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Bug 105153 - Focus on opening new tab
Focus on opening new tab
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: epiphany
Classification: Core
Component: [obsolete] Backend:Mozilla
unspecified
Other Linux
: High normal
: ---
Assigned To: Epiphany Maintainers
Epiphany Maintainers
: 106477 117832 117875 118109 118999 120852 120853 121496 122371 124109 124782 125170 125247 125482 128846 129012 136274 137924 137999 139829 140327 140521 142162 142887 143596 144056 145348 145736 148766 149443 152927 154669 155817 159082 159448 165135 165192 171832 301952 303726 306141 306458 311427 311681 312958 318685 334739 343165 346277 350174 350287 354734 356661 365137 392750 408329 432176 435093 450687 451960 455763 481621 526381 532214 536919 539158 552646 563545 591374 596465 600328 619820 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2003-02-03 20:30 UTC by Rob Clews
Modified: 2010-05-28 05:09 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---


Attachments
Patch (1.56 KB, patch)
2003-02-04 21:13 UTC, Xan Lopez
none Details | Review
backport of fix to gnome-2-10 branch (11.04 KB, patch)
2005-08-13 12:57 UTC, Christian Persch
none Details | Review
backport to gnome-2-8 (12.51 KB, patch)
2005-08-17 14:41 UTC, Marco Pesenti Gritti
none Details | Review

Description Rob Clews 2003-02-03 20:30:05 UTC
When a new tab is opened the focus should be given to the location bar
Comment 1 Xan Lopez 2003-02-04 21:13:31 UTC
Created attachment 14103 [details] [review]
Patch
Comment 2 Xan Lopez 2003-02-04 21:14:31 UTC
Tried to copy the mozilla behaviour: new tabs do not open homepage,
but a blank page without about:blank.
btw, my mail now is xan@masilla.org, not @dimensis.com, will create a
new account soon :)
Comment 3 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-02-05 10:18:30 UTC
I think we should focus the location only when opening a new
window/tab, when you open an url with context menu you  probably want
the page to be focused.
A way to implement that is to activate the location only when the
HOMEPAGE flag is set I think.
Another thing. The _activate function cause the url to be highlighted.
A lot of people use x selection and that behavior would be really
annoying, so I bet they would start bugging ;) I dont really care
myself but ... it's probaly worth to add a select flag to that function.

About the about:blank thing I think it would be better to handle it in
a separate bug/patch. The code you modified is only about VIEW_SOURCE
I think, it's to copy the page without refetching it. Isnt the
functionality you are trying to implement already available ? Prefs
dialog->On new page->Show blank page ?
I bet I'm missing something here.

Thanks to be looking into this.
Comment 4 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-02-19 13:12:22 UTC
*** Bug 106477 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 5 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-02-23 02:22:36 UTC
fixed in cvs
Comment 6 Johan (not receiving bugmail) Dahlin 2003-04-09 00:33:58 UTC
I can still see this.
Pressing Control+T opens up a new tab, but the location bar is not
focused.
Comment 7 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-04-09 08:36:58 UTC
yeah this has been regressed in some way. I suspect mozilla focus
changes :/
Comment 8 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-04-09 10:09:35 UTC
Aaaaaargh they broke it. They are stealing the focus when the page
loads. Sucks sucks sucks.
Comment 9 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-04-15 14:32:38 UTC
Removing from tracker. 0.6 is not realistic :/
Comment 10 Toni Willberg 2003-06-11 16:52:05 UTC
Is it possible to fix this anytime soon?

I just switched from Galeon to Epiphany, and I use tabs very often...
Typing letters when focus is on document instead of location bar has
nice side effects... ;)

- Toni

ps. I can't seem to change the version in Bugzilla, could you update
it to 0.7?
Comment 11 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-06-11 21:37:22 UTC
Do you mean it works with galeon ? Last time I tried it did not.
Comment 12 Toni Willberg 2003-06-12 04:05:03 UTC
Hmm... my Galeon seems not to work with Mozilla 1.4 from Rawhide. Some
packaging bug perhaps... Can't verify at the moment, but will do later.

Anyway, I tested with Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.4)
Gecko/20030611 , and it works like charm.
Comment 13 Toni Willberg 2003-06-12 08:26:52 UTC
The focus thing works fine with the following combination also:
 galeon-1.2.7-3
 mozilla-1.2.1-27
Comment 14 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-06-12 09:36:23 UTC
Just tested galeon with my mozilla cvs and it doesnt work.

Btw it worked until mozilla 1.4a.

>Anyway, I tested with Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.4)
>Gecko/20030611 , and it works like charm.

Have you compiled epiphany with the same version ? Are you absolutely
sure galeon is running that version and not some other on your hd ?
Comment 15 Toni Willberg 2003-06-12 09:47:58 UTC
I'm running Rawhide's Epiphany, I did not compile it myself. Same with
Mozilla and Galeon.
Comment 16 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-06-12 11:28:22 UTC
Make sure to use a galeon 1.3 version to test ... previous versions
use gtk1, and the focus code is different.
The code is very similar and they behave the same for me, it's very
likely you are using a gtk1 galeon or a too old mozilla ... (it worked
until mozilla 1.4a).
We need to report this bug to mozilla ... but I'd need to track it before.
Comment 17 Edd Dumbill 2003-06-20 15:01:50 UTC
The current behaviour overrides the current X selection.  Marco's
comments above suggest this should not be the case.  I had a bug on
this http://bugs.debian.org/197227

From: 	Anand Kumria <wildfire@progsoc.org>

Package: epiphany-browser
Version: 0.7.0-1
Severity: normal

Hi there,
Creating a new tab in epiphany-browser destroys the current X selection
and resets it to be the default URL.

This is less than useful if you, say, copy a URL, attempt to open a tab
within epiphany-browser and discover you've got to reselect (if
possible) the URL and try agin.
Comment 18 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-06-20 15:05:01 UTC
This bug is about something different. The X selection issue is
disappearead because we are no more cloning url. (cvs)
Comment 19 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-06-23 14:29:17 UTC
So this appear to be a gtkmozembed bug (or feature lack).
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=210373
Comment 20 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-07-02 20:59:18 UTC
Ok I did the best was possible, now it's all up to mozilla guys
Comment 21 Christian Persch 2003-07-19 11:04:22 UTC
*** Bug 117832 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 22 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-07-20 01:10:49 UTC
*** Bug 117875 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 23 Christian Persch 2003-07-23 11:24:10 UTC
*** Bug 118109 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 24 Christian Persch 2003-08-03 13:59:47 UTC
*** Bug 118999 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 25 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-08-27 17:35:38 UTC
*** Bug 120852 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 26 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-08-27 17:37:08 UTC
*** Bug 120853 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 27 Richard Torkar 2003-08-27 17:48:55 UTC
Added to CC
Comment 28 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-09-04 22:15:59 UTC
*** Bug 121496 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 29 Mårten Woxberg 2003-09-15 13:07:44 UTC
Anything happened on this front?
Comment 30 Christian Persch 2003-09-15 19:46:32 UTC
*** Bug 122371 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 31 Christian Persch 2003-10-08 10:58:06 UTC
*** Bug 124109 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 32 Hakon 2003-10-08 13:37:52 UTC
I assume a fix for this bug will also stop the behaviour that one
(background) tab might steal focus from the active tab?
In most cases, you then can't retrieve focus just by clicking
somewhere in the document, but you have to switch tab and back in
order to retrieve focus.
Comment 33 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-10-08 18:16:40 UTC
My patch fix that too, yeah
Comment 34 Julien Olivier 2003-10-22 15:16:41 UTC
> My patch fix that too, yeah

Which patch ?

I'm running Epiphany-1.0.3 with Mozilla-1.4.1 and the problem is not
fixed. However, if I use Epiphany 0.8 with Mozilla-1.4.1, the problem
is not there. So it's not a bug in Mozilla but a bug in Epiphany.
Comment 35 Christian Persch 2003-10-23 10:16:03 UTC
*** Bug 125247 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 36 Christian Persch 2003-10-24 14:21:02 UTC
*** Bug 124782 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 37 Christian Persch 2003-10-25 16:51:17 UTC
*** Bug 125482 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 38 Baptiste Mille-Mathias 2003-11-26 22:52:32 UTC
The problem occurs in GNOME2.4 too so keyword set to GNOMEVER2.4
Comment 39 Mårten Woxberg 2003-12-03 19:20:44 UTC
Still here in 1.1.0.
Comment 40 Christian Persch 2003-12-03 19:35:38 UTC
That's not surprising, since it's a mozilla bug.
Comment 41 Christian Persch 2003-12-08 22:43:39 UTC
*** Bug 128846 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 42 Christian Persch 2003-12-08 23:34:04 UTC
*** Bug 125170 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 43 Christian Persch 2003-12-10 18:04:40 UTC
*** Bug 129012 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 44 Ravi Kiran 2004-02-20 09:57:14 UTC
before loading the homepage, the we set the focus to the location bar
but the location bar loses focus because we are loading "about:blank"
page when there is no homepage and the loaded page is grabbing the focus.
can we skip loading this 'blank' page. if we do this, the focus
remains in the location bar.
Comment 45 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2004-02-20 10:08:42 UTC
If we dont load a blank page we will have several problems because the
embed widget isnt initialized. Also it's not a complete solution to
the problem because the focus should stay in location bar also for
normal homepages. I think clahey has a mozilla patch to solve most of
the focus problems with mozilla, though I'm not sure if it will be
accepted upstream.
Comment 46 Christian Persch 2004-03-05 13:34:59 UTC
*** Bug 136274 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 47 Christian Persch 2004-03-22 11:46:05 UTC
*** Bug 137924 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 48 Christian Persch 2004-03-24 14:53:05 UTC
*** Bug 137999 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 49 Christian Persch 2004-04-08 21:49:29 UTC
Comment on attachment 14103 [details] [review]
Patch

Marking obsolete attachments in open bugs.
Comment 50 spark 2004-04-12 19:35:06 UTC
*** Bug 139829 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 51 Christian Persch 2004-04-17 11:16:18 UTC
*** Bug 140327 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 52 Christian Persch 2004-04-28 19:42:18 UTC
*** Bug 140521 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 53 Christian Persch 2004-05-09 09:37:39 UTC
*** Bug 142162 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 54 Christian Persch 2004-05-21 10:37:31 UTC
*** Bug 142887 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 55 Christian Persch 2004-06-02 18:38:10 UTC
*** Bug 143596 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 56 Christian Persch 2004-06-09 20:45:53 UTC
*** Bug 144056 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 57 Thilo 2004-07-02 08:37:13 UTC
For me main problem is, that I am loosing focus of my active tab sometimes when
something is loading in the background. I suppose on some javascript pages?

I think this is a BIG security problem!!! Imagine if you type something like a
password in the wrong tab! I could imagine pages using this bug. Im am using
Epiphany 1.2.6 now ... still the same problem, since(?)

Thilo
Comment 58 Karl Bartel 2004-07-03 18:42:34 UTC
*** Bug 145348 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 59 Christian Persch 2004-07-08 18:31:33 UTC
*** Bug 145736 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 60 Christian Persch 2004-07-29 14:39:38 UTC
*** Bug 148766 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 61 Vincent Noel 2004-09-17 17:30:18 UTC
*** Bug 152927 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 62 Sebastien Bacher 2004-10-06 12:06:42 UTC
*** Bug 154669 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 63 Christian Persch 2004-10-13 10:54:17 UTC
Mass reassigning of Epiphany bugs to epiphany-maint@b.g.o
Comment 64 Christian Persch 2004-10-19 13:39:01 UTC
*** Bug 155817 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 65 lsof 2004-11-19 11:48:20 UTC
For me, this is one of the two epiphany bugs that I encounter most.

(The other is focus in a textarea being stolen if a page in another tab refreshes.)
Comment 66 Christian Persch 2004-11-22 18:27:21 UTC
*** Bug 159082 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 67 Christian Persch 2004-11-25 14:26:56 UTC
*** Bug 159448 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 68 Christian Persch 2005-01-24 23:08:07 UTC
*** Bug 165135 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 69 Christian Persch 2005-01-25 15:39:09 UTC
*** Bug 165192 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 70 Christian Persch 2005-03-16 11:33:07 UTC
*** Bug 151943 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 71 Christian Persch 2005-03-28 11:48:27 UTC
*** Bug 171832 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 72 Rob 2005-03-30 00:21:45 UTC
Is this fixed yet? I have the same issue / enhancement request.
Comment 73 Vladimir Kondratyev 2005-03-30 12:54:53 UTC
Is there any chance to get it fixed? Please, please, please. It's extremely
annoying and non productive to perform tabbed browsing and constantly press
Ctrl+L anter each Ctrl+T.

Perhaps, it's a mozilla (gecko?) bug, but FireFox works perfectly under the same
conditions. I do not want to switch to FireFox... :(
Comment 74 Lionel Dricot 2005-04-12 21:34:43 UTC
this is not only a new tab but also a new window.
Comment 75 Reinout van Schouwen 2005-04-26 12:00:18 UTC
*** Bug 301952 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 76 Christian Persch 2005-04-29 19:41:00 UTC
*** Bug 149443 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 77 Baptiste Mille-Mathias 2005-05-11 19:30:05 UTC
*** Bug 303726 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 78 Alo Sarv 2005-05-21 01:53:52 UTC
More than two years has passed, and such a major usability bug has not been
fixed. No offence, but where are the great Gnome Usability Guidelines at work here?

Epiphany is really nice and fast browser, but - c'mon, two years with such bug open?
Comment 79 Phil Hagelberg 2005-06-08 17:48:10 UTC
Are we waiting for it to be fixed in Mozilla? They are sure taking their time.
Couldn't we make some kind of workaround? Obviously it'd be best if GtkMozEmbed
were fixed, but nobody wants to wait for that to happen.
Comment 80 Christian Persch 2005-06-15 22:02:57 UTC
*** Bug 306458 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 81 Christian Persch 2005-07-09 16:12:31 UTC
*** Bug 306141 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 82 Kristoffer Lundén 2005-07-20 14:45:03 UTC
It works as it should in Firefox, which suggests that this is possible now, if
not before. As an extensive tab user, this is a must for Epiphany to be a viable
alternative.

It also seems a bit too much like playing the "blame game" with such a bug open
for two years. If it is the Mozilla team's fault, they've been made aware of the
problem and they flat out refuse to fix it (which seems very unlikely), then it
can't be that big of a deal for experienced hackers from here to come up with a
patch? Did anyone take a good look at it? Is a bug properly filed on their side?
Comment 83 Thilo 2005-07-20 15:15:17 UTC
mozilla has a fix on:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=226708
Comment 84 Olav Vitters 2005-07-24 18:51:51 UTC
*** Bug 311427 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 85 Brent Smith (smitten) 2005-07-27 19:08:37 UTC
*** Bug 311681 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 86 Christian Persch 2005-07-29 21:01:50 UTC
This is fixed in cvs for gnome 2.12.
Comment 87 Reinout van Schouwen 2005-08-10 14:40:05 UTC
*** Bug 312958 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 88 Christian Persch 2005-08-13 12:57:17 UTC
Created attachment 50646 [details] [review]
backport of fix to gnome-2-10 branch
Comment 89 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2005-08-17 14:41:54 UTC
Created attachment 50856 [details] [review]
backport to gnome-2-8
Comment 90 Christian Persch 2005-10-12 15:59:17 UTC
*** Bug 318685 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 91 Mårten Woxberg 2006-03-10 15:12:29 UTC
Soo, how is this fixed?
I'm using Epiphany 1.9.99 with “gecko-1.8” and Ctrl+T still results in the address bar NOT being focused.

It would have been great if the one who closed this bug actually pointed out when and how it was fixed? Was it deemed, NOT A BUG/it's a feature?

All I can find is that it's fixed in cvs for gnome 2.12 and I'm on 2.14 and it still doesn't work.
Comment 92 Kristoffer Lundén 2006-03-10 16:56:39 UTC
You must have an empty homepage set for it to work. If the new tab loads a page, that page will steal focus.
Comment 93 Sergej Kotliar 2006-03-16 14:55:13 UTC
*** Bug 334739 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 94 Reinout van Schouwen 2006-04-01 19:47:35 UTC
Correction to comment #92: the page will not steal focus, but it will be given focus on purpose.
Comment 95 Sergej Kotliar 2006-05-28 10:44:21 UTC
*** Bug 343165 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 96 Reinout van Schouwen 2006-07-01 19:16:13 UTC
*** Bug 346277 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 97 Pedro MG 2006-07-24 00:42:46 UTC
Using 2.14.2.1 when CTRL-T to new tab, focus does not head to the URL.
As of my understanding in usability, based on about 20 people inquiry, focus should go to URL.
From what i've read the final decision is not do implement it ?
Comment 98 Reinout van Schouwen 2006-07-24 07:14:31 UTC
Pedro: the address bar does get focus when you create a new tab, but only when you do not have a homepage defined. If a a page is loaded in the new tab, then the priority is given to the page (so that, in the case of a search field, you can start typing right away).

Alternative solution:
Use Ctrl+L to focus addres bar; Type a new address in the address bar and then press Ctrl+Enter to open it in a new tab.

Please send any further comments to the mailing list.
Comment 99 Baptiste Mille-Mathias 2006-08-06 18:08:27 UTC
*** Bug 350174 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 100 Reinout van Schouwen 2006-08-07 15:17:22 UTC
*** Bug 350287 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 101 Baptiste Mille-Mathias 2006-09-07 07:53:41 UTC
*** Bug 354734 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 102 Diego Escalante Urrelo (not reading bugmail) 2006-09-07 08:08:33 UTC
A little extension can be made for this maybe.
Comment 103 Reinout van Schouwen 2006-09-19 09:01:44 UTC
*** Bug 356661 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 104 Kevin Smith 2006-10-05 03:22:34 UTC
Why does New Tab load the Home Page anyway? That behavior makes no sense to me. The Home Page should be where the browser starts up, NOT where new tabs should start up. If all new tabs were blank, this bug could be closed, and many people would be happy. If that is not possible, how about offereing a New Blank Tab button, different from the current New (Home Page) Tab button?

Just a suggestion. I'm trying to switch to epiphany 2.14.3 from Firefox, and this was a major irritant. So far, I'm working around it by having a blank home page, but that is not a great long-term solution.
Comment 105 Reinout van Schouwen 2006-10-26 07:40:51 UTC
*** Bug 365137 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 106 Reinout van Schouwen 2007-01-04 14:24:30 UTC
*** Bug 392750 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 107 Reinout van Schouwen 2007-02-16 08:42:32 UTC
*** Bug 408329 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 108 Reinout van Schouwen 2007-04-23 00:00:18 UTC
*** Bug 432176 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 109 Reinout van Schouwen 2007-05-02 10:00:32 UTC
*** Bug 435093 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 110 Reinout van Schouwen 2007-06-24 22:49:37 UTC
*** Bug 450687 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 111 Reinout van Schouwen 2007-06-29 09:17:57 UTC
*** Bug 451960 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 112 Reinout van Schouwen 2007-07-11 11:27:11 UTC
*** Bug 455763 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 113 Reinout van Schouwen 2007-09-29 17:38:27 UTC
*** Bug 481621 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 114 Reinout van Schouwen 2008-04-06 14:42:48 UTC
*** Bug 526381 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 115 Reinout van Schouwen 2008-05-08 20:25:10 UTC
*** Bug 532214 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 116 Reinout van Schouwen 2008-06-08 23:05:11 UTC
*** Bug 536919 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 117 Reinout van Schouwen 2008-06-26 22:30:55 UTC
*** Bug 539158 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 118 Cristian Aravena Romero 2008-07-12 20:14:38 UTC
Bug in launchpad:
https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/epiphany-browser/+bug/6277
Comment 119 Reinout van Schouwen 2008-09-17 15:06:22 UTC
*** Bug 552646 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 120 Reinout van Schouwen 2008-12-07 23:17:48 UTC
*** Bug 563545 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 121 Reinout van Schouwen 2009-08-11 08:16:29 UTC
*** Bug 591374 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 122 Kevin Smith 2009-08-11 13:27:46 UTC
I ended up switching to galeon, which "does the right thing" as far as new tabs. Hitting Ctrl-T gives you a blank tab, with the focus in the URL bar. Love it.
Comment 123 Reinout van Schouwen 2009-08-11 15:14:11 UTC
(In reply to comment #122)
> I ended up switching to galeon, which "does the right thing" as far as new
> tabs.

Good for you.

> Hitting Ctrl-T gives you a blank tab, with the focus in the URL bar. Love
> it.

You know what? Epiphany does the exact same thing if you have no homepage set.
Comment 124 Kevin Smith 2009-08-11 15:49:12 UTC
(In reply to comment #123)
> > Hitting Ctrl-T gives you a blank tab, with the focus in the URL bar. Love
> > it.
> 
> You know what? Epiphany does the exact same thing if you have no homepage set.
> 

Your reply sounds a bit defensive, so I apologize if it sounded like I was bashing epiphany or trying to pull users away from your project. 

You have made a very conscious design choice that ties the homepage feature to the new tab feature. For people who agree with that choice, it's fine.

However, a lot of people (~70) have reported this as a bug, and since you have no intention of changing it in epiphany, I thought I would document an alternative solution for them. Free software is about choice and transparency.

I hope epiphany continues to be successful.
Comment 125 Reinout van Schouwen 2009-09-27 20:12:55 UTC
*** Bug 596465 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 126 Reinout van Schouwen 2009-11-02 10:22:37 UTC
*** Bug 600328 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 127 Olivier Tilloy 2010-02-18 11:33:40 UTC
If I may add my two cents to the discussion on this 7 year old bug (!), I think giving the focus to the page when it's loaded perfectly makes sense. However, I would advocate for opening a blank page (instead of the home page) when opening a new tab. The reason being that my usual workflow when I want to visit a new page is to hit Ctrl+T to open a new tab, and expect to be able to type in the new location right away, without having to hit Ctrl+L. Hitting Ctrl+L first to focus the address bar, then replacing the current URL, and then hitting Ctrl+Enter doesn't feel natural at all to me. This is of course subject to debate, but it seems quite a lot of users have pretty much the same workflow.
On the other hand it would be interesting to know how "normal" users operate (I suspect people who comment on bug reports are somewhat power users).

Epiphany's current behaviour is not "a major irritant" to me, more like an annoying glitch which I have to remember to work around (using Ctrl+L) all the time.

I really think the "new tab" and the "home page" concepts shouldn't be so tightly linked, they really are two different things IMHO. If opening a new tab wouldn't load any page (thus not stealing the focus from the address bar), users would still be only one shortcut (Alt+Home) away from loading the home page. That's a trade-off worth considering, isn't it? Again, please take it for what it is, a rather fresh point of view on an old discussion, I may be missing important usability considerations that led to chose the current behaviour.
Comment 128 Mårten Woxberg 2010-02-18 16:13:47 UTC
This is no longer a problem since by now most people bothered by this bug have switched to either Firefox or Chromium...
Comment 129 Bastien Nocera 2010-02-18 16:21:52 UTC
(In reply to comment #128)
> This is no longer a problem since by now most people bothered by this bug have
> switched to either Firefox or Chromium...

This is no longer an issue because Epiphany doesn't use the Mozilla engine any more. Keep the trolling to a minimum...
Comment 130 Reinout van Schouwen 2010-05-27 13:55:58 UTC
*** Bug 619820 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 131 Kevin Smith 2010-05-28 05:09:40 UTC
(In reply to comment #129)
> This is no longer an issue because Epiphany doesn't use the Mozilla engine any
> more. Keep the trolling to a minimum...

For those of you who have not tried the latest epiphany (such as 2.28.0), this problem as written is indeed no longer a problem, although not really because it was "fixed". Ctrl-T still brings up the Home page, rather than a blank tab. The focus is still in the Home page content area, not in the URL bar. The reason this is no longer a bug is because in epiphany now, the URL bar is always hidden unless/until you hit Ctrl-L to bring it up. Since the URL bar is hidden by default, it makes sense that the focus would no longer go there, and therefore having the focus in the page contents is the logical behavior.

Although the tone of the "troll" was harsh, in his/her defense there was nothing in this thread that would indicate that newer versions of epiphany had actually resolved this problem. I have no idea when this new behavior was added to epiphany, but would assume (based on comments here) that it must have been between 9/09 and 2/10. A comment in this thread, by one of the developers, explaining why this bug is now really "resolved" would have been helpful. 

As for my original motivation in participating in this thread: Opening a new tab with an arbitrary URL still requires at least one extra action (either Ctrl-T, Ctrl-L, type URL *OR* Ctrl-L, type URL, Ctrl-Enter, Ctrl-PgDn). I couldn't find a bug reported for that concern, but since I am no longer an active epiphany user I didn't feel it was my place to create one.