Undo/Command-Z should reopen last closed window or tab

[hoops]

We've all been there--you're not paying attention and you accidentally close a window or tab that you didn't want to. Of course, you can go to the History menu and get it back, but then it replaces the current window or tab.

So why not let Edit-->Undo/Command-Z reopen the last closed window or tab? I'd like it, anyway.

[dbyler]

I second the motion -- I just accidentally closed a tab, actually, and was looking for an undo feature.

Opera's implementation, by the way, is very nice -- with a "trash can" of unused tabs (plus command-Z to un-close).

Regards,
Dan Byler

[Forrest]

I like this too.

[Bob Williams]

Undo for tab closings would be great.

Also nice would be a warning on the "Close Other Tabs" command in the tabs' contextual menu. It's a great feature to have at times, but it's also very dangerous, especially being so close to the singular "Close Tab" command. Bump the pointer a few pixels too low and OW will happily toast dozens of tabs for you without a second glance.

[Handycam]

I vote for this, too.

[troyb]

I vote for this as well :)

[Len Case]

Ooo, ooo... me too. :D

[Len Case]

Seriously tho, it is a bit tricky since there is also the text-field undo and after closing one window, the new window might be in the process of being edited.

I'm thinking you would either have to pull up the workspaces window (or menu?) or use a separate key combo. (or maybe we can fudge something unless you actually click into the new window?)

[Forrest]

Seriously tho, it is a bit tricky since there is also the text-field undo and after closing one window, the new window might be in the process of being edited.

Well, if the current focus issues persist, that should be a non-issue ;)

I'm thinking you would either have to pull up the workspaces window (or menu?) or use a separate key combo. (or maybe we can fudge something unless you actually click into the new window?)

Maybe command+option+a? I'm no key command expert, so maybe that's a no-no. Maybe some sort of history undo...

[hoops]

Wow . . . the thread lives!

Thanks all, and especially the OmniGuys for weighing in.

I didn't realize that command-Z could undo address field alterations; I had assumed, since Edit>Undo was always greyed out whenever I looked at it, that it was just unused in OmniWeb.

I'm not so sure that a trip to the Workspaces window or menu would be that appealing. The charm, if I may, to this idea is that it is very Mac-like: didn't mean to do that? Command-Z!

I never have felt the need to undo changes in the address field, so I personally would gladly give that up for the proposed functionality. But everyone uses applications differently, and so I understand that you might be reluctant to remove one functionality in favor of another.

Maybe option-command-Z . . .?

[zottel]

Seriously tho, it is a bit tricky since there is also the text-field undo and after closing one window, the new window might be in the process of being edited.

What if undo just works as expected and undoes the last user action? That is: Edit text field, close tab. Undo -> tab comes back. Undo again -> text field restored.

[Forrest]

What if undo just works as expected and undoes the last user action? That is: Edit text field, close tab. Undo -> tab comes back. Undo again -> text field restored.

What about: user types in a text field. Then opens new window, surfs, creates new tabs, new windows, surfs. Then closes those windows, goes back to the text box and hits undo to undo the typing there... do they really need to undo everything they did in the other windows to go back with the text?

[Bob Williams]

How about a command (or section) in the History menu something like "Recently Closed Tabs", which has as a submenu a list of the last x tabs that were closed? I don't think there's a good way to integrate windows into this without introducing some confusion as to whether a tab should be located under its window or on its own, but even without windows, the user can still get what they needed - which I would guess is usually just one or two tabs in any case.

If you wanted to get a little more fancy, you could make a separate window that lists the tabs, perhaps even with graphical previews.

In any case, doing it this way makes restoration a part of OW's historical browsing record, thus avoiding altogether confusion over in the Undo realm. And restoration, IMHO, fits as well or better into History than Undo. Even if not, it'll make perfect sense to someone the first time they notice it. There's also the benefit that you can let the user control the tab cache via the existing History pane in the prefs.

[Len Case]

I like the idea of a Recently Closed item in the History menu. Usually when I close a window I didn't mean to close, I go look in history to restore it. If we listed items by the last time I looked at them instead of the last time I fetched them--I would find that closed window even easier.

[Stormchild]

I like the idea of a Recently Closed item in the History menu. Usually when I close a window I didn't mean to close, I go look in history to restore it. If we listed items by the last time I looked at them instead of the last time I fetched them--I would find that closed window even easier.

This sounds about right.

I do the same thing (dig in the History window) and the problem does seem to be that I might have opened that mistakenly-closed tab half an hour ago, browsed around for awhile, then accidentally closed it before I could get to it.

Even if "Undo" was used for this, I don't think it would affect text fields, because those already seem to have their own, independent undo states. When you remove focus from a textarea, undo/redo no longer affect it. Refocusing it makes undo/redo active for that text area again. Text fields (single input lines) don't seem to retain their undo/redo states when you blur/refocus them, but textareas do. My point being that the program already has separate lists of undo/redo depending on what's in focus, so it shouldn't really cause a problem.

[Len Case]

The problem is, that undo states are generally window specific so closing one window (and thus focusing on another) puts you into an unpredicatable undo state--if the window you ended up on did have a text field focused, suddenly your undo wouldn't work to bring the window back whereas normally it could.

I have a phone where the scroll down a page button is also the accept call button (T-Mobile Sidekick)--sometimes while browsing a web page, I end up answering a phone call unexpectedly. Similarly, the switch to another call button shares functionality with the end call button. I've had someone on the line, get another phone call--go to switch after explaining to the first call--and when I go to switch, the other call has disappeared and I end up hanging up on the first person instead of putting them on hold.

This is the same reason the stop and reload buttons in OmniWeb are not the same button--you go to press on the stop and just before you get there, it turns into a reload. You don't want an unpredictable interface.

[Len Case]

So...

The nice thing about the history menu containing recently closed windows is:
it is predictable--no guessing about what the user meant and it is discoverable--the history menu is where you probably go already

I have considered adding undo to the workspaces window, but it lacks the discoverability--unless you were really paying close attention to the edit menu while clicking on the workspaces window, you wouldn't notice that Undo was suddenly enabled and the title had changed to "Undo Close Window" or "Undo Close Tab".

[Stormchild]

This is the same reason the stop and reload buttons in OmniWeb are not the same button--you go to press on the stop and just before you get there, it turns into a reload. You don't want an unpredictable interface

Agreed. The combined stop/reload button in Safari can be a real pain sometimes.

The nice thing about the history menu containing recently closed windows is:
it is predictable--no guessing about what the user meant and it is discoverable--the history menu is where you probably go already

That seems like the best way to solve this problem. I think it would be confusing for most users if undo behaves differently depending on whether you've got a text field focused or not. (I'm not sure what other factors there are, but I notice that you can only undo/redo changes in a text field while it's focused -- which is how it should be IMO.) It actually would never have occured to me to use undo to restore a closed tab. After all, the undo command is in the Edit menu, and closing and opening tabs is not editing (not that I want to crack open the topic of menu semantics, cause that's a can of worms).

So, I can imagine a couple different ways the History menu approach could work.


Add items to the history as soon as you open them, but when closing a tab, move its history item to the top.
Only add items to the history when the tab is closed.


Also, by "closed", I mean: You either closed the tab, or a new URL was loaded into it. I realize you could just use the back button to go back to a page if you didn't actually close the tab, but my thought is that pages should be added to the history in a consistent manner, so that whenever you "leave a page" (by closing the tab or going to a new URL), that's when it gets added to (or moved to the top of) the history. Otherwise, URLs would get moved to the top if the tab was closed, but not when replacing the tab content with a new URL, and from a user's point of view, that's just two different ways to get rid of a page.

[Len Case]

I would be tempted to move urls based on when you last focused on them (brought that window or tab to the front) as well--thus making recovery from a crash easier (if you aren't using auto-saving workspaces).

[David Latapie]

Opera's implementation, btw, is very nice -- with a "trash can" of unused tabs (plus command-Z to un-close).The best out there, better than Firefox, wich requires to go to the history meny first. I sent a mail on this request and got a positive feedback. Of course, the more people ask for it, the better :-)

[David Latapie]

Agreed. The combined stop/reload button in Safari can be a real pain sometimes.I agree but would still like such a combined button. Especially considering my real estate space on the toolbar is shrinking: I have 20 icons, plus the address bar. I may remove some, but not a lot.

[zottel]

Again, as most people (including myself for a long time) don't know that feature: You can have a seperate address bar (location bar), thus getting much more space for icons in the toolbar (and more space in the autocompletion dropdown): Just hit Alt-Cmd-L.

[Forrest]

And there's a lot of posts around here that talk about the advantages and disadvantages of combining those buttons. To sum them up: while at first it may seem like a good idea, it presents way more problems than it claims to fix.

[David Latapie]

Again, as most people (including myself for a long time) don't know that feature: You can have a seperate address bar (location bar), thus getting much more space for icons in the toolbar (and more space in the autocompletion dropdown): Just hit Alt-Cmd-L.I do know it—when I request address for a pop-up-no-bar window, this is this location bar that I get. It is really nice, by the way. But that would also means a second, which I don't want :-)

Thanks for reminding everyone the tip, anyway

[jashugan]

I agree but would still like such a combined button. Especially considering my real estate space on the toolbar is shrinking: I have 20 icons, plus the address bar. I may remove some, but not a lot.
It seems this thread was hijacked. :p

How about a command (or section) in the History menu something like "Recently Closed Tabs", which has as a submenu a list of the last x tabs that were closed? I don't think there's a good way to integrate windows into this without introducing some confusion as to whether a tab should be located under its window or on its own, but even without windows, the user can still get what they needed - which I would guess is usually just one or two tabs in any case.
Another vote for this.

I really like Opera's way of handling undo close tab. If you close a tab CMD-Z will get it back (history and position).

If the tab that comes up after closing a tab has a text field focused, then it will undo the last text typed there. You would have to unfocus the text field to get the tab back.

I don't think it would be unpredictable; it makes sense to me.

[David Latapie]

I really like Opera's way of handling undo close tab. If you close a tab CMD-Z will get it back (history and position).

If the tab that comes up after closing a tab has a text field focused, then it will undo the last text typed there. You would have to unfocus the text field to get the tab back.

I don't think it would be unpredictable; it makes sense to me.I like Opera's way too. Firefox's way allows for unclosing tabs in a closed windows (e.g. last tab of a window), which Opera doesn't allow, closed tabs being window dependant.

So, a mix of both: get the button from Opera and the whole-software (vs. window-only) behaviour from Firefox.

[Grape]

Yes, I agree that command-option-Z would be best so as to avoid confusion with text field/address bar/search bar editing. Besides, it's not a shortcut you'll be using as often as, say, command-T, command-B, or command-D, so it can be relegated to the alternate funtion for Z.

[Wallin]

I'd just like to bring some attention back to this feature. I'm considering switching from Opera to Omniweb, and this is one of the main features I feel is lacking.

[eugene]

I would love to see OW be able to undo an array of "destructive" actions. Using the history would not work well with my browsing habits. I tend to maintain multiple windows each with multiple tabs. I also read and delete some tabs faster than others, while opening new tabs as well. I do not guarantee that I delete tabs in the order that I open them. Since history is chronologically ordered by time of opening tabs and not time of closing tabs, finding tabs open long ago but just recently & accidentally closed are lost in the LONG past history list.

In for undo!

[David Latapie]

Speaking of history: I like the Safari possibility to undo History deletion. It is planned to implement it in OmniWeb?

[PhilMac]

I'd like this too. I loved it when it got added to Safari (can't remember if that was via Saft or not), and Opera's method makes sense to me.

[marc]

I would love to see OW be able to undo an array of "destructive" actions. Using the history would not work well with my browsing habits. I tend to maintain multiple windows each with multiple tabs. I also read and delete some tabs faster than others, while opening new tabs as well. I do not guarantee that I delete tabs in the order that I open them. Since history is chronologically ordered by time of opening tabs and not time of closing tabs, finding tabs open long ago but just recently & accidentally closed are lost in the LONG past history list.

In for undo!

Yes, I often have this experience myself.

Wouldn't a 'simple' solution to the problem Ken raised, re whether to undo a text operation or a closed tab, be to include the closed tab(s) in the 'undo stack'.

This would be in addition to the more discoverable options to add the options to the History menu.