Why is there no options for how the Windows drop-down menu is sorted?
I asked this some months ago, and the thread was closed as one response was "selected as the solution", although it sure wasn't me who selected it, as it wasn't really a solution.
I can't understand why the Windows menu shows us all the open windows, in no order whatsoever. Not chronological or alphabetical, just random placements, making finding anything a dizzying & time consuming experience, as I have to look up and down each & every time. I don't know of any other browser that gives no option as to how to sort this list.
I don't care if it's chronological, or if sorted alphabetically, which technically it is. However, it's in the order of the specific tab title, not the website's name, which is of little use, since how many of us remember the title of every tab we've opened? We remember the website, which is far more relevant, since we may only briefly glance at the exact title of the page. I don't know why there could not be the option to sort it via the website name, as the Task Manager is sorted that way! Just do the same with the Window menu, and quit making life harder on your users... it's not rocket science.
All Replies (4)
You might be able to get the functionality you want by using an extension. I know FoxyTab has the ability to sort by URL rather than page title.
Otherwise, you'll probably have a better chance at getting the attention of the Mozilla developers by suggesting a new feature at Mozilla Connect.
I would try commenting in Mozilla Connect, however, even though I was signed in, it told me I "either I couldn't comment, or never verified my email address when it was first sent", which is pretty odd, as I've had the same email address the past 25 years, and I don't have a problem signing in. So no, I can't post anything in Mozilla Connect, apparently. Yet another well intentioned but dysfunctional feature... Plus, I've never in my life seen pinned posts that are pinned to every single page! WTH? So the entire first 2/3 of every page are all the same pinned posts, are they serious?
You can disable the "Show tab previews in the Windows taskbar" setting if you don't find it useful.
Instead you can enable "Ctrl+Tab cycles through tabs in recently used order" in settings, then when you press Ctrl+Tab and keep holding down Ctrl, a popup appears with your most recent tabs.
You can see a list with the same sort order as your tab bar by clicking the "List all tabs" button (Ctrl+Shift+Tab). If you want them sorted by domain you can use an extension like Order Tabs by Domain.
Firefox switched from directly managing the menu to letting MacOS handle the sorting. This was necessary to support integration of the Window menu with Mac OS features related to tiling and moving windows between displays.
There are two possible workarounds:
(1) Use an add-on that modifies page titles, which are used as the window title (2) Use an add-on that adds a prefix at the beginning of the window title
For #1, there are some page/tab title changers, but I don't know whether any of them automatically put the site domain or host name at the beginning of the title.
For #2, I posted an add-on back in March to just number them in order of creation during the current session to maintain chronological order: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/auto-number-windows/
It's probably possible to add an option to use the current tab domain or host name as the prefix instead of a sequential number. I don't know how tricky that would be, and as a Windows user, it's difficult to test. Maybe a Mac user can take that on.