Closed Bug 1423125 Opened 7 years ago Closed 1 year ago

Let Shift-Ctrl-T / Shift-Cmd-T restore the previous session if there isn't a tab to reopen

Categories

(Firefox :: Session Restore, enhancement, P2)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
Session Restore
Version:
57 Branch
Type:
enhancement

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED FIXED
Milestone:
112 Branch
Tracking Flags:
Tracking Status
relnote-firefox --- 112+
firefox112 --- fixed

People

(Reporter: edd.chang1, Assigned: mconley, NeedInfo)

References

(Blocks 1 open bug)

Details

Attachments

(2 files)

Capture.PNG
22.60 KB, image/jpeg
Details
Bug 1423125 - Restore previous session if undoCloseTab is called with no more tabs to restore. r?dao!
48 bytes, text/x-phabricator-request
Details | Review 
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/62.0.3202.94 Safari/537.36

Steps to reproduce:

When Firefox closes and you open it back up there's no short cut keys for restoring the previous session. For example, Chrome/Opera allows to restore the previous session tabs with CTRL+SHIFT+T. Or even reopening a tab quickly if you close it by accident. 


Actual results:

You have to go to the menu and click on the option there. 


Expected results:

There should be a shortcut key to quickly do this instead of having a mouse travel and two clicks
Summary: Restore Previous Session Shortcut Keys → Restore Previous Session Shortcut Key
Iteration: --- → 57.1 - Aug 15
Component: Untriaged → Session Restore
OS: Unspecified → Windows
Hardware: Unspecified → All
Iteration: 57.1 - Aug 15 → ---
Severity: normal → enhancement
Attached image Capture.PNG — 
The option marked in the image is under discussion. There's no short cut key designated for this function.
Shorlander, who decides on our short cut keys for something like this?  It sounds reasonable that we should have one.
Flags: needinfo?(shorlander)
(In reply to Peter Dolanjski [:pdol] from comment #2)
> Shorlander, who decides on our short cut keys for something like this?  It
> sounds reasonable that we should have one.

We don't have a strict process for deciding shortcut keys. But typically it's for actions that might be high frequency while using Firefox; e.g. Bookmarking or making a New Tab. 

It's not clear to me that restoring a session is a high frequency action. Or, if it is, why is it? If someone wants to frequently restore a session would permanently turning on session restore be the better option?

It's worth noting that we have two recovery keys now:

- Ctrl-Shift-T = Reopen closed tabs
- Ctrl-Shift-N = Reopen closed windows

Chrome only has Ctrl-Shift-T as an a master undo for all tab and window close operations. Which might be a better approach. We also are running out of available shortcut keys :)
Flags: needinfo?(shorlander)
Blocks: ss-feature
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
OS: Windows → Unspecified
Priority: -- → P5
Hardware: All → Unspecified
(In reply to Stephen Horlander [:shorlander] from comment #3)
> (In reply to Peter Dolanjski [:pdol] from comment #2)
> > Shorlander, who decides on our short cut keys for something like this?  It
> > sounds reasonable that we should have one.
> 
> We don't have a strict process for deciding shortcut keys. But typically
> it's for actions that might be high frequency while using Firefox; e.g.
> Bookmarking or making a New Tab. 
> 
> It's not clear to me that restoring a session is a high frequency action.
> Or, if it is, why is it? If someone wants to frequently restore a session
> would permanently turning on session restore be the better option?
> 
> It's worth noting that we have two recovery keys now:
> 
> - Ctrl-Shift-T = Reopen closed tabs
> - Ctrl-Shift-N = Reopen closed windows
> 
> Chrome only has Ctrl-Shift-T as an a master undo for all tab and window
> close operations. Which might be a better approach. We also are running out
> of available shortcut keys :)


I switched to firefox today, after being a chrome user for years. 

On google chrome, if you keep pressing ctrl+shift+t it will keep reopening the last closed tab. If a window was closed last, it will reopen those windows. Ctrl+shift+t will just keep restoring things infinitely, which is one of the most fantastic and useful things in google chrome. Restoring a set of closed tabs includes the behavior of reopening a "session". 

Whenever I show people this shortcut they go "Oh, that's awesome I did not now you could do that!". I thought this was default behavior in all browsers, but on firefox, if the last closed tab was a window, it will not restore that. This behavior is extremely annoying. 

As for the arrogant developer who asked if this was a "high frequency action", I can add my experience:

I can keep up with websites sometimes having little layout bugs, or the other quirks of firefox. 
But this single feature is so important to me that it would single-handedly make me give up on using firefox.
(In reply to pedrohega from comment #4)
> (In reply to Stephen Horlander [:shorlander] from comment #3)
> > (In reply to Peter Dolanjski [:pdol] from comment #2)
> > > Shorlander, who decides on our short cut keys for something like this?  It
> > > sounds reasonable that we should have one.
> > 
> > We don't have a strict process for deciding shortcut keys. But typically
> > it's for actions that might be high frequency while using Firefox; e.g.
> > Bookmarking or making a New Tab. 
> > 
> > It's not clear to me that restoring a session is a high frequency action.
> > Or, if it is, why is it? If someone wants to frequently restore a session
> > would permanently turning on session restore be the better option?
> > 
> > It's worth noting that we have two recovery keys now:
> > 
> > - Ctrl-Shift-T = Reopen closed tabs
> > - Ctrl-Shift-N = Reopen closed windows
> > 
> > Chrome only has Ctrl-Shift-T as an a master undo for all tab and window
> > close operations. Which might be a better approach. We also are running out
> > of available shortcut keys :)
> 
> 
> I switched to firefox today, after being a chrome user for years. 
> 
> On google chrome, if you keep pressing ctrl+shift+t it will keep reopening
> the last closed tab. If a window was closed last, it will reopen those
> windows. Ctrl+shift+t will just keep restoring things infinitely, which is
> one of the most fantastic and useful things in google chrome. Restoring a
> set of closed tabs includes the behavior of reopening a "session". 
> 
> Whenever I show people this shortcut they go "Oh, that's awesome I did not
> now you could do that!". I thought this was default behavior in all
> browsers, but on firefox, if the last closed tab was a window, it will not
> restore that. This behavior is extremely annoying. 
> 
> As for the arrogant developer who asked if this was a "high frequency
> action", I can add my experience:
> 
> I can keep up with websites sometimes having little layout bugs, or the
> other quirks of firefox. 
> But this single feature is so important to me that it would single-handedly
> make me give up on using firefox.

The way google chrome works is also the default behavior on Safari as well. 

And since with the exception of safari, every other browser is chromium based, ctrl+shift+t to reopen tabs/windows is the default behavior. Only on firefox it is crippled. Maybe it is because of little polish, things like these, that Firefox is getting unpopular.

I'm going to have to agree, not being able to Restore Previous Session with Ctrl-Shift-T when there are no tabs to restore is one of my biggest problems with Firefox compared to other browsers which do this. I don't see any reason not to have this feature since it doesn't take up any additional keybinds.

I created an account on bugzilla just to say that the current behavior is surprising to say the least and really has no reason for being. Ctrl+Shift+T should reopen the last closed tab, and if multiple tabs happened to be closed at once, then it should reopen all of those tabs.

Having just researched a way to do this having wanted to since I switched to Firefox a year or so ago, I came across this bug and have opened a Bugzilla account in order to add my adamant support for this feature as described in the above comments. It was a great feature within Chrome for when you accidentally close the browser or need to get back to what you were doing last time as quickly as possible.

Decided to give Firefox another shot. It's looking pretty slick. I am really onboard with Mozilla's views on privacy. I am really missing this feature from Chrome and have created an account here to voice this.

Or, if it is, why is it? If someone wants to frequently restore a session would permanently turning on session restore be the better option?

Another one of those questions that only developers ask, not a real project manager. No wonder the team wasted 3 years lying in the backlog. You want reasons, eh?

  1. Windows updates that require restarts
  2. Power cuts (if you're shocked, realize that a lot of the world does not get constant power 100% of the time
  3. FF crashes, for whatever reason
  4. Maybe a user actually closed tabs, and then the next time they genuinely want them back. (You can't just force users to make them bookmark everything all the time - we're not robots)

Make it easier for people to switch to FF from err.. the most popular browsers out there! Give them the ability. Ask such questions when you have enough users that you won't care when a few stop using FF. Or maybe you feel like you already do! Moments like these make the average user switch back to the other browsers, privacy be damned.

Until there's real change, I'm always going to have (some of) the other browsers right beside FF - can never truly rely on FF.

I recently came from Google Chrome and wanted to give firefox a try and maybe get more involved in the community to help make it better. But I just find the missing of this feature to be soo annoying that I cannot completely get into firefox as I am really used to it. And I don't understand why there isn't a propery shortcut to do this.

Some previous comment said that enable restoring previous session could be an option but I have to disagree with this. As sometimes I close many tabs that I don't need anymore and when I open firefox again after some time I have to wait many seconds so it can load all the previous tabs. This is a workaround isn't feaseble at all.

I really hope this feature to be included in the following updates as it is very very simple to implement.

Agreed! I'm trying to make the switch to Firefox as my primary browser, but this is the single most annoying omission.

ctrl+shift+t is also a single shortcut that save 3 (restore tab, restore new window, restore session), freeing ctrl+shift+n which is used for new private window in other browsers

Any plans on making this a reality? I have switched to FF couple days ago and it's something I had to google to find out that it doesn't exist, or you could implement a way for us to modify shortcuts, that works also

Flags: needinfo?(mdeboer)

I would love to see this as well. In addition to being more consistent with other browsers, here's another reason why: cmd-W is overloaded to either close the current tab or close the window (if it only contains one tab).

It makes sense for cmd-shift-T to be overloaded in the same way, so that whenever I hit cmd-W I can undo it with cmd-shift-T (regardless of whether a tab or a window was closed by the cmd-W).

Created an account just to comment on this. Adding my support that one of the following enhancements gets added:

  • overloading ctrl-shift-t to open closed tabs, windows, and sessions (preferred)
  • keyboard shortcut to re-open previous session

I jumped from Chrome a few months ago as well and this is the one feature I sorely miss.

I too, created an account to add support to this.

This is a deal breaker for me. I've run into other problems with firefox but I ignore them to support firefox. As a web developer I know that almost all devs use chrome, so websites work on chrome the most. Safari, Firefox, Edge specific bugs occur but rarely do chrome specific bugs occur because those bugs are caught in development.

I dont put the blame on that on firefox. The whole reason I tried firefox was to do my part in keeping Chrome and google from being the all powerful big bully on the internet playground.

All this to say that I'd rather be on chrome from just a consumer standpoint.

You dont have to capitulate to us, but I read this whole thread and I dont see a reason why this feature isn't implemented. Would it require using more system resources? If you're doing it for our own good, there should be a stickied answer.

"Not being a good use case" when every other browser does this, and all these users have independently come upon this thread, is a ridiculous answer. That sounds like a joke I would make in grooming. For every person who bothered to make an account to give this feedback, I'm sure 10x as many just switched out.

+1: This feature missing is a huge drawback

I'm a Chrome user but I'd very much love to move to Firefox. So every couple of months I check if by any chance Firefox finally implemented proper tab/window/session restore using a shortcut. And sadly every couple of months I go back to Chrome just because of this single missing feature. It's so important for my way of working with multiple windows/tabs that I wasn't able to justify the switch yet. Having a single Ctrl-Shift-T shortcut to restore the last closed thing without having to think whether it was a tab or a window or a window from previous session makes absolute sense from user's point of view.

+1 The majority of time I am starting up Firefox is to restore a previous session. Overloading Ctrl+Shift+t with restore session is what I expect as behaviour.

My two biggest difficulties in migrating back to firefox is not being able to restore previous session, as chrome does, and not having a native page translation system.

Just found out that "restoring previous session on startup" does effectively the same thing, it can be found in settings -> general -> startup -> check mark "Open previous windows and tabs".

Redirect a needinfo that is pending on an inactive user to the triage owner.
:dao, since the bug has recent activity, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Flags: needinfo?(mdeboer) → needinfo?(dao+bmo)
Severity: normal → S3

I've also been emailed for each reply to this thread for 4 years, and it really still is one of the biggest problems I have with Firefox. Does the severity being updated to S3 mean this will finally be addressed?

(In reply to 753 from comment #30)

I've also been emailed for each reply to this thread for 4 years, and it really still is one of the biggest problems I have with Firefox. Does the severity being updated to S3 mean this will finally be addressed?

I'm afraid not. S3 still means normal, they have just migrated to numbered labels and they also have P5 - "Will not fix, but will accept a patch" , the lowest priority label on it. And just as ck117 said, they have many other higher prio bugs, so most probably it has to be done by community.

S3 still means normal, they have just migrated to numbered labels and they also have P5

Severity (S) and Priority (P) are different things.

For anyone interested, there is a newer feedback platform for Mozilla, where the same "Idea" is also up for user votes, so maybe, just maybe, if people are pushing it there as well, we might get a solution:
https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/shortcut-to-restore-previous-session/idi-p/221

And another idea which is slightly related:
https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/customizable-hotkeys/idi-p/4979

Duplicate of this bug: 1704081
Duplicate of this bug: 1583011
Assignee: nobody → mconley
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
Flags: needinfo?(dao+bmo) → qe-verify+
Priority: P5 → P2
Summary: Restore Previous Session Shortcut Key → Let Shift-Ctrl-T / Shift-Cmd-T restore the previous session if there isn't a tab to reopen
Attachment #9320610 - Attachment description: Bug 1423125 - Restore previous session if undoCloseTab is called with no more tabs to restore. r?dao → Bug 1423125 - Restore previous session if undoCloseTab is called with no more tabs to restore. r?dao!
Pushed by mconley@mozilla.com:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/d29c1fad7862
Restore previous session if undoCloseTab is called with no more tabs to restore. r=dao
Regressions: 1820207

Release Note Request (optional, but appreciated)
[Why is this notable]:

We've added a new way to retrieve the previous session if one exists.

[Affects Firefox for Android]:

No.

[Suggested wording]:

You've always been able to un-close a tab by using (Cmd/Ctrl)-Shift-T. Now, that same shortcut will restore the previous session if there are no more closed tabs from the same session to re-open.

[Links (documentation, blog post, etc)]:

None.

relnote-firefox: --- → ?

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/d29c1fad7862

Status: ASSIGNED → RESOLVED
Closed: 1 year ago
status-firefox112: --- → fixed
Resolution: --- → FIXED
Target Milestone: --- → 112 Branch

Used steps:

  1. Launch Fx.
  2. Open several web pages in different tabs. (https://www.youtube.com/, https://www.google.com/maps, https://www.bbc.com/)
  3. Quit Fx.
  4. Open again Fx.
  5. Open other 2 pages in different tabs (https://www.facebook.com/, https://www.wikipedia.org/).
  6. Close one of the tabs/pages (https://www.wikipedia.org/).
  7. Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+T -> to reopen the tab closed at step 6. (in the same window)
  8. Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+T -> to reopen the tabs closed in step 3. (in the same window)

Verified - fixed: on Win 11, Ubuntu 22 and MacOs12 in Fx versions: 112.0b7, 13.0a1 (2023-03-27)

Additional notes:
On MacOS 12, if you Close Fx (in step3 - instead of Quit), nothing happens when you hit Cmd+Shift+T (in step8.)
Instead, you can still use Cmd+Shift+N to open the tabs closed in step 3. in a new window.

Please let me know if this issue should be addressed here, separately or for some reason is intended behaviour and I'll make the necessary changes.

Flags: needinfo?(mconley)
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