How to open links from the context menu in a new tab?
18 CommentsPublished July 31st, 2007 5:19 PM EDT By Daniel Goldman
Occasionally, you’ll see a URL address in plain text without the actual link, for example: www.operawatch.com (notice how you can’t click on the address).
If you select the link and right-click, the context menu will show. One of the options in the context menu is ‘Go to URL’. Clicking on ‘Go to URL’ will open the webpage of the selected text in the current tab.
So how do you open the webpage in a new tab?
Here’s the trick, simply hold down the SHIFT button while clicking ‘Go to URL’. If you hold CTRL+SHIFT, the new tab will open in the background.
This trick also works for other options in the context menu, such as ‘Dictionary’, ‘Encyclopedia’, ‘Search’, ‘Search with’ and ‘Translate’.
(Thanks to John Beamish for the tip)
(Hold down SHIFT while clicking — Opera’s context menu)
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Also works on submit form buttons! Useful when you watch a video on Youtube, suddenly think about something to search but don’t want to wait for the end of the video, on fear of forgetting it…
The only thing that annoys me is that the new tab takes the focus…
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Romain, that’s neat. I’ll put that in another post — it’s that great.
Btw, if you hold down CTRL+SHIFT, it will open in another tab in the background.
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Aahh, I’m not annoyed anymore! Thanks a lot!
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This is one of my most used features in Opera.
I was so happy when I saw it implemented because I very often copy+pasted URLs into the address bar, once we had that it was a joke!
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errr this thing works everywhere! not just context menu.
For example : to do google search without using tab, press ctrl+shift+enter to open the search in th background!
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Using ctrl+shift method for pretty long time, or well starting from when I made a feature request in Opera too add this to context menu, then someone replied I can use this keycombination.
However I would still like to see the extra items in the menu for having open in new tab and in new bbg tab. I could add them myself actually, but I’m too lazy for that… or maybe…
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When I right-click and ‘Go to URL’, it automatically opens a new tab without holding any keys down (possibly configuration or a Mac thing?). It’s handy for form submissions and the background tip is nice though.
Could someone that needs to hold the keys check whether ‘Reuse current tab’ is checked? Mine is not checked (i always prefer new tabs unless clicking a link from within a webpage).
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nice tip. I did not get the shift at the first moment
I do it but longer.
First ctrl+c
then crtl+t
then ctrl+b (paste and go).
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It also works on words that do not have the preceding www or the .com at the end. For explample if you see the work IBM, double click and select go to URL, Opera will add the www and .com for you.
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yeah,also if you type it,it only works with .coms
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It’s a pity it stopped working for Frame -> Open a while ago. I know, there’s a Frame -> Open in new tab now, but it was so much more convenient to be able to just hold the SHIFT when you need a new tab anywhere, and not remembering some special rules for frames…
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NB: Ctrl+Shift/Shift also works in combination with favicons dragged to a toolbar, and the address bar.
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What Romain said is amazing – a long awaited feature for any browser, I can’t believe Opera has done this all along!
Now, it should be done by just middle clicking on the submit button, or the context menu, sort of like in FF when right clicking and viewing an image.
But, for now, I am back in Opera because of that Submit feature. In fact, I’ll try it right now when I post my comment…
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@Hugo, @yeeliberto
No, it doesn’t. Opera will open http://ibm/ which will only become http://www.ibm.com/ if you have the checked setting in Preferences | Advanced | Network | Server name completion | Try name completion
If you’re a mouse person, all that reaching for the keyboard becomes a pain (mouse gestures FTW). A good menu.ini can do the trick in this case; just copy (Preferences | Advanced | Toolbars | Menu Setup | Duplicate) and edit add this to the Opera directory/menu/standard_menu (1).ini:
[Hotclick Popup Menu]
...
Item, 67394="Go to page, "%t",,,"none""
Item, "Goto URI in background"=Copy,,,,"Enter Fullscreen" & New page & Paste and go & Switch to previous page
Checkout the WebDev menu for more keyboardless goodies.
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I don’t know if it’s because of an add-on or what, but my context menu includes “Go to URI in background” a bit below the “Go to URL” menu item. That opens a new tab in the background. Didn’t notice it until reading this, though.
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Mike Haugland: yes if “Reuse current tab” in unchecked the link will open in a new tab without a special key (not Mac specific). I loved that setting until I wanted to use Bookmarklets which only worked with Reuse current tab checked (as also bookmarks/bookmarklets are opened in a new tab).
pat: could it be you installed Non-Troppo’s WebDev Menu (from operawiki.info)? There is the “Goto URI in background” as last entry in the context menu.
Here another tip:
Double click the last part (e.g. “com”) of the URI will select the whole URI and open the context menu automatically.
The selection will stop if there is a full-stop on the right side but it includes the parts if there is a full-stop on the left of your doubleclicked phrase.
Examples:
Examples: vvv.operawatch.com – try it yourself
double click on “com” -> vvv.operawatch.com is highlighted
double click on “operawatch” -> vvv.operawatch is highlighted
double click on “vvv” -> vvv is highlighted
This causes a small problem if the URI is written in double quotes as the opening quote is also selected.
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pat: could it be you installed Non-Troppo’s WebDev Menu (from operawiki.info)? There is the “Goto URI in background” as last entry in the context menu.
Yes, that’s probably what it is. That together with the WebDev toolbar installed so many links and things I haven’t got it sorted out. Anyway, it’s a nice thing. Worth the price of the menu just by itself.
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Wow!! I’ve wanted this feature for AGES!!
I didn’t know it was already built-in to Opera.
Yay for Opera tips!