View source for Tabbed Browsing/User Interface Design

== Introduction ==

Tabbed browsing is one of the most visible aspects of Firefox, and has a large number of use cases.

Improvements in the Firefox 2 cycle will focus on the following aspects:

* Shifting to new tabs instead of new windows by default
* Improving discoverability for tabbed browsing
* Support close buttons on tabs for initial discoverability
* Providing a solution to tab overflow (too many tabs)
* Providing support for reopening closed tabs
* Handling "open in tabs" better and more consistently across the UI.
* Examining foreground vs. background heuristic for consistency concerns

== Requirements ==

* Tab ordering/reordering should be preserved
* Research on frequency of use cases should be done, probably via instrumentation+flexible tab prefs, in order to optimize for the most common use-cases.
* Full keyboard access (implemented for Firefox 1.5) should be preserved.
* Needs to be flexible enough to fit the needs our current users have, while providing a more obvious and understandable default configuration.

== Design Docs ==

* [[Tabbed_Browsing/User_Interface_Design/Tab Overflow|Tab Overflow]]