Tablet & Mobile UI - tab bar for Android

[dantheclamman]

Firefox Fennec had a great tabbed interface on tablets. When Fenix came, we regressed to a stretched out phone UI. After years of stagnation, Android tablets are rising again, thanks to foldables and new initiatives from Google. Firefox is missing out by not including a tabbed interface for Android tablet users, particularly because FF has best in class syncing abilities. Android power users are enthusiastic recommenders of their favorite browsers, so it would be huge advantage over Chromium based competitors!   

[Nich]

Make it possible:
Enable horizontal tabbing as well for Firefox for phones, not just tablets.
Show an animation of loading tabs, a circle.
And with a long press, show the tab's context menu.
Thank you!

[firecat]

@JonIt's very cool. I hope this feature with tabs will be able on smartphones.

[Jon]

@firecat thanks! Will pass this along to the team 🙌

[RustyRacoon]

I'd have loved to try this out, but tapping 'About Firefox'  just opens https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-android-your-rights

[Jon]

@RustyRacoon tap a few times on the logo - let me know if that works for you

[RustyRacoon]

@Jon Thanks， the issue was the buggy OS from Xiaomi. Turns out it was sending 2 click events instead of just one when using a mouse (and the link to that website just happens to be in the same place, leading to it opening the link).

Actually using my finger to touch worked. 

I tried to delete my comment but couldn't find wherever comment-limbo is.

Thank you anyway 🙂 

[TeJAVA]

I have no idea why, but the comment I've written has disappeared. So I repost as a reminder. If the ideas were actually still there, sorry for the duplicates.

Thanks for keeping up the great work to make a web a better place! I've used the tab strip feature for about a week and I've found few questions to ask.

1. We need the solution for the scenario where width resolution may vary.

Android apps sometimes face with various resolution even in one device. Sometimes it can be foldable one, or it could be a case when opened in multi-window. The problem is, when the resolution gets narrow to some extent, the tab strip UI shrinks where URL bar is hardly accessible.

Some browsers with tab strip feature(ex. Naver Whale, Samsung Internet Browser) forcefully override the tab strip setting off, or give options to use tab strip, but not in narrower condition. Or, it could be nice to improve UI to allow users to access to URL bar however narrow it is.

2. Make tab strip hide when scrolling down

I think tab strip could be hidden when scrolling down, just as the URL bar is. This is how many browsers with tab strip behave when scrolling down. This ensures the larger area for the web contents, and consistency with other browser components. This would not be the big issue and could be controversial, which means issue 1 should be considered major one.

[Jon]

@RustyRacoon glad you're able to access it and try it out now! Feel free to drop any feedback on the new feature here 🙌

[Kaoxt]

@TeJAVA The scrolling issue with Nav Strip is a known issue I believe on the tracker, it's on the Todo list. 

I hope it's made compatible with foldable phones in mind. Not having it work well with foldables would be a big mistake.

I hope the New Tab issue is resolved. Currently Home button and New Tab do the same thing. It defeats the purpose of bringing the home page if New Tab doesn't function as it should (like desktop Firefox functions).

[okay_okay]

looks great so far 👏 thanks!

[mf89t5]

tab-row for mobile app

firefox, for gods sake, can u implement a tab-row (desktop style) for the mobile app version.

samsung browser, vivialdi, kiwi has this feature, just copy it.

[mf89t5]

@Jon 

there is no tap strip setting in my secret settings.

[drkalo]

@mf89t5 

Dear mf89t5, what is the device that you are using and what version of Firefox have you installed?

[mf89t5]

@drkalo 

I tried with latest version of Firefox nightly thing.

Samsung A40

Android 11

[drkalo]

@mf89t5

I think it recognizes device type and enables tab strip only on tablets. Having this feature on phones too was requested some time ago...