An option to disable the "mute tab" button
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devilears last edited by
Sorry but you didn't say anything valid so far. Saying that such option should be implemented just because >other browser has it is not a valid argument.
As mentioned, if you read my comments, Opera had the option to disable this annoying mute button on the tab.
Not other browsers, Opera. I even gave you the version numbers.
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devilears last edited by
Description:
I click on a tab to switch to that tab. Meanwhile, that tab has media playing and the media is now muted. One click does two things because of a mute button appearing on the tab.My objective is to switch tabs, or do other tab-related operations. Contrary to user expectation, media that is contained on the page is now muted.
Steps to reproduce:
- A broswer has various tabs open, of which one is playing media.
- Click on the tab that is playing media.
- Hear the media mute.
Atual result:
The tab switches as expected, but contrary to user expectation, the media is also muted. A mute button appears out of nowhere when the mouse hovers on the tab, and users can't help but click on this mute button.There is no way to disable the mute button that is on the tabs. There used to be one in Opera. There is no longer such an option, so you cannot choose not to use this annoying mute button.
Expected result:
A setting under Options to disable the mute button that appears on tabs.Heuristic evaluation:
All media related settings should ideally be grouped together in the same logical place, while all tab related settings should ideally be grouped together in a similar logical place too. This is why it is sloppy user interface design to put a media-related control like a mute button on a tab. The logical place for a mute button would be with other media related buttons (pause, play, skip, volume - hey, actually not the kind of thing a browser should be doing in the first place), while tab-related settings are expected to appear on the tab.This is why it's a good idea to put an X on the tab, for closing the tab. This is a tab-related setting. Or putting a new tab button on the side of the tabs where the new tab is expeted to appear. Also a tab-related setting. Or putting a pin tab option in the right click context menu, but there's no sane reason why a mute button, which is not even a tab related setting, should enjoy preference over any tab-related option on a tab.
Furthermore, Nielsen's heuristics offer the suggestion that user control and freedom are paramount. It's perhaps a good idea to read over Nielsen's heuristics before putting something unexpected like a mute button on a tab, and then making it do surprising things when in reality all that could be argued for is a system status notification there. For example, showing which tab is making the noise is a good idea. Making it suddenly change into a button when the mouse hovers over it and then mixing in media controls with tab controls breaks so many common sense user interface guidelines that the person who implemented this feature creep was clearly acting on a limb.
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devilears last edited by
It doesn't matter. The issue is 100% reproducible, I have made my case for why this should be an option that gives user control over the behaviour of their own browsers.
Now you want to get petty over what is a bug, and what is not. Please stick to the topic, namely a feature/bug that users want resolved, and let's not get philosophical about your understanding of what constitutes a bug.
Software not behaving according to user expectation is a bug. You may disagree about that, but you are still stuck with a browser that isn't behaving according to user expectation.
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devilears last edited by
This issue was first identified in the developer preview of Opera. I made Opera aware of it then, and noted that it isn't present in the official release. I asked nicely, please don't break your browser further and don't let this slip into the official stream.
Note that this is an issue to your users. You wax lyrical over whether it is a bug or not at your own peril.
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garyallan last edited byleo you say "personal opinion or preferences don't matter for them to decide if something will be implemented or not. you need to show why implementing what you want may be useful and good for the users and not just for you". But the whole reason for continued development is to satisfy the personal preferences of users, so that they will continue to use Opera, or whatever product, and not switch to a replacement. devilears has taken the time to point out something he considers important; most users of a product will not bother and will simply seek out something more suitable. His persistence marks him as representative of a group Opera's developers ought to take seriously.
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leocg Moderator Volunteer last edited by
ut the whole reason for continued development is to satisfy the personal preferences of users, so that they will continue to use Opera, or whatever product
Well, in part it may be true but it's also true that a company can't simply add everything its users ask without carefully analyzing if it's something worth to implement. And well-founded user cases can help showing them that the feature/option/change/whatever may be worth implementing.
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devilears last edited by
Perhaps you have missed the use case I sketched out above, which I specifically bothered with to conform to the requirements listed elsewhere on the forum as to how new features should be brought to the attention of Opera developers.
I agree that a company cant' simply add everything its users ask, but it is worth noting that users who come to Opera have a wide range of other options. What sets Opera apart from the other options? To me, it is not different features. I specifically switched to Opera from Firefox because Firefox also took away configuration settings, which I was using at the time.
Again, someone developed the options away. There was an option to remove the mute tab button. Perhaps it was not intended, but it worked, and it stopped working at some point in a developer version. I was enjoying the developer previews, despite them not always being ready for release. I imagine that the purpose of the developer previews is to make your lives easier, since users can bring things to your attention before you roll out featuritis in official releases.
I maintain that users should have options and there's no conceivable reason why someone would develop away a configuration setting.
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devilears last edited by
I still do not have the option to disable the mute button on a tab in Opera 45.
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devilears last edited by
Too bad as I really want to use Opera as my main browser but I can't because the mute button keeps muting content when I don't want it to be muted.
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devilears last edited by
So besides bringing this to the attention in as far as I am aware is the proper way to do it, what else can I do to request that user configuration settings that were once there and working return to Opera again?
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leocg Moderator Volunteer last edited by
what else can I do to request that user configuration settings that were once there and working return to Opera again?
Nothing much, maybe do a comment on Desktop Team blog explaining the reasons why there should be such option. However, like happens with any requests, there aren't any guarantees that they will implement it.
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A Former User last edited by
Why is it desirable to have more than one tab sounding at the same time?
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devilears last edited by
I'm still struggling to understand why it is desirable to have a mute button on a tab.
If you have for example a video playing on Facebook and Youtube on separate tabs, it makes sense to notify the user of the tabs that have audio playing. If they ant to stop that audio, they can right click and mute the tab.
My request is merely to keep everyone happy: Do you want to use the mute button? Fine. Use it. Do you struggle to make sense of a mute button? Then just disable it, which is something that is allowed by the underlying chrome engine.
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A Former User last edited by
I prevent media from autostarting, so I have no need for a mute button.
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devilears last edited by
I prevent media from autostarting, so I have no need for a mute button.
That solves a different problem, though. My use case is there is already media playing on a tab. I often put a Youtube video on or a podcast or something to listen to the audio while I do something else. Then, when I switch back to the tab with media playing on it by clicking on it, the audio gets muted with a magic mute button that appears out of nowhere.
There used to be a way to disable this magic mute button. Chrome still has this option, which is why I'm currently using Chrome as my main browser. I have to dig in the flags section and disable the enable-tab-audio-muting flag, but it does work to keep my audio going.
This exact flag setting used to be available in Opera, and I would just like the option back.
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devilears last edited by
I just hover my mouse cursor over the tab with the audio and I click. There is suddenly a mute button that mutes the tab.
On Chrome, the offending tabs always display the mute button. So I can see them and I don't click on them. Also, I can disable them, so even if I do click on them, they relay information, but they don't interfere with the media on the tab.
The sides are switched, on Chrome they are on the right hand side. On Opera, they appear on the left hand side of the tab. Not that this matters, but I'm just assuming someone went through a lot of trouble to make things on Opera different than what they already get with the Chrome engine.
I just saw now that I can install older versions of Opera from the FTP site. I would prefer using the latest and greatest versions, but if that is what it takes, I recall that there was an Opera version without the featuritis that just did its job. Even the developer versions were working. I'll see what that version was and then just disable updates so I can disable this mute button.
