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Is there a way to bring back the actual tab "bar"?

  • 4 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 4 views
  • Last reply by MightyBOB

MightyBOB
MightyBOB
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So in switching from FF3.6 to 5.0 I have noticed that the actual "bar" that holds the tabs is gone.

Observe: http://i.imgur.com/eU7lo.jpg

It's visually slightly annoying to not have a distinct separator between the tab area and the button toolbar, but that is something I can live with.

However I can NOT live with the extremely annoying functionality drawback that comes as a result of this. In 3.X and before you could right click anywhere in the tab bar and it would bring up the tab management menu. Now you can't bring up the menu from empty space because it treats that space as part of the rest of the UI and gives you a different menu, forcing you to mouse all the way over to a tab to accomplish the same end.

So my question is, does anyone know of a way, or an addon, that can bring back the actual tab bar? I find all of these UI changes to be nothing short of infuriating. I swear, Mozilla, Facebook, Pandora, Google, and Microsoft must all be in cahoots with each other because they're all introducing horrible UI designs at the same time.

So in switching from FF3.6 to 5.0 I have noticed that the actual "bar" that holds the tabs is gone. Observe: [http://i.imgur.com/eU7lo.jpg http://i.imgur.com/eU7lo.jpg] It's visually slightly annoying to not have a distinct separator between the tab area and the button toolbar, but that is something I can live with. However I can NOT live with the extremely annoying functionality drawback that comes as a result of this. In 3.X and before you could right click anywhere in the tab bar and it would bring up the tab management menu. Now you can't bring up the menu from empty space because it treats that space as part of the rest of the UI and gives you a different menu, forcing you to mouse all the way over to a tab to accomplish the same end. So my question is, does anyone know of a way, or an addon, that can bring back the actual tab bar? I find all of these UI changes to be nothing short of infuriating. I swear, Mozilla, Facebook, Pandora, Google, and Microsoft must all be in cahoots with each other because they're all introducing horrible UI designs at the same time.

Chosen solution

Sorry, the Tabstrip is now a regular toolbar where the tabs aren't being displayed. You can place toolbar buttons or app tabs on the tab bar. Just something new you need to get used to.

Why Firefox 5?? Firefox 6 was released almost 6 weeks ago, and Firefox 7 is due to be released this coming Tuesday.

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All Replies (4)

Hasan
Hasan
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As far as i have checked, you will need to right-click on an already opened Tab to display that context-menu.

the-edmeister
the-edmeister
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Chosen Solution

Sorry, the Tabstrip is now a regular toolbar where the tabs aren't being displayed. You can place toolbar buttons or app tabs on the tab bar. Just something new you need to get used to.

Why Firefox 5?? Firefox 6 was released almost 6 weeks ago, and Firefox 7 is due to be released this coming Tuesday.

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
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You can't restore that previous behavior of the tab bar.
The Tab bar is now a regular toolbar and empty space to the right of the last tab is flexible space that can be used for new tabs or to place other toolbar buttons on (you can as well place buttons at the left hand side of the tab bar).
So if you click empty space instead of a tab then you get the regular toolbar context menu.

MightyBOB
MightyBOB Question owner
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Well I guess that's kind of cool that you can add buttons in the bar as well, but I honestly don't have a use for that and I think it would get in the way more often than not in most scenarios I can think of (there's a reason buttons were segregated from the tab bar and it wasn't tech limitations). The previous functionality is much more convienent and useful and, well, functional.

As for why FF5, well I've had the FF5 installation since before 6.0 was out, but the UI changes angered me so much that I abandoned it after about 20 minutes and went back to using my 3.6 installation; I've been letting the community stew and cook up solutions to the UI problems (status4evar for example) and like any good stew, giving it more time is better. Also a whole bunch of my addons (some of which are mission-critical to my browsing needs) were not [and a small few are still not] compatible with anything above 3.x, 4.x, or 5.x so I had to wait for those (mmm, stew). And then to top it off I figure the possibility that I'll run into upgrade problems is smaller if I go through the chain of updates rather than jumping from 3.6 straight to 7. And don't get me started on the whole rapid release schedule. :P