Since it seems to be on a ‘weird‘ theme tonight I thought I would post this. The other night I had this comment from AI in regards to the Firefox 2.0: Close Tab Buttons post:

i did this tweak before and could see all the closebuttons even when tabs weren’t in focus. but they suddenly disappeared today . I checked about:config and the value is set to 1 by default. Is it possible to get these buttons to show without rollover action?

At first I thought may be it was a theme/extension conflict. So I changed the browser.tabs.closeButtons entry in about:config from ‘0’ to ‘1’ and noticed something different. With this setting the close tab button is ‘greyed’ out on inactive tabs until the tab is brought active or you rollover the button.

So at first I thought this was something new with Fx 2.0.0.4 as I could have sworn when 2.0.0.0 came out last October, if you had a close tab button on each tab it was red regardless if the tab was active or not. So test my theory I downloaded, installed and ran on a fresh profile Fx 2.0.0.3. Hmm same thing okay may be it was new with that build so then I tried 2.0.0.2. How odd same behavior okay I tried 2.0.0.1 and what do ya know inactive tab grey close tab button. Now wait, am I going crazy? So I did the same with Fx 2.0.0.0 and wait…this cain’t be right? Inactive tab grey close tab button, turns red when hover over or made active.

Again, I could have sworn when 2.0.0.0 came out the button was red regardless if the tab was active or not. Or was it? I posted this over at CyberNet News Forum (Fx 2 Close Tab Button Behaviour Change) and based on the response there everyone seems to think this is a new feature. But normally a ‘new feature’ is not retroactive through the entire branch (Fx 2.0.0.X). My only theory is the Default Firefox Theme was changed at some point, which would explain why this behavior exists in all builds on the Fx 2.0.0.X branch.

Well this is very weird as well.  Anyone else got any theories or better yet a documented answer? I tired looking through the mozillaZine forums last night, but mainly kept finding post about people wanting the close tab button at the end of the bar.