System Information
Operating system: Windows-10-10.0.18362-SP0 64 Bits
Graphics card: GeForce GTX 1050/PCIe/SSE2 NVIDIA Corporation 4.5.0 NVIDIA 456.71

Blender Version
Broken: version: 2.92.0 Alpha, branch: master, commit date: 2020-11-12 09:12, hash: rBfb4113defb46
Worked: 2.91.0 beta and before

Short description of error
In earlier versions, the Properties editor always "remembered" the currently selected tab, so for example if the Physics tab was selected, switching to another object (e.g. in the outliner) would show the physics tab for that new object, and similarly for other tabs in common such as Material. This was true even if the area was switched to a different editor then back to the properties editor, making comparisons and working with multiple objects very quick and easy. However, in the latest 2.92.0 alpha, the editor always resets to the Object Properties tab, both when switching to another object and when changing to another editor and back. This is extremely frustrating, e.g. when working on multiple objects in the Rigid Body or Fluid domain, since you have to switch back to the appropriate tab every time you change between objects.

Could this be an accidental side-effect of the new Display Filter facility? (I am reporting another issue with this separately).

I'm guessing this is an introduced bug, but if it is intended behaviour instead, I'd be grateful for advice on how to provide feedback to the devs, as I think it will have a very negative impact on productivity. I did find the "UI papercuts" forum but that seems to be inactive.

Exact steps for others to reproduce the error

1. Open Blender 2.92.0 with the default general scene, and the standard layout workspace showing the Outliner and Properties editor areas.
2. In the Outliner, click the Cube object to select it and show its properties in the properties editor, with the Object properties tab selected by default.
3. In the Properties editor, click the Physics properties tab (or any other common tab such as constraints or textures) to display physics properties
4. Back in the Outliner, click the Light object to select it
5. Notice that in the Properties editor, the Light object is now shown but the tab has been reset to the Object properties tab. In version 2.91 and earlier, the Physics tab would have remained selected and would now show the Physics properties for the camera (or whatever other object had been selected). See screenshots below.

Thanks, Ross

These screenshots show 2.91 preserving the selected tab after switching objects, but 2.92 always resetting the tab to the Object properties.