Ctrl-tab Release Ctrl-tab -- should return to prior tab
Darrell Bircsak
then hit Ctrl-tab again to go back to the prior tabbed page you were
just at. Visual Studio does this quite well and it's a nice feature
to have!
I beg of you. I love Ctrl-tab Ctrl-tabbing back and forth between two
pages.
Thanks!
Darrell
Mike Beltzner
> I beg of you. I love Ctrl-tab Ctrl-tabbing back and forth between two
> pages.
You don't need to beg. There's been plenty of discussion and desire
for a "previous tab" shortcut and better keyboard navigation for tabs
in general.
If you want to discuss this issue, I'd urge you to start a thread
that collects all the existing tab navigation shortcuts and tries to
fit your new function into that framework. From there we can move on
to filing bugs and making the change.
Someone gave people the impression that this is a wishlist newsgroup.
That's mozilla.feedback. People in here should be discussing ideas
for how to implement change, be that in the form of a new UI design,
new APIs, etc. :)
cheers,
mike
Simon Bünzli
Mike Beltzner
which I must admit I, too, have been yearning for (see https://
bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=345684)
Looking at our existing tab navigation shortcuts:
Next Tab:
- Ctrl+Tab (all)
- Cmd+Opt+Right (osx)
- Ctrl+PgDn (windows/linux)
Previous Tab:
- Ctrl+Shift+Tab (all)
- Cmd+Opt+Shift+Left (osx)
- Ctrl+PgUp (windows/linux)
First Tab:
- Ctrl + 1 (windows)
- Cmd + 1 (osx)
- Alt + 1 (linux)
Last Tab:
- Ctrl + 9 (windows)
- Cmd + 9 (osx)
- Alt + 9 (linux)
There are a couple of options that I see here:
A: Make Ctrl+Tab act like OS-level application switchers
We maintain an ordering of "most recently viewed tabs" and Ctrl+Tab/
Shift-Tab cycles through that list. Bonus points for adding some
overlay graphic with the name (and favicon or preview image) of the
tab that would be switched to when the keyboard shortcut is released.
B: Add a shortcut for "previous tab"
Some options here are using Ctrl/Cmd/Alt+0 (and replacing the "Zoom -
Normal" shortcut with something else) or Ctrl+`
It also feels to me like we can simplify some of our existing
shortcuts for tab management, but before we get into that, I wanted
to see if anyone else had other alternative proposals?
cheers,
mike
Simon Bünzli
> A: Make Ctrl+Tab act like OS-level application switchers
Please don't consider doing that without requiring some visual aid as to
the current tab order (so that you can quickly tell where hitting
Ctrl+Tab three times takes you).
Furthermore most MDI apps I've tested react to Ctrl+Tab the way Firefox
currently does (and per consequence I never got quite used to the one
which didn't).
Also note that Ctrl+PgDn isn't currently a full fledged replacement for
Ctrl+Tab (hitting it while inside an autocomplete textbox will open the
dropdown instead of switching tabs), so there'd not even be no real
alternative for people preferring the current solution.
> Some options here are using Ctrl/Cmd/Alt+0 (and replacing the "Zoom -
> Normal" shortcut with something else) or Ctrl+`
Please stick to the safer bits of the keyboard - Ctrl+` remains a dead
character on mine; unless you mean the key to the left of [1] and are
actually able to react to the physical key rather than the virtual
character associated with it.
> anyone else had other alternative proposals?
What about Ctrl/Cmd/Alt+, (or whatever they use on the Mac for in-app
window cycling)?
Cheers,
Simon
Mike Beltzner
> Mike Beltzner schrieb am 04.06.07 23:23:
>> A: Make Ctrl+Tab act like OS-level application switchers
>
> Please don't consider doing that without requiring some visual aid
> as to
> the current tab order (so that you can quickly tell where hitting
> Ctrl+Tab three times takes you).
I was pretty sure that I mentioned that, too, yes. :)
> Furthermore most MDI apps I've tested react to Ctrl+Tab the way
> Firefox
> currently does (and per consequence I never got quite used to the one
> which didn't).
I don't think we need to worry about the overlap of the majority of
our audience and the number of users who are used to MDI, but it's a
good point, and likely the reason why our current Ctrl+Tab
implementation is the way it is.
(For the record, I'm not sure that I have a preference here, I'm
just, at this point, interested in exploring the space).
> Also note that Ctrl+PgDn isn't currently a full fledged replacement
> for
> Ctrl+Tab (hitting it while inside an autocomplete textbox will open
> the
> dropdown instead of switching tabs), so there'd not even be no real
> alternative for people preferring the current solution.
>
>> Some options here are using Ctrl/Cmd/Alt+0 (and replacing the "Zoom -
>> Normal" shortcut with something else) or Ctrl+`
>
> Please stick to the safer bits of the keyboard - Ctrl+` remains a dead
> character on mine; unless you mean the key to the left of [1] and are
> actually able to react to the physical key rather than the virtual
> character associated with it.
Good point; I forgot that there was also some significant l10n issue
here. Thanks for bringing it up.
>> anyone else had other alternative proposals?
>
> What about Ctrl/Cmd/Alt+, (or whatever they use on the Mac for in-app
> window cycling)?
Well, those are used for in-app window cycling. Don't forget that
there can be more than one Firefox window as well :)
cheers,
mike
Thomas Stache
Check out the "LastTab" extension here
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/112
From the ID it seems it is one of the oldest addons around the Mozilla
Addons site.
Gervase Markham
> A: Make Ctrl+Tab act like OS-level application switchers
>
> We maintain an ordering of "most recently viewed tabs" and
> tab that would be switched to when the keyboard shortcut is released.
I support this. Currently, I rarely use Ctrl-Tab for switching tabs
because it doesn't work like the Windows version. A neat dialog which
showed a horizontal list of five page thumbnails, which scrolled under
you (with new ones added on the end and old ones falling off) as you
repeatedly hit Tab would be good. You would have favicons and shortened
titles too.
(The Windows version just expands the dialog to include icons for every
app. But I think a non-expandable version is worth looking into.)
> B: Add a shortcut for "previous tab"
The problem with adding a new shortcut is that Ctrl-Shift-Tab is wired
into people's fingers for this function.
Gerv
dolphinling
> Darrell Bircsak suggested adding a shortcut for "go to previous tab",
> which I must admit I, too, have been yearning for (see
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=345684)
>
>
> There are a couple of options that I see here:
>
> A: Make Ctrl+Tab act like OS-level application switchers
>
> We maintain an ordering of "most recently viewed tabs" and
> tab that would be switched to when the keyboard shortcut is released.
I don't like this. There are several differences between Firefox and OS-level
app switchers:
1) No two tabs are visible at once. If you have two windows open side-by-side
and want to switch focus between them, your eyes move before your hands do, and
you're ready start working the moment the focus switches. Having to cycle
through something else is a big distraction, especially if it becomes visible
and interrupts your flow. With tabs, your eyes can't already be ready, your
workflow is already slightly interrupted, so cycling through an extra tab or two
doesn't cause as much of a problem.
2) Tabs have a single, consistent location, and no two tabs share a location.
With windows, tabbing left-to-right is impossible--they're all over the place,
up and down, over one another, even sharing the same exact space. No visual
ordering is possible. With tabs, there's a very obvious visual order that we're
constantly reminded of and can see with a glance, and "tab A is three before tab
B" is something that, if you don't know it already, you can tell with a glance.
(Not sure how this is with overflow, though, since I have my prefs set to let
tabs get very small, so I never see overflow.)
3) Tabs come into and out of existence more often than windows, and oftentimes
aren't used right away. Somewhat common scenario for me: I read slashdot, open a
few interesting links in the background, then read them all in order of how
interested I am. If I'm reading them out of order, then by the time I get to the
second one, the computer has no idea of what I want and I have no idea of what
I've done (because I haven't been keeping track). With an OS-type switcher, the
computer will probably try to send me back to the tab I just read, and then
perhaps back to the original slashdot tab, when I really wanted to read one I
hadn't got to yet! In fact, this will hold true even if I don't read them in
random order. Also, the same will happen when I open a bookmarked group of tabs
(very common for me).
To sum up that last part, new windows you almost always want to use right away
and almost never come in groups, so fitting them into an OS-type switcher is
easy. New tabs you often don't want to use right away and often do come in
groups, so fitting them into an OS-type switcher (and our mental model of it) is
harder.
> B: Add a shortcut for "previous tab"
>
> Some options here are using Ctrl/Cmd/Alt+0 (and replacing the "Zoom -
> Normal" shortcut with something else) or Ctrl+`
I wonder how frequently used Ctrl-2 through Ctrl-8 are? My intuition says
"never", and Ctrl-2 is easier to reach and more localizable than Ctrl-`
C: Pref it. This seems like something that's small enough and makes a big enough
difference to enough people that it justifies a hidden pref.
--
dolphinling
<http://dolphinling.net/>
Mikel Ward
> Please make it so that you can hit Ctrl-tab... release the keys...
> then hit Ctrl-tab again to go back to the prior tabbed page you were
> just at.
My Firefox already does this. Perhaps it's because I'm using the
LastTab addon (I assumed it was standard behavior).
John Bird
right in the tabs is good, and should be kept as is.
But it is a good idea to also have a tab history - other software packages I
use (eg multi-tab editors such as Edit-Plus I use) have a hotkey to jump to
the last selected tab. This would be a cool addition. Edit-Plus uses F12,
as well as Ctrl+Tab to go to the next right one - so has best of both
worlds. Even if it only jumps back and forwards between the last selected
tab and this tab it is still really useful (ie only stores a list of two
tabs).
If you think about it, we have a forward and back arrow for history on each
individual page, to take us to next and previous pages....so it sort of
extends that.
Firefox encourages opening links in tabs more and more, and many users in
general tend to open links in new tabs, so if I am in the middle of a set of
tabs, open a link in a new tab (which opens to the right of all existing
tabs), then want to go back to the original tab - it's a long way away. A
quick way to jump back to that tab would be great. It's a simple useability
issue.
How to implement? A couple of ideas:
1 - the drop arrow on the previous pages buttons could have a new option
"Previous Tab"
2 - Use some safe function key, unused at present, eg F12 (That's what
Edit-Plus uses).
A worthwhile addition IMHO. Any other opinions on a good key sequence to
use?
John
John Bird
say it is now better than the V2 (Bon Echo) nightly builds.
1 - Memory use and CPU use is still an issue, and I really think you do need
some indicators what is chewing up memory and CPU sometimes. If I open a
set of 48 tabs - a mixture of typical news and techo sites, Firefox
(Minefield) is using under 100MB memory at first. Good! And it loads fast
too! Once I have switched tabs a few times, and opened and closed a few
more tabs, and done general browsing, the memory use climbs and never goes
down. After a few hours, it can be over 500MB. I reopen it daily with the
updates, not a problem for me, but it won't be acceptable to general users
to have to close the browser and reopen everything regularly.
2 - I would love a button to tell Firefox to "stop everything else and just
process this tab". (ie a Stop button that stopped all pages other than the
current), and just process the current tab. Sometimes Firefox does start to
chew CPU for many seconds and seems to freeze up. I suspect its lots of
the ads and flash animation on other tabs that is grabbing all of the FF
processing. Or a button to stop everything (and I can press the Refresh
button for just this page then).
3 - I like the bookmarks changes...I presume this has places stuff in it
now. Bookmarks sorted by name no longer puts folders at the top, they are
sorted amongst the other links. This is OK, I presume it is an intended
change. If I import bookmarks twice, I get duplicates of everything to my
surprise - no duplicates checking. OK my goof, but I won't be the last to
do that! Don't ask how long it took to clean out the duplicates! (There is
no way to do that except the slow way manually!).
4 - The bookmarks sidebar has a lot more functionality than the Bookmarks
menu. But I don't tend to use it as turning it on resizes the web page into
a smaller area. Maybe check with other users - could we have the sidebar
functionality as a drop down window or not forcing the web page to resize?
5 - Some miscellaneous bugs I have noticed now and then:
5a - If I clear all private data and check the history is gone (Alt+S), and
type in a name of a previously visited web site it pops up again in the
autocompletion. I am not going mad, I have seen this many times.
Sometimes, not often, but enough to know the delete has not deleted.
5b - On a web site I will click a button or link, and nothing happens. The
link or button now has focus, but I can tell Firefox has lost the click as
the progress bar graph hasn't appeared. Sometimes again, not often, but I
am not imagining it. I reckon the button event is lost because of timing
issues.
5c - I almost always open links in a new tab, either by Ctrl+Click or Right
click and selecting "open in new tab". If the right click menu has "Open in
new tab" at the top of the menu and not second this would be a huge
improvement for me! (I saw this mentioned as a possible change).
5d - Once 40-50 tabs are open, and after a few hours of browsing, closing a
tab with Ctrl+W can take a very long time - 5 seconds each with the CPU
usage on 100% in Firefox for all that time. I would love a way to select a
group of tabs and then say "Close selected tabs".
5e - One of the nightly builds turned off the option I had to "warn when
closing multiple tabs". So I went to close them, and lost the whole lot,
and restarting Firefox did not offer to reopen them. And the only reason I
hit the close button was so I could count how many tabs I had open. So how
about a safer way to count open tabs?
John
Dão
> Mike Beltzner schrieb am 04.06.07 23:23:
>> A: Make Ctrl+Tab act like OS-level application switchers
>
> Please don't consider doing that without requiring some visual aid as to
> the current tab order (so that you can quickly tell where hitting
> Ctrl+Tab three times takes you).
I've put together a prototype for this:
http://en.design-noir.de/mozilla/ctrl-tab/
I'm using it on Windows with a trunk build - It *should* work on Linux
and OS X as well.
Dao
Tony Mechelynck
[...]
> C: Pref it. This seems like something that's small enough and makes a
> big enough difference to enough people that it justifies a hidden pref.
>
The problem with a hidden pref for a key is that it is an _integer_ pref,
representing the "Mozilla keycode" for the key or keychord, and those keycodes
are not the kind of thing that is easily remembered. With a visible pref, you
can have a few checkboxes and an input box, maybe something like
[ ] Shift [x] Ctrl [ ] Alt [_2_]
and have the UI do the conversion. But is it worth having this pref visible
out of the box in plain-vanilla Firefox (i.e. with no extensions)?
Best regards,
Tony.
--
Alas, I am dying beyond my means.
-- Oscar Wilde, as he sipped champagne on his deathbed