Opera Tip: Prevent tabs from stealing focus
26 CommentsPublished May 9th, 2007 4:20 PM EDT By Daniel Goldman
Problem:
Occasionally when opening new tabs in the background (by clicking a link with the mouse wheel, for example), some new tabs will steal the focus and pop-up to the front. This behavior can be disruptive.
Solution:
Opera gives you the power to block new tabs from stealing the focus. Use this option with caution, as some web applications rely on the ability to raise tabs into focus.
In the menu bar, go to Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Content > JavaScript Options, uncheck the following option: “Allow raising of windows.”
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Thanks for posting this! I’d run into the problem occasionally, and somehow got it in my head that it was tied to pop-up-blocking notification in background tabs. (The old correlation/causation thing.)
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This happens to me all the time but didn’t used to with previous versions, but the last two have given me this problem.
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That tip? Is *made* of awesome – have implemented it.
much thanks!
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I’m glad to hear that this tip has been useful.
I was thinking of perhaps posting a tip every week or so. If the feedback is positive, I’ll continue this.
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Yay! Now Gmail stays where I put it even when it’s reloading something! This is the best tip for anything that I have read in a long time. Thanks so much! I would love to see a weekly tip – the only problem is you’ve already set the bar so high with this one that any future tips would have a lot to live up to.
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How is the default behavior of Raising and Lowering windows in IE or Firefox? Opera should consider unchecking this behavior by default, as a lot of users may not search the My Opera forums or Opera Watch. At the very least, this should be made a site-specific setting, and Gmail should be unchecked by default, as this is the most annoying offender.
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Thanks! Always annoys me when Gmail does that
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Wow! I’ve been using Opera for years and thought I knew pretty much every single tip and trick but here I am delightfully proven wrong
Yes indeed continue to weekly post tips and tricks Daniel, it’s great!
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I am amazed no one knows this, it has been a feature of opera for years!!!
*** please *** goto to the forums, and do a search, guys!!!!
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/search.dml
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No need to be so incredulous, Illiad. While our forum search is powerful indeed, it’s not really the ideal way for Opera users (especially non-technical ones) to learn about features they never used before or even heard of.
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well, um, it is the usual method, and the most often said thing, when people ask simple questions….
So how would new users find about features?? (puts on ‘I am a newbie’ hat..)
- click to get past the rather pointless dowload screen.. (yes, it is help I need, not *another* download…)
- find the link for ‘features’..
- look through all the big features..
- find some thing that says ‘pop-ups’ – huh?? no link???
Yes! I know the support button at the top, I am now at the bottom of the page, giving up..
- If a nice, large button was on the first page, saying, eg,
“new here? try our Knowledge base & Faq!!” = hotlinked to each, it would be better…
Maybe you should talk to the webmasters, about why the opera homepage is not as easy to use as
http://www.mozilla.org or http://www.mozilla.com ??? – one click to get to support, then direct links to full documentation, forums, FAQs…
when will opera get this simple and easy approach??
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I tried putting “steal the focus and pop-up to the front” into the ’support search’ KB – lots of results, but not much sense…
but hey, the Moz KB did not do any better….
lawmune: you say “it’s not really the ideal way” ??? I wonder what you are talking about, when any other way gets no understandable answers…
Others: try my search link above, and use the same phase, you will get many answers..
Ah!! I found one of the strange things!! If the ” are included, there are no results!! (new bug??)
- it does work without the ” though..
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We are certainly working on improving the helpfulness of Opera’s webpages, and your feedback is well-taken.
If, by doing that, we can reduce the frequency of sending new users to do forum searches to get the info they need, I would consider that a great success.
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Illiad: I think we are talking about different things.
One “other way” that people can learn about this particular feature is this blog post we’re commenting on. Opera Watch has a lot of readers, and I think it’s great that tips like these are shared here, and hopefully others will share Opera tips on their blogs as well. It great for awareness building.
Having tips offered to new users upon first use of Opera and at other points along the way is another option.
The situation you bring up, which is perfectly valid but not always applicable, is when someone views the default behavior as a problem and is actively looking for an answer (with the presumption that there is one). In that case, they can do one of at least two things: ask on the forums, or do a forum search.
Not everyone who uses the web knows what a forum is, and some who do are unfamiliar with searching them, so asking a simple question seems like a pretty normal thing to do. I’m generally in favor of people simply answering the question instead of telling the person they should have just done a forum search. Politely telling them how to search the forums can be tacked on at the end.
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nope, I’m afraid you are still missing the point… It is ok talking to people that have no problem using PCs, and have the courage to try things… but the market opera should be looking at, is those that find it very difficult to handle!!
– a lot of people I have tried to convert just cannot see why it should be so complex, they find it very difficult just trying to understand the ‘PC slang’ , and this does not help their confidence, when other sites are far more helpful!! (eg it takes 3 steps to find not much info!!)
- a lot of these would never think of wasting time on a forum or blog(yes, some people DO ‘have a life’!!), and even if they have heard of ‘blogging’, they would be scared away by thought of even worse ‘martian’ !!!
That would seem to be why FF gets the custom – It gets straight to the point, most of the common problems on the second page you see…
- And to repeat again, I want OPERA to do this! – and not be showed the way, (again) by others….
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I must indeed be missing your point, as there seems to be a communications breakdown in terms of what we’re actually discussing here. If you’d like to continue this conversation so we can get on the same wavelength, please feel free to contact me by email or via private message on MyOpera.
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Have known about this ever since it existed. How? I go over all prefs every time I make a new install of a browser (except IE).
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I would just like to note that for Mac users, it’s Opera > Preferences > Advanced > Content > JavaScript Options
Thanks.
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Btw, Daniel, I noticed that you’re using Opera 9.50. Is that the soon-to-be-released one?
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Md Hasli, we are working on Opera 9.50.
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This tip did not work for me, new tabs still steal the focus??? Win XP SP2 Any ideas? Thanks in advance
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I found that by holding down BOTH the Ctrl AND the Shift keys while clicking a link opens the new tab without stealing focus from the current tab but there should be a way to do this using only one key like in FireFox and IE7. Anybody know of a way? Thank you.
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have you tried the tip from ‘Md Hasli’ ??
have you not noticed ‘middle click’ ?? – If you still have an **ancient** two button mouse, it is worth getting a ’scrollmouse’! (push down on the scroll!)
and dont be afraid to do what ‘Grey’ does!!
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oh yes, check Opera > Preferences > Advanced > shortcuts!
for further help you can search the forum!
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/search.dml
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Illiad,
thanks for that tip, I am aware of the middle mouse button but this is on a laptop with only two buttons. I can live with holding down BOTH the Ctrl and Shift keys while clicking but this is a no brainer and should require only ONE button be held, not life threatening obviously, but a big faux pas in the design IMHO. Thanks again for the reply.
Charlie
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check Opera > Preferences > Advanced > shortcuts!
for further help you can search the forum!
my.opera.com/community/forums/search.dml