Closing saved session multiplies pinned tabs in regular session
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Out of curiousity, I changed the pinned tabs setting from 'don't close pinned tabs", to 'minimize instead of close'. Same behavior. If I close a session window with the upper right close X, all the pinned tabs get saved to the still open original windows, as more pinned tabs. so changing the pinned tabs setting doesn't change the errant behavior.
Which brings us to another bit of bizarre behavior. I just discovered the tab right click menu gives the option to save tabs to session. (I should say sometimes it gives the option. Other times right clicking does nothing. No right click menu. Have to close and reopen vivaldi to get right click to work again. And, it isn't a problem with my mouse. The right click continues to work in other places, but not on the tabs.) So, I have a Saved Session composed of only a few saved regular, unpinned tabs. I open the Saved Session and find all tabs are opened as pinned tabs. Not as the unpinned tabs that they started out as. And, of course, if I don't close the window in the secret way, they will all get added to my original, not saved session window, as more pinned tabs.
Vivaldi really has an unhealthy obsession with pinned tabs.
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@astro46 said in Closing saved session multiplies pinned tabs in regular session:
@BoneTone Thanks for info about the Autosave Sessions Mod. Hadn't heard of it, don't understnd exactly what it does, but it seems like something I would like to look into further.
Sorry, I normally include links to any mods I mention. Here is the AutoSave Sessions mod. It will automatically save your session based on a configurable time interval, and only keep the most recent autosaved sessions (how many to keep is also configurable). So I have it set to autosave every 20 minutes and keep 10. If something happens, like accidentally closing a bunch of windows or a catastrophic failure, I have my state no older than 20 minutes saved in the sessions, and I've got 10 copies of my state over the past 3 hours that I can go back and restore if I realize I made a mistake and lost something.
Here's the Advanced Panels mod, which includes the Sessions Panel as an example of how to create advanced panels, but it's the only advanced panel I have. That sessions panel alone is worth installing, and as I mentioned is what made sessions usable to me. The UI/UX fits into my workflow perfectly. The dev was very clever and built the mod in an abstract way allowing people to extend it with their own ideas for advanced panels.
If you don't know how to install mods, read Modding Vivaldi which is the first thread pinned in the Modifcations category, it explains everything.
@astro46 said in Closing saved session multiplies pinned tabs in regular session:
ut of curiousity, I changed the pinned tabs setting from 'don't close pinned tabs", to 'minimize instead of close'. Same behavior.
A while back, I had changed it to "Close as other tabs" and noticed the same thing. That, to me is the bug. As would be different behavior depending upon how you invoke a command. These are the kinds of things that occur when you have a small team and completely strip off the Chromium UI and implement and entirely new interface using different underlying technology. It is why Vivaldi has all the flexibility and configurability that other browsers are unable to offer; it also means that when you start getting into these less commonly used features and digging into the corner cases, you're absolutely going to find bugs. Dig into the less popular features of any piece of software and poke around and you'll start finding quirks, but Vivaldi is young and "resource challenged". That said, all things considered, it's still the best browser for the way I like to work. The problems it presents me are less painful than the problems other browsers present me. I am not the median (typical) or mean (average) user though, which is why I'm here I guess as Vivaldi isn't targeting the typical or average.
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@astro46 said in Closing saved session multiplies pinned tabs in regular session:
Which brings us to another bit of bizarre behavior. I just discovered the tab right click menu gives the option to save tabs to session. (I should say sometimes it gives the option. Other times right clicking does nothing. No right click menu. Have to close and reopen vivaldi to get right click to work again.
I think all that fiddling you did in your profile has corrupted it, and is causing you some issues that others aren't seeing.
On the tab bar I get:
On the window panel I get:
@astro46 said in [Closing saved session multiplies pinned tabs in regular session]
If I have two or more windows open, then I see Close all windows. If I have only one open, then I see Close window.
with 2 vivaldi windows open:
The reason you're getting different behavior than others is because you don't group your tabs (BTW, which version of Windows are you, I missed it if you mentioned it.) As a comparison, I have my windows grouped, and if I click on the Vivaldi icon on the taskbar I get close all windows. If I right click on one of the window thumbnails that appear when hovering over the Vivaldi icon I get the same context menu as if I right-clicked on the titlebar of that window.
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perhaps i will rebuild the profile. but not tonight.
I get the same as you on the tab bar and the window panel. And when right clicking on taskbar tabs.
No I don't group the tabs.
I am using win10 1909 64 bit.
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I've been seeing this also and it was as confusing as hell. I find it hard to believe that this behaviour is by design. A session which includes some pinned tabs and which will include those pinned tabs when you reopen it should not dump the pinned tabs somewhere else when you close the session window. Almost makes me want to just use a speed dial right click than the session feature, which does seem to have not kept up with e.g. Edge collections. Sorry if I'm missing something in this rather long thread but this seems like a bug, and I'll file a bug report.
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@aach1 good luck with the bug report. Perhaps the changes will be made to make the saved sessions be a well designed feature. maybe, perhaps. i filed bug report long ago.
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@aach1 said in Closing saved session multiplies pinned tabs in regular session:
when you close the session window.
There is no "session window", all windows are part of the same "current session".
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@BoneTone I think that it doesn't help to contest comments about problems users are having because of technicalities/terminology. The issues are real, and are best used to improve functionality and good user experiences. eg: if the vivaldi commend is 'open session in new window' , then the user has every right to expect that the new window is a separate "session". Not that most people think much about the definition of a 'session' . Most users are not web designers and not familiar with terminology.
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@astro46 said in Closing saved session multiplies pinned tabs in regular session:
if the vivaldi commend is 'open session in new window' , then the user has every right to expect that the new window is a separate "session". ... Most users are not web designers and not familiar with terminology.
But the user would be wrong, leading to the misunderstandings we're discussing about what sessions are and how they work. I'm not being pedantic about terminology, it's an important distinction that users need to understand in order to have proper expectations for how the product works, as I and others have been trying to explain since March. I should have perhaps written more about it in my previous reply; but I lacked the time then, so I waited until I did have the time to write and apologize if I came off as curt.
Understanding what a session is in Chromium-based browsers isn't overly complicated, and definitely doesn't require any knowledge of programming. Some people have already explained the basics a few times in this thread, but as confusion persists I decided to extract the general parts of this and put it into its own thread, which is here.
With respect to terminology however, perhaps that action could be better named. At first, I wasn't really sure what that could be, after writing that guide however, it seems that perhaps "Restore session in new window" might be better language for that menu item. Or maybe that guide on how sessions work will give someone an idea for better wording if they want to submit a request for that.
A few core points to understand include:
- All browser windows and the tabs they contain are part of the same session -- different windows are not separate sessions, regardless of how they were created.
- Saved Sessions only exist on-disk, and currently cannot be updated. They provide users with the ability to restore a historical snapshot of the browser's prior state.
- When a saved session is restored its contents become a part of the single current session, and the restored tab(s) as well as any additional windows do not retain any association with the saved session.
There is a bug (or bugs) here, with pinned tabs getting moved to another window when the user tries to close the window containing a pinned tab. This isn't, however, in any way related to sessions, saved or otherwise. Part of the reason for your old bug being closed as invalid might have been due to a misunderstanding about this.
Going forward, I see two issues, though the first might be by design.
First, there is the fact that pinned tabs will move to another window when the containing window is closed regardless of the how the close option is set for pinned tabs. Personally, I would think that it gets moved if pinned tabs are set to not be closed, and simply close with the window otherwise.
Second, there is the issue that this move happens before the positive confirmation to close the window, and therefore can occur even if the user doesn't actually close the window. If the user has the close window confirmation enabled, the tab gets moved when the close window action is invoked (e.g. via the X button), but the user can cancel that close operation still yet the tab has already been moved to another window. This is clearly a bug.
I'm fairly certain no one has reported the second issue. If someone has, let me know, otherwise I'll report it tomorrow.
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@BoneTone said in Closing saved session multiplies pinned tabs in regular session:
But the user would be wrong, leading to the misunderstandings we're discussing about what sessions are and how they work. I'm not being pedantic about terminology, it's an important distinction that users need to understand
....Saved Sessions only exist on-disk, and currently cannot be updated. They provide users with the ability to restore a historical snapshot of the browser's prior state.
Quite a long reply this time. I think that this is a conflict between terminology with its application, and functionality. What users have been explaining is that the functionality is less than optimal. In fact, to a certain extant it is bad. Focusing on whether sessions operate correctly from a terminology viewpoint misses the point. and for users that point is all that matters. If vivaldi is expecting people who aren't browser designers to be using the browser (and I believe the do) then user expectations, usability, elegance, are all that matter. Technically correct use of terminology is irrelevant. The productive response is to change how sessions function or perhaps simply remove the sessions function if it can't be made to operate in a way that users expect. The goal is to make users happy.
Closing a "saved session window" from the taskbar dropdown causes the window to close without moving pinned tabs to the already open window (as explained in early posts). Only closing the window with the upper right X produces multiple pinned tabs. This indicates that the problem can be solved with attention to programming and is clearly either a bug or a very bizarre design choice..
The saved session is only bringing back a Selected part of the browser's prior state: whatever tabs were saved for 'saved session'. An argument can be made that opening the saved session in a new window shouldn't open the pinned tabs at all, since that weren't saved as the 'saved session'. In addition, the inability to more elegantly update the saved session (either by option to 'update session' or offer the existing session name as 'new' saved session name, overwriting the previous, or, some other way, is another indication that this was a good idea that didn't get the development that it deserved before it was released.
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@BoneTone said in Closing saved session multiplies pinned tabs in regular session:
Second, there is the issue that this move happens before the positive confirmation to close the window, and therefore can occur even if the user doesn't actually close the window. If the user has the close window confirmation enabled, the tab gets moved when the close window action is invoked (e.g. via the X button), but the user can cancel that close operation still yet the tab has already been moved to another window. This is clearly a bug.
I'm fairly certain no one has reported the second issue. If someone has, let me know, otherwise I'll report it tomorrow.
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@BoneTone ok OK, terminology issue. I should have said "when you close the window in which you opened the saved session".
To a confused user, this difference isn't significant: the behaviour is completely counterintuitive (you can save a session with pinned tabs in it, and when you reopen it those pinned tabs will be there). But if you happen to close that window using the top right X, the pinned tabs - still present in the saved session - move to some other window you happen to have open. And it's a royal pain to have to unpin and delete those. This is utterly poor behaviour compared to Edge's collections now, that should be a major worry and I really think V should be putting some time into this.
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