Inconsistent behaviour of command-click (or control-click) when opening new tabs

[Stuart Cook]

In Firefox, the "normal" way to open a link in a new tab is to
middle-click on it. On systems without a middle mouse button (e.g. many
laptops) this is impossible, so the replacement gesture is to instead
control-click or command-click, depending on platform.

The problem is that there is a crucial difference between a true
middle-click and a simulated middle-click. Normally pages can listen for
middle-click events, but cannot prevent their default behaviour. This
means that a true middle-click will always open a link in a new
background tab. However, command-clicks don't get this special
treatment, and consequently pages can and do prevent the click from
having its usual effect, frustrating user expectations.

This is not just a theoretical concern. Gmail, for example, prevents the
default behaviour of command-clicks, and instead opens the selected link
in a new *foreground* tab. This makes it impossible to quickly open
several links from a single message.

What I find strange is that on OS X, the equivalent gesture for
simulating a right-click (using a control-click) does not suffer from
the same problem. In fact, pages always see an OS X control-click as
though it were a true right click, so they are unable to treat the two
differently.

Is this something that should be fixed? I know that I personally find it
very irritating.

TL;DR: Command-click sometimes works like a real middle-click, and
sometimes doesn't. The two should always be the same.

[Asa Dotzler]

Stuart Cook wrote:
> TL;DR: Command-click sometimes works like a real middle-click, and
> sometimes doesn't. The two should always be the same.

Hi Stuart. This sounds like a bug. Can you report it to Bugzilla?
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi

- A

[Stuart Cook]

On 20/08/11 5:26 PM, Asa Dotzler wrote:
> Hi Stuart. This sounds like a bug. Can you report it to Bugzilla?
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi

No problem. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=572662

Not sure if it's tagged properly though. At one point I was thinking of
taking the time to fix it myself, but I didn't know if a fix would be
accepted.

For reference, Safari and Chrome currently do the same thing as FF, so
it's not a parity issue.

[Asa Dotzler]

Thanks, Stuart. I've tried to find a better home for it. As you noted,
it's something that all browsers do and it may not be anything we can
fix without breaking websites. I'll let the experts say more.

- A