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"

• From: A. Pagaltzis
  Date: 22:53 on 15 Mar 2007
  Subject: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  Alternative title:
  
    How to turn what Works As Expected into an aggravation
  
  So we all know that Firefox brought tabbing to the masses, right?
  And users love it, or so we're told. Well, it's not a lie; for
  the most part, I don't hate it. Or at least until a few months
  ago, I found no reason to.
  
  Then came Firefox 2.
  
  You see, I like to enable the setting "Always show the tab bar",
  because I use both tabs and multiple windows a lot (a window is a
  thematic group of tabs), and I don't like the jumpiness caused by
  the tab bar appearing or disappearing. I like things to stay in
  place.
  
  And that works fine and dandy.
  
  Except that in Firefox 2, "Always show the tab bar" apparently
  means "even if you have to rescue the browser window from
  destruction to ensure that the tab bar can continue to shine in
  all its glory."
  
  That is, the Ctrl-W shortcut now has the same demented behaviour
  that the close-tab button always had: when there's only one tab
  left, Ctrl-W closes the tab AND THEN OPENS A NEW ONE WITH THE
  HOMEPAGE!! RAAAAHHH! DIE!! Die, dammit, and get outta my face!
  Really, it's very hard to excite me past my usual "grumpy crank"
  level of annoyance, but the past couple of months, even though I
  only used Firefox 2 lightly (my main machine is still at 1.5.x),
  the frustration caused by this deranged behaviour has driven me
  batty.
  
  You might say it could be justified on the grounds that it aligns
  the behaviour of Ctrl-W with the close-tab button. And I agree
  that making similar gestures behave similarly is a good UI
  principle, who DOESN'T want closing the last tab to go away?? Who
  ever preferred the close-tab button's behaviour? If there really
  is such a clientele, this NEEDS to be configurable.
  
  Yes I know preferences are costly. I don't advocate their willy-
  nilly addition either. But turning off the "Always show the tab
  bar" setting CAUSES CTRL-W TO ALSO CLOSE THE WINDOW WHEN YOU
  CLOSE THE LAST TAB.
  
  !!@)@*#&&!^!&!&!!!!!!!
  
  What dimwit ever thought that conflating these options in a
  single preference in this manner was a sane thing to do!? It took
  me AGES to realise why the damn Ctrl-W shortcut no longer worked
  as I expected it to. Googling for close to two hours or so in
  total turned up no solution, but did turn up the hint that A
  COMPLETELY UNRELATED-SEEMING OPTION controlled this behaviour.
  
  So I finally caved and turned off the "Always show the tab bar"
  option in order to regain my sanity, even though now I have to
  live with jumpy window content that keeps jarring me out.
  
  Good grief, Mozilla people.
  
  Way to completely arbitrarily make a nuisance out of something
  dead simple AFTER YOU HAD ALREADY GOTTEN IT RIGHT.
  
  Thanks a whole steaming heap,
  
  

• From: Jeremy Weathers
  Date: 23:50 on 15 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  >That is, the Ctrl-W shortcut now has the same demented behaviour
  >that the close-tab button always had: when there's only one tab
  >left, Ctrl-W closes the tab AND THEN OPENS A NEW ONE WITH THE
  >HOMEPAGE!! RAAAAHHH! DIE!! Die, dammit, and get outta my face!
  >Really, it's very hard to excite me past my usual "grumpy crank"
  >level of annoyance, but the past couple of months, even though I
  >only used Firefox 2 lightly (my main machine is still at 1.5.x),
  >the frustration caused by this deranged behaviour has driven me
  >batty.
  
  
  It doesn't help you, but the OS X version handles this correctly.
  
  --=20
  
  Jeremy Weathers
  
  
  Sony-Ericsson: We put the "slow" in
  "Damn, this crappy phone is slow!"
      - Wil Shipley
  
  

• From: Michael G Schwern
  Date: 00:19 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  Jeremy Weathers wrote:
  >> That is, the Ctrl-W shortcut now has the same demented behaviour
  >> that the close-tab button always had: when there's only one tab
  >> left, Ctrl-W closes the tab AND THEN OPENS A NEW ONE WITH THE
  >> HOMEPAGE!! RAAAAHHH! DIE!! Die, dammit, and get outta my face!
  >> Really, it's very hard to excite me past my usual "grumpy crank"
  >> level of annoyance, but the past couple of months, even though I
  >> only used Firefox 2 lightly (my main machine is still at 1.5.x),
  >> the frustration caused by this deranged behaviour has driven me
  >> batty.
  > 
  > 
  > It doesn't help you, but the OS X version handles this correctly.
  
  I thought that too, but its actually Tab Mix Plus.  In the TMP Preferences ->
  Events -> Tab Closing you'll find "Do not close window when closing last tab
  by hotkey" unchecked.
  
  Speaking of tabs, can I say what a horribly bad idea putting a tiny little
  "close" button on a tiny little tab is?  X-Chat Aqua used to do this but they
  sensible took it out.  Firefox used to do this but they unsensibly put it back
  in!  Fortunately Tab Mix Plus can take it back out again (and configure it in
  all sorts of interesting ways).  Yay extensible UI!  Boo dangerous defaults!
  
  Its like putting a "self destruct" button on the right hand side of all the
  tables in your house.  Carelessly put a cup down in the wrong spot and *boop*!
   Your table and cup disappear!  And the best part is, there's no undo!
  (something else Tab Mix Plus fixes)  BAHAHAHAA, silly user!
  
  

• From: A. Pagaltzis
  Date: 00:36 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  * Michael G Schwern <schwern@xxxxx.xxx> [2007-03-16 01:20]:
  > Speaking of tabs, can I say what a horribly bad idea putting a
  > tiny little "close" button on a tiny little tab is?
  
  It's actually a preferrable UI style for casual users. The two
  styles have very different affordances.
  
  That said, I made a beeline for the config setting to turn them
  off again.
  
  > Fortunately Tab Mix Plus can take it back out again (and
  > configure it in all sorts of interesting ways). Yay extensible
  > UI! Boo dangerous defaults!
  
  You can control that using `browser.tabs.closeButtons` -- no need
  for an extension.
  
  > And the best part is, there's no undo!
  
  You can retrieve them from History -> Recently Closed Tabs though.
  
  I think there even was an unclose-tab function somewhere, but
  it's well hidden; I only stumbled onto it accidentally and now
  I can't remember or rediscover what obscure gesture invokes it.
  Or maybe I hallucinated it -- I'm sufficiently sleep-deprived
  lately that this may have happened.
  
  Regards,
  
  

• From: Michael G Schwern
  Date: 04:57 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  A. Pagaltzis wrote:
  > * Michael G Schwern <schwern@xxxxx.xxx> [2007-03-16 01:20]:
  >> Speaking of tabs, can I say what a horribly bad idea putting a
  >> tiny little "close" button on a tiny little tab is?
  > 
  > It's actually a preferrable UI style for casual users. The two
  > styles have very different affordances.
  
  Casual users don't click to bring a tab to the front and accidentally hit the
  close button that's taking up 1/4 of the tab they're clicking on?  Casual
  users have better aim?  Is that because us advanced users are so shaking with
  hate that we can't control the mouse any more?
  
  I know what you're talking about, though.  Many people who use Firefox on my
  computer without the close boxes on the tabs ask "how do I close a tab" not
  knowing that they can use (ctrl|apple)-w for that.
  
  

• From: Peter da Silva
  Date: 13:51 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  On Mar 15, 2007, at 11:57 PM, Michael G Schwern wrote:
  > Casual users don't click to bring a tab to the front and accidentally 
  > hit the
  > close button that's taking up 1/4 of the tab they're clicking on?
  
  I'm not a "casual user", I don't think, and I use Camino - I haven't 
  tried out the new Firefox. Camino has a close button on the tab, but it 
  doesn't in any sense use up "1/4 of the tab". If Firefox's tabs are so 
  poorly designed, then that's what you ought to be hating.
  
  That's one of the things I prefer about Camino. I like being able to 
  close a tab other than the one I'm viewing with a single click.
  
  And of course it doesn't have that hateful CPU-snorting skinnable UI. 
  I'm down with Makali and JWZ on the desirability of skinnable UIs, but 
  y'all know this... I've endorsed Makali's audio-cock technology on 
  hates-software before.
  
  
  

• From: Phil Pennock
  Date: 06:39 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  On 2007-03-16 at 01:36 +0100, A. Pagaltzis wrote:
  > * Michael G Schwern <schwern@xxxxx.xxx> [2007-03-16 01:20]:
  > > Speaking of tabs, can I say what a horribly bad idea putting a
  > > tiny little "close" button on a tiny little tab is?
  
  Firefox is not always the most responsive of applications.  Sometimes I
  don't know if a keystroke was missed for focus reasons (gaah!) or if I
  mis-clicked first time on the close-tab button on the right of the
  tab-bar.  So I switched on having a close-button on each tab; now, if I
  tried <Ctrl/Apple>-W and it didn't work, I don't try again -- I go and
  click, very explicitly, on the one tab I want closed.
  
  > You can control that using `browser.tabs.closeButtons` -- no need
  > for an extension.
  
  Tab Mix Plus makes it possible to find out that the option is even
  present and to explore various other options.
  
  > > And the best part is, there's no undo!
  > 
  > You can retrieve them from History -> Recently Closed Tabs though.
  > 
  > I think there even was an unclose-tab function somewhere, but
  > it's well hidden; I only stumbled onto it accidentally and now
  > I can't remember or rediscover what obscure gesture invokes it.
  > Or maybe I hallucinated it -- I'm sufficiently sleep-deprived
  > lately that this may have happened.
  
  Right-click(/Ctrl-click) on tab-bar, Undo Close Tab.  Apple-F12 too.
  
  Not sure if it's enabled by default, but TabMixPlus puts it under
  Events-->Tab Features, "Enable undo close tabs".
  
  Camino's nice.  Having tab (the key) take you to buttons (not just text*
  input fields), as Firefox does on every other platform, is pretty
  essential for keeping my frustration levels down as all my keyboard
  navigation habits get blown away.
  
  Safari's nice, but I avoided it for not having tabs; fortunately, I was
  just being blind.  Safari might be my new standard Mac browser, now that
  I've noticed that there's an option to enable use of tabbed browsing.
  Even nicer after you get a bunch of tools for things like DOM browsing
  by turning on the Debug menu.  My only remaining gripe is that by
  default http: doesn't support IPv4; they short-circuit a bunch of the
  lookup functionality which is present in https: handling.  If you turn
  off the http: (Simple Loader) support via Debug->Supported Protocols
  then http: still works, but gains IPv6 too.  It seems as though it falls
  back to the CFNetwork Loader (whatever that is) used by https.
   <URL:http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030110063041629>
   % defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1
  
  -Phil
  
  

• From: Michael G Schwern
  Date: 06:58 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  Phil Pennock wrote:
  > Camino's nice.  Having tab (the key) take you to buttons (not just text*
  > input fields), as Firefox does on every other platform, is pretty
  > essential for keeping my frustration levels down as all my keyboard
  > navigation habits get blown away.
  
  That's a Mac thing, Firefox is just behaving like a native app.  You can
  change this behavior system wide.  I discovered that there's an option hidden
  in System Preferences -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Keyboard Shortcuts for "In
  windows and dialogs, press Tab to move the keyboard focus between... [Text
  boxes and lists], [All controls]".  Change it to "All controls" and you'll
  have the behavior you desire.  I'm not sure yet if I like it.
  
  Why they hid this in "Keyboard Shortcuts" I have no idea.
  
  

• From: Phil Pennock
  Date: 07:06 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  On 2007-03-15 at 23:58 -0700, Michael G Schwern wrote:
  > That's a Mac thing, Firefox is just behaving like a native app.  You can
  > change this behavior system wide.  I discovered that there's an option hidden
  > in System Preferences -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Keyboard Shortcuts for "In
  > windows and dialogs, press Tab to move the keyboard focus between... [Text
  > boxes and lists], [All controls]".  Change it to "All controls" and you'll
  > have the behavior you desire.  I'm not sure yet if I like it.
  
  Oh.
  
  Thank you.
  
  So Camino's not really "Mozilla/Firefox family which behaves more like a
  Mac app", but "Mozilla/Firefox family which uses the Mac for many
  services, but where the developers have their heads screwed on enough to
  cheerfully ignore the more stupid Apple settings".
  
  My respect for the Camino devs has just gone up.  More than one notch.
  
  -Phil
  
  

• From: Peter da Silva
  Date: 14:04 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  On Mar 16, 2007, at 1:58 AM, Michael G Schwern wrote:
  > That's a Mac thing, Firefox is just behaving like a native app.  You 
  > can
  > change this behavior system wide.  I discovered that there's an option 
  > hidden
  > in System Preferences -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Keyboard Shortcuts for "In
  > windows and dialogs, press Tab to move the keyboard focus between... 
  > [Text
  > boxes and lists], [All controls]".  Change it to "All controls" and 
  > you'll
  > have the behavior you desire.  I'm not sure yet if I like it.
  
  There was a lot of behind-the-scenes flamage to get the Mozilla people 
  to notice this option and to actually honor it.
  
  > Why they hid this in "Keyboard Shortcuts" I have no idea.
  
  Every release of OS X has hidden more stuff in really fucked up places 
  in Preferences.
  
  The one that pissed me off most was apparently losing my list of 
  default applications to run when I log in. I discovered they'd moved 
  that, for some utterly bizarre reason, into the account settings. 
  Apparently because the list of apps you always run is something you set 
  on a per account basis. The fact that just about everything ELSE in 
  Preferences is ALSO set on a per account basis and therefor ALSO should 
  be hidden in account settings has thankfully escaped their notice... 
  but I'm still half-expecting that one day I'll install a new version of 
  Mac OS and find there's only one icon left in Preferences - "Accounts 
  and Settings".
  
  
  

• From: Michael G Schwern
  Date: 21:39 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  Peter da Silva wrote:
  >> Why they hid this in "Keyboard Shortcuts" I have no idea.
  > 
  > Every release of OS X has hidden more stuff in really fucked up places
  > in Preferences.
  
  Speaking of hiding stuff, whomever decided in 10.3 that it would be a great
  idea to turn the simple "Keyboard Viewer" and "Character Palette" applications
  into a piece of a library component which is a CLIENT of a keyboard viewer
  SERVER... I mean my GOD it shows you a keyboard, its not a freakin database!
  And make it accessable only via the International Preferences menu with the
  actual app hidden in, are you ready?
  /System/Library/Components/KeyboardViewer.component/Contents/SharedSupport/KeyboardViewerServer.app
  needs to be smacked with a dvorak keyboard.
  
  The answer to "How do I type a euro symbol?" on an American keyboard used to
  be easily answerable by opening up the "Key Caps" or "Keyboard Viewer"
  application which lived with all the others.  Now its...
  
  * Go to your System Preferences
  * Go to "International"  (what? not Keyboard and Mouse?)
  * Go to "Input Menu"
  * Turn on "Keyboard Viewer"
  * Turn on "Show input menu in menu bar"
  * Find the little flag on your already cluttered menu bar
  * Click on it.
  * Choose "Show Keyboard Viewer"
  * Done using it?  Now go back into the preferences and shut off the input menu.
  
  What a mess.  Fortunately the recently maligned Applescript offers a way out.
  http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20051022020253863&query=keyboard%2Bviewer
  
  

• From: Peter da Silva
  Date: 01:44 on 17 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  On Mar 16, 2007, at 4:39 PM, Michael G Schwern wrote:
  > And make it accessable only via the International Preferences menu  
  > with the
  > actual app hidden in, are you ready?
  > /System/Library/Components/KeyboardViewer.component/Contents/ 
  > SharedSupport/KeyboardViewerServer.app
  
  Ah, so if you make an alias to this it'll Just Work?
  
  So it will.
  
  No need to invoke Applescript, hateful thing that it is.
  
  
  

• From: Ricardo SIGNES
  Date: 22:24 on 19 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  * Michael G Schwern <schwern@xxxxx.xxx> [2007-03-16T17:39:36]
  > be easily answerable by opening up the "Key Caps" or "Keyboard Viewer"
  > application which lived with all the others.  Now its...
  > 
  > * [ many hateful steps ]
  > 
  > What a mess.  Fortunately the recently maligned Applescript offers a way out.
  > http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20051022020253863&query=keyboard%2Bviewer
  
  In my shell config, I have:
  
    function keyview() {open /System/Library/Components/KeyboardViewer.component/Contents/SharedSupport/KeyboardViewerServer.app/}
   
    function charpal() {open /System/Library/Components/CharacterPalette.component/Contents/SharedSupport/CharPaletteServer.app/}
  
  I haven't tried the AppleScript solution, but surely this is faster, since it
  avoids AppleScript.
  
  
  

• From: Phil Pennock
  Date: 03:31 on 20 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  On 2007-03-15 at 23:39 -0700, Phil Pennock wrote:
  > Safari's nice, but I avoided it for not having tabs; fortunately, I was
  > just being blind.  Safari might be my new standard Mac browser, now that
  > I've noticed that there's an option to enable use of tabbed browsing.
  > Even nicer after you get a bunch of tools for things like DOM browsing
  > by turning on the Debug menu.  My only remaining gripe is that by
  > default http: doesn't support IPv4; they short-circuit a bunch of the
  > lookup functionality which is present in https: handling.  If you turn
  
  Clearly I meant "IPv6".  *cough*  Clearly.
  
  What's curious is that my Kerberised web pages (WWW-Authenticate:
  negotiate) which are all IPv6-based (since I only have one public IPv4
  address) do all appear to work.
  
  So Safari doesn't use IPv6 for http: _unless_ you do "something fancy",
  with the cut-over being somewhere along the authentication line (does
  Basic cut it?  I don't know).
  
  I'd hate this confusion far more if it didn't mean that Safari is the
  first browser to support Kerberised HTTP out of the box with no
  tinkering of config options.  Firefox can be made to work with some
  about:config tinkering, now confirmed on MacOSX as well as Windows.
  Camino plain does not work.  The Mozila framework's trace logging
  confirms that it's not tried.
  
  But it's not a matter of a concerted effort by Apple to make their tools
  "work" with Kerberos.  Otherwise they wouldn't have gone and built
  curl(1) with --negotiate disabled.  *sigh*
  
  Ah well, I once more can browse my subversion repository's web
  interfaces with SSO.
  
  -Phil
  
  

• From: Patrick Quinn-Graham
  Date: 08:07 on 20 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  
  On 19-Mar-07, at 8:31 PM, Phil Pennock wrote:
  > So Safari doesn't use IPv6 for http: _unless_ you do "something  
  > fancy",
  > with the cut-over being somewhere along the authentication line (does
  > Basic cut it?  I don't know).
  
  My (admittedly limited) tasting tends to imply that this is not true.  
  I can hit http://patrick.geek.nz/, or indeed any of my public web  
  stuff from home and have it go over IPv6 with no additional  
  configuration or effort involved. Assuming the tunnel is working, if  
  it's not it falls back to IPv4 nicely (not like Mail.app, which if it  
  can talk to it's IPv6 default route will not fall back to IPv4 if  
  your mail server has AAAA records, this is in itself hate worthy).
  
  I can also hit http://noc.sixxs.net/home/ and have it show me as  
  coming via IPv6. (Pleasingly even with a little Canadian flag.)
  
  For example, I just typed in http://patrick.geek.nz/ in to my browser  
  and got in my web server logs:
  
  2001:4830:1226:1:217:f2ff:fe4c:9c0b patrick.geek.nz - [20/Mar/ 
  2007:01:02:54 -0700] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 2883 "-" "Mozilla/5.0  
  (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/419 (KHTML, like  
  Gecko) Safari/419.3"
  
  Which if you feel like ping6'ing it, is indeed my laptop.
  
  Back in... some time in the past, maybe 10.3, you had to disable  
  http: (Simple Loader) from Debug -> Supported Protocols, as this  
  doesn't do IPv6, and for some reason it had a higher priority than  
  CFNetwork Loader. 10.4 seems to have fixed that.
  
  Not sure why it wouldn't be working for you to be honest. 
  
  

• From: Phil Pennock
  Date: 01:03 on 21 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  On 2007-03-20 at 01:07 -0700, Patrick Quinn-Graham wrote:
  > 
  > On 19-Mar-07, at 8:31 PM, Phil Pennock wrote:
  > >So Safari doesn't use IPv6 for http: _unless_ you do "something  
  > >fancy",
  > >with the cut-over being somewhere along the authentication line (does
  > >Basic cut it?  I don't know).
  > 
  > My (admittedly limited) tasting tends to imply that this is not true.  
  
  Of course it's not true.  The authentication happens inside the TCP
  connection, so IPv6 must already be being used.  I'm an idiot and my
  hypothesis is so incredibly flawed that it beggars belief.
  
  I have a sneaking suspicion that my original complaint was unadulterated
  bullshit.  The only difference is whether IPv6 is preferred to IPv4 or
  not.
  
  Bleh.  Long onduty shifts, babysitting hateful software, are killing my
  brain.  Ask me some other week.
  
  -Phil
  
  

• From: Smylers
  Date: 09:41 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  A. Pagaltzis writes:
  
  > I think there even was an unclose-tab function somewhere, but it's
  > well hidden; I only stumbled onto it accidentally and now I can't
  > remember or rediscover what obscure gesture invokes it.
  
  Ctrl+Shift+T opens the most recently closed tab (and you can do it a few
  times to open several recently closed tabs in reverse order).  I'd guess
  the keystroke was chosen to be similar to Ctrl+T, which opens a new tab.
  
  Smylers
  
  

• From: Joe Mahoney
  Date: 00:37 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  On 3/16/07, Michael G Schwern <schwern@xxxxx.xxx> wrote:
  
  > Its like putting a "self destruct" button on the right hand side of all the
  > tables in your house.  Carelessly put a cup down in the wrong spot and *boop*!
  >  Your table and cup disappear!  And the best part is, there's no undo!
  > (something else Tab Mix Plus fixes)  BAHAHAHAA, silly user!
  
  There is an undo, but it's not in the edit menu. The history menu (at
  leas in Firefox 2.x on OS X) has a "Recently Closed Tabs" submenu
  where you can opt to reopen one or all the recently closed tabs.
  
   I much prefer the "button on the tab" implementation. Now you don't
  have to click on the tab, then move your mouse over to the close
  button. I rarely accidentally close the wrong tab in Firefox 2, but I
  did it much more often in 1.x
  
  Joe
  
  

• From: Michael G Schwern
  Date: 04:54 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  Joe Mahoney wrote:
  > I much prefer the "button on the tab" implementation. Now you don't
  > have to click on the tab, then move your mouse over to the close
  > button. I rarely accidentally close the wrong tab in Firefox 2, but I
  > did it much more often in 1.x
  
  Hit (ctrl|apple)-w.  We don't need no stinking rodents!
  
  

• From: Martin Ebourne
  Date: 08:29 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  On Thu, 2007-03-15 at 17:19 -0700, Michael G Schwern wrote:
  > Speaking of tabs, can I say what a horribly bad idea putting a tiny little
  > "close" button on a tiny little tab is?  X-Chat Aqua used to do this but they
  > sensible took it out.  Firefox used to do this but they unsensibly put it back
  > in!
  
  You're wrong.
  
  Well, you're right for you I presume, but definitely not right for
  everyone.
  
  I find browsers where there isn't a close icon on every tab unusable and
  hateful. You know, every window on the desktop has its own close icon
  and I didn't hear you complain about that. Or maybe you've only got one
  close icon on the whole desktop which only closes the active window,
  perhaps that's something mac os does with its one menu bar for the whole
  desktop (yuck).
  
  My style of browsing frequently involves closing of tabs which are not
  currently active. It is intensely annoying to have to select each tab
  before closing it, 10 times more efficient to hit a load of close icons.
  I'm no casual user either.
  
  Cheers,
  
  Martin.
  
  
  

• From: Michael G Schwern
  Date: 08:58 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  Martin Ebourne wrote:
  > On Thu, 2007-03-15 at 17:19 -0700, Michael G Schwern wrote:
  >> Speaking of tabs, can I say what a horribly bad idea putting a tiny little
  >> "close" button on a tiny little tab is?  X-Chat Aqua used to do this but they
  >> sensible took it out.  Firefox used to do this but they unsensibly put it back
  >> in!
  > 
  > You're wrong.
  > 
  > Well, you're right for you I presume, but definitely not right for
  > everyone.
  
  Can't we all just hate everyone?
  
  
  > I find browsers where there isn't a close icon on every tab unusable and
  > hateful. You know, every window on the desktop has its own close icon
  > and I didn't hear you complain about that.
  
  Windows on the desktop tend to be more than half an inch wide.  Big long
  window bar, teeny little close button.  Makes it hard to hit the wrong spot.
  
  Though I notice Firefox got a few things right.  The close button disappears
  on inactive windows when the tab goes below a certain width, that's good.  Tab
  Mix Plus also provides the option to only have the close button on the active
  tab which avoids the mistake of accidentally clicking the close button when
  selecting a tab.  That's good, too.
  
  
  > Or maybe you've only got one
  > close icon on the whole desktop which only closes the active window
  
  I do, except its on my keyboard and it has the letter "w" on it.
  
  
  > My style of browsing frequently involves closing of tabs which are not
  > currently active. It is intensely annoying to have to select each tab
  > before closing it, 10 times more efficient to hit a load of close icons.
  > I'm no casual user either.
  
  We're at the point of splitting efficiency hairs, but mousing around to hit a
  small button ten times... oh, and they move and change width every time you
  close a tab, seems more annoying then selecting one, hitting apple-w to close
  it, sliding to the next with ctrl-apple-arrow, apple-w to close, slide, close,
  slide, close.  Or if they're in sequence you select the first one and then hit
  apple-w 10 times.  10 tabs rapidly closed, no careful mousing required, hands
  on the keyboard.
  
  But hey, do it your way.  That's why we have configurable UIs.
  
  
  

• From: Martin Ebourne
  Date: 12:24 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  Michael G Schwern <schwern@xxxxx.xxx> wrote:
  > Martin Ebourne wrote:
  >> Well, you're right for you I presume, but definitely not right for
  >> everyone.
  >
  > Can't we all just hate everyone?
  
  Hey, this list is for hating software, not people. Maybe a =20
  hates-people list would be too scary.
  
  > Windows on the desktop tend to be more than half an inch wide.  Big long
  > window bar, teeny little close button.  Makes it hard to hit the wrong spo=
  t.
  
  Ironically I think you're completely wrong on that one too. :)
  
  Most windowing systems these days put the tiny little maximise button =20
  right next to the tiny little close button in what has to be one of =20
  the most stupid UI design decisions ever. I hit the wrong one far too =20
  often.
  
  Fortunately on sensible systems I can configure the window close =20
  button on the left where I never hit it accidentally.
  
  > Though I notice Firefox got a few things right.  The close button disappea=
  rs
  > on inactive windows when the tab goes below a certain width, that's
  > good.
  
  Ah, I think I see the problem now. I also hate the browser when it =20
  squashes the tabs up so small that you can't tell which is which from =20
  the title, or if the close button takes up too much of the title.
  
  Fortunately one of the hateful firefox extensions lets you set a =20
  minimum tab width(*) which means I can always see which tab is which =20
  and there's plenty of width for me to click without hitting the close =20
  button. With sensible scroll buttons on the tab bar, grouping of =20
  opened pages together (so hate the default of always putting new tabs =20
  on the far right), and the ability to drag them around I find working =20
  with 20 tabs quite fine. (And I don't close tabs by accidentally =20
  hitting the button, but do sometimes hit the wrong close button by =20
  stupidity or just change my mind as I press it, so undo is nice too.)
  
  > But hey, do it your way.  That's why we have configurable UIs.
  
  I do agree with you on that point. :)
  
  (*) I actually set a fixed tab width which means that tab's don't =20
  randomly resize on me and makes things a lot more predictable. To =20
  close a bunch of tabs together I just click close on the one on the =20
  left of the group a lot and they all collapse in nicely, no mouse =20
  movement at all. :)
  
  Cheers,
  
  Martin.
  
  

• From: Smylers
  Date: 09:48 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  Martin Ebourne writes:
  
  > On Thu, 2007-03-15 at 17:19 -0700, Michael G Schwern wrote:
  > 
  > > Speaking of tabs, can I say what a horribly bad idea putting a tiny
  > > little "close" button on a tiny little tab is?  X-Chat Aqua used to
  > > do this but they sensible took it out.  Firefox used to do this but
  > > they unsensibly put it back in!
  
  And Gnome Terminal used not to have tab close buttons at all, but now
  has one on each tab.  Several times I've closed one tab (which takes a
  while), then clicked to change to a different tab -- only by the time
  the click has registered the closing tab has finally managed to close,
  the tabs have all shuffled along, and my click has been registered on
  the close button of a completely different tab.
  
  And Gnome Terminal doesn't have an 'undo close tab' feature.
  
  And Gnome Terminal doesn't have a preference for turning this off.
  
  Hateful.
  
  > Well, you're right for you I presume, but definitely not right for
  > everyone.
  > 
  > My style of browsing frequently involves closing of tabs which are not
  > currently active.
  
  Being configurable either way is fine, since different people obviously
  have different preferences (and different dexterity with aiming mouse
  clicks, differently responsive computers, etc).  But _not_ having a
  close button on each tab only causes a slight delay in your way of
  working; having one causes data loss to those of us who accidentally
  click on them -- which is much more hateful.
  
  > It is intensely annoying to have to select each tab before closing it,
  
  I generally go for right-clicking on the tab in question and choosing
  close from the context menu.  I also have some extension installed which
  adds tab-context-menu options for 'Close Right Tabs', 'Close Left Tabs',
  and 'Close Similar Tabs' -- so you can sometimes close a bunch of other
  tabs in one go.
  
  Smylers
  
  

• From: Phil Pennock
  Date: 06:58 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  On 2007-03-15 at 18:50 -0500, Jeremy Weathers wrote:
  > It doesn't help you, but the OS X version handles this correctly.
  
  Are you sure?
  
  Uncheck "Hide tab bar when only one tab is open".
  Watch as closing the last tab causes a flicker as it reopens
  "(Untitled)", the blank URL.  The "Prevent last tab from closing" option
  is not ticked.  Ticking it means that the tab won't close, so the last
  page stays up.  Unticking, and it closes to be replaced by Untitled.
  
  Apple-Q still works.  Small mercies.  Take 'em.
  
  [Firefox 2.0.0.2, MacOS 10.4.x]
  
  

• From: jrodman
  Date: 00:04 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  On Thu, Mar 15, 2007 at 11:53:31PM +0100, A. Pagaltzis wrote:
  > That is, the Ctrl-W shortcut now has the same demented behaviour
  > that the close-tab button always had
  
  I'm not sure if you want CTRL-W to do this. I don't.  That is, to my
  mind CTRL-W is close window, not close tab.  If that somehow avoids
  this dementia for you, you can set this up with the Keyconfig
  extension.
  
  Personally, I find this extension worth the price of admission to
  prevent Backspace (the erase-previous-charachter key) from changing to
  the previously accessed web page. " Hey man, behaving the same way as
  Inernet Explorer does on some other platform you haven't used in 10
  years is more important thatn not sucking."
  
  Bets on whether the bug you identified will be the
  languish-forever-in-bugzilla kind?
  
  -josh
  
  

• From: A. Pagaltzis
  Date: 00:23 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  * jrodman@xxxx.xxxxxxxxxx.xxx <jrodman@xxxx.xxxxxxxxxx.xxx> [2007-03-16 01:10]:
  > On Thu, Mar 15, 2007 at 11:53:31PM +0100, A. Pagaltzis wrote:
  > > That is, the Ctrl-W shortcut now has the same demented
  > > behaviour that the close-tab button always had
  > 
  > I'm not sure if you want CTRL-W to do this. I don't. That is,
  > to my mind CTRL-W is close window, not close tab.
  
  Hmm, I'm not sure I follow. What behaviour are you referring to?
  
  What I want is simply what Ctrl-W did prior to 2.x: it closes the
  current tab, and if that tab happens to be the last tab in the
  window, it closes the window. End of story. Doesn't get simpler
  than this.
  
  With 2.x, I have to use either Ctrl-W or Alt-F4, depending on
  whether I'm looking at a window with several tabs or just one --
  as long as I enable "Always show the tab bar." If I turn it off,
  then Ctrl-W does what I want. (So after much wailing and gnashing
  of teeth, I did turn it off.)
  
  > If that somehow avoids this dementia for you, you can set this
  > up with the Keyconfig extension.
  
  My complaint is not with the choice of shortcut. My complaint is
  that they took the perfectly simple and rational behaviour of a
  simple gesture and added a nice big fat stumbling block to it.
  
  > Personally, I find this extension worth the price of admission
  > to prevent Backspace (the erase-previous-charachter key) from
  > changing to the previously accessed web page. " Hey man,
  > behaving the same way as Inernet Explorer does on some other
  > platform you haven't used in 10 years is more important thatn
  > not sucking."
  
  I don't hate that, actually, though I prefer Alt-Arrowkeys for
  paging through the history.
  
  > Bets on whether the bug you identified will be the
  > languish-forever-in-bugzilla kind?
  
  Seems more like an intentional change to me -- so more probably
  the RESOLVED WONTFIX kind (or REJECTED? not sure of their full
  nomenclature).
  
  Regards,
  
  

• From: Abigail
  Date: 00:49 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  
  --GLp9dJVi+aaipsRk
  Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
  Content-Disposition: inline
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  On Fri, Mar 16, 2007 at 01:23:31AM +0100, A. Pagaltzis wrote:
  > * jrodman@xxxx.xxxxxxxxxx.xxx <jrodman@xxxx.xxxxxxxxxx.xxx> [2007-03-16 0=
  1:10]:
  > > On Thu, Mar 15, 2007 at 11:53:31PM +0100, A. Pagaltzis wrote:
  > > > That is, the Ctrl-W shortcut now has the same demented
  > > > behaviour that the close-tab button always had
  > >=20
  > > I'm not sure if you want CTRL-W to do this. I don't. That is,
  > > to my mind CTRL-W is close window, not close tab.
  >=20
  > Hmm, I'm not sure I follow. What behaviour are you referring to?
  >=20
  > What I want is simply what Ctrl-W did prior to 2.x: it closes the
  > current tab, and if that tab happens to be the last tab in the
  > window, it closes the window. End of story. Doesn't get simpler
  > than this.
  
  What I want is what Ctrl-W did prior to Firefox: if the focus is in the
  'Go To field', act like you're the shell, and Ctrl-W erases from the
  cursor to the beginning of the word (which mean, erase the entire URL if
  the cursor is at the end). If the focus isn't there, close the current
  tab, and if it's the last tab, close the window.
  
  No longer being context sensitive is one of the reasons (and each reason
  is enough by itself) I prefer Mozilla over Firefox.
  
  On the boxes I do use Firefox, I have it disappear under me so many times
  after using Ctrl-W just trying to erase the current URL.
  
  
  Abigail
  
  --GLp9dJVi+aaipsRk
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  =oMNC
  -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
  
  --GLp9dJVi+aaipsRk--
  
  

• From: A. Pagaltzis
  Date: 01:02 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  * Abigail <abigail@xxxxxxx.xx> [2007-03-16 01:55]:
  > On the boxes I do use Firefox, I have it disappear under me so
  > many times after using Ctrl-W just trying to erase the current
  > URL.
  
  Funnily enough, that happens to me with Gaim chat windows, but
  never with Firefox. (I also keep hitting Ctrl-Z to undo my last
  text change in Gaim chats, which instead minimises the window.
  Very funny ha ha.)
  
  Regards,
  
  

• From: Smylers
  Date: 09:58 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  A. Pagaltzis writes:
  
  > * Abigail <abigail@xxxxxxx.xx> [2007-03-16 01:55]:
  > 
  > > On the boxes I do use Firefox, I have it disappear under me so many
  > > times after using Ctrl-W just trying to erase the current URL.
  > 
  > Funnily enough, that happens to me with Gaim chat windows,
  
  I've somehow managed to get both Firefox and Gaim behaving themselves in
  this respect: Ctrl+W erases words when in a textbox (or URL bar or
  whatever).
  
  I _think_ this is because I have GTK configured to use Emacs-like key
  bindings -- but obviously this thing is so hateful it's hard to be sure,
  and I'm not about to risk losing the current state by experimenting.
  Some details here:
  
    http://kb.mozillazine.org/Emacs_Keybindings_(Firefox)
  
  Smylers
  
  

• From: Smylers
  Date: 09:51 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  A. Pagaltzis writes:
  
  > With 2.x, I have to use either Ctrl-W or Alt-F4, depending on whether
  > I'm looking at a window with several tabs or just one -- as long as I
  > enable "Always show the tab bar." If I turn it off, then Ctrl-W does
  > what I want. (So after much wailing and gnashing of teeth, I did turn
  > it off.)
  
  There's also Ctrl+Shift+W, which always closes the current window no
  matter how many tabs are open.  It at least has the advantage that when
  you've been irritated by Ctrl+W not closing the window with the last tab
  in it all you have to do is hold down Shift and try again.
  
  Smylers
  
  

• From: Abigail
  Date: 13:56 on 20 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  
  --1yeeQ81UyVL57Vl7
  Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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  On Fri, Mar 16, 2007 at 09:51:57AM +0000, Smylers wrote:
  > A. Pagaltzis writes:
  >=20
  > > With 2.x, I have to use either Ctrl-W or Alt-F4, depending on whether
  > > I'm looking at a window with several tabs or just one -- as long as I
  > > enable "Always show the tab bar." If I turn it off, then Ctrl-W does
  > > what I want. (So after much wailing and gnashing of teeth, I did turn
  > > it off.)
  >=20
  > There's also Ctrl+Shift+W, which always closes the current window no
  > matter how many tabs are open.  It at least has the advantage that when
  > you've been irritated by Ctrl+W not closing the window with the last tab
  > in it all you have to do is hold down Shift and try again.
  
  
  I have F6 for closing the current window, and shift-F6 to really kill it.
  
  But that's my window manager. The advantage is that it works with every
  application. ;-)
  
  
  Abigail
  
  --1yeeQ81UyVL57Vl7
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  -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
  
  --1yeeQ81UyVL57Vl7--
  
  

• From: peter f miller
  Date: 03:01 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  On 3/15/07, jrodman@xxxx.xxxxxxxxxx.xxx <jrodman@xxxx.xxxxxxxxxx.xxx> wrote:
  > Personally, I find this extension worth the price of admission to
  > prevent Backspace (the erase-previous-charachter key) from changing to
  > the previously accessed web page. "
  
  Ahh, the memories! Searching for a way to disable that Backspace key
  misery is how I stumbled up this nurturing cradle of rancor that is
  the hates-software mailing list.
  
  In my googling I found this
  <http://hex.hates-software.com/2004/12/19/066ebd41.html>; thread which
  led me to the invaluable Keyconfig extension. I guess even the most
  hateful of software can lead to good ends at times. Yet, I hate it
  just the same.
  
  

• From: A. Pagaltzis
  Date: 00:48 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  * Michael G Schwern <schwern@xxxxx.xxx> [2007-03-16 00:15]:
  > I'd never noticed this behavior before, and I tried it out and
  > it wasn't how my Firefox works.  Turns out to be a side-effect
  > of the wonderful Tab Mix Plus add-on which has many wonderful
  > benefits.
  > 
  > While on the subject of tabs, I'd also recommend the "No Tab
  > Close Button" add-on which eliminates the oh-so easy to
  > accidentally click "close tab" button Firefox decided to put on
  > their tabs after everyone else had removed them.  Sort of like
  > putting a pile of jagged glass on the right hand side of every
  > seat in the house.
  
  Getting rid of the per-tab close buttons can be done with just
  `about:config`, as I mentioned in the other mail, without the
  need for an extension.
  
  The problem is I already have 16 extensions in the Firefox on my
  main machine, and that's not counting the DOM Inspector and
  Talkback that come pre-installed. And 5 of them are unbreak-me
  extensions. I really try not to add even more to the mix because
  Firefox is slow and memory hungry enough as it is.
  
  I used an extension to make tabs draggable back when they weren't
  (pre-1.0 I think? I don't remember), but when that capability was
  added to stock Firefox, I dropped the extension like a hot
  potato. The various tabbing enhancement extensions used to be the
  worst offenders in terms of drag, noticably slowing down the
  browser, although that was a long time ago and I don't know what
  things are like now.
  
  Since then, the basic Firefox tabbing has always worked well
  enough for me.
  
  Guess that's no longer true. *snarl*
  
  Regards,
  
  

• From: Phil Pennock
  Date: 06:47 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  On 2007-03-16 at 01:48 +0100, A. Pagaltzis wrote:
  > Since then, the basic Firefox tabbing has always worked well
  > enough for me.
  > 
  > Guess that's no longer true. *snarl*
  
  Copy your prefs.js from the profile directory.
  Install Tab Mix Plus.
  Tinker to get things working.
  Copy the new prefs.js
  Uninstall Tab Mix Plus.
  
  Use the diff between the old and the new prefs.js to learn just which
  settings can be adjusted through about:config and what the frigging
  names are.  If it turns out that some feature needs extra XUL/JS stuff
  provided by Tab Mix Plus (if there is any), then you get to decide
  whether they're worth the cost of the extra extension.
  
  Software judo.
  
  -Phil, the extension whore
  
  

• From: Robert Rothenberg
  Date: 15:59 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  On 15/03/07 22:53 A. Pagaltzis wrote:
  
  > What dimwit ever thought that conflating these options in a
  > single preference in this manner was a sane thing to do!? It took
  > me AGES to realise why the damn Ctrl-W shortcut no longer worked
  > as I expected it to. Googling for close to two hours or so in
  > total turned up no solution, but did turn up the hint that A
  > COMPLETELY UNRELATED-SEEMING OPTION controlled this behaviour.
  
  Alt-F4 works in Xfce. Probably in Windows too.
  
  

• From: A. Pagaltzis
  Date: 18:21 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  * Robert Rothenberg <robrwo@xxxxx.xxx> [2007-03-16 17:00]:
  > On 15/03/07 22:53 A. Pagaltzis wrote:
  > > What dimwit ever thought that conflating these options in a
  > > single preference in this manner was a sane thing to do!? It
  > > took me AGES to realise why the damn Ctrl-W shortcut no
  > > longer worked as I expected it to. Googling for close to two
  > > hours or so in total turned up no solution, but did turn up
  > > the hint that A COMPLETELY UNRELATED-SEEMING OPTION
  > > controlled this behaviour.
  > 
  > Alt-F4 works in Xfce. Probably in Windows too.
  
  I *don't* want to close the window -- except when I'm closing the
  last tab. And I *never* want to keep a window after closing the
  last tab in it. I am well aware of the gestures for closing the
  window. (Ctrl-Shift-W is another, and it works on all systems.)
  
  Ctrl-W used to do exactly what I want: close the current tab, and
  if it was the last, then close the window also. The new behaviour
  turns the last tab into a special case that requires a different
  gesture. That's what's driving me to rage (or was, anyway, before
  I reluctantly changed my prefs to avoid madness).
  
  Regards,
  
  

• From: Robert Rothenberg
  Date: 23:34 on 16 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  
  I found this in the Mozilla Wiki on the change:
  
    http://wiki.mozilla.org/Ctrl_W_not_close_app
  
  > Proposed change
  > 
  > Ctrl+w should behave as the tab bar's close button already does, and as
  > Ctrl+F4 already does, and as right click on tab -> "Close tab" already
  > does. Ctrl+W and File->Close Tab should be consistent with every other
  > tab-closing method, and close the tab, but not the window.
  > 
  
  
  
  

• From: A. Pagaltzis
  Date: 00:44 on 17 Mar 2007
  Subject: Re: Where "always" means "come hell or high water"
  
  * Robert Rothenberg <robrwo@xxxxx.xxx> [2007-03-17 00:35]:
  > I found this in the Mozilla Wiki on the change:
  > 
  >   http://wiki.mozilla.org/Ctrl_W_not_close_app
  > 
  > > Proposed change
  > > 
  > > Ctrl+w should behave as the tab bar's close button already
  > > does, and as Ctrl+F4 already does, and as right click on tab
  > > -> "Close tab" already does. Ctrl+W and File->Close Tab
  > > should be consistent with every other tab-closing method, and
  > > close the tab, but not the window.
  
  Good find! If you read the thing, you'll find a section called
  "Behavior dependent on tab bar visibility", proposed by "zeniko"
  and supported by "Tuukka".
  
  Thanks, zeniko and Tuukka! You enriched my life so much.
  
  Regards,
  
  

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