Comments on: Firefox-like tab behavior now in Opera

By: Steve Barker

Steve Barker — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 15:21:08 +0000

Decided I would try Lispels hypothesis. So opened Opera 5 …………….NO TABS!!!!!!!!

At least Tabs, whichever way they default, are a great blessing to humanity.

By: Lispel

Lispel — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:10:01 +0000

Didn’t that used to be default until Opera 7? I remember Opera used used to have it the good (this) way.

By: john

john — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 23:42:57 +0000

probably my biggest prob with opera.
yyay!

By: Kelson

Kelson — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 18:06:07 +0000

Unless installation will have an option like “I’m used to Firefox, make it use Firefox-style settings”

@Ben, that sounds like a good idea. Anyone else remember when Microsoft Word had a WordPerfect compatibility mode to make it easier for people to switch?

By: Luchio

Luchio — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:32:16 +0000

@Nicklas

I agree that the wording should be “next” tab and “previous” tab instead of right and left. Also, what’s with “Classic Tab Options”? What’s so “classic” about them? It’s just a dump of options that didn’t fit in the window anymore… It should say “Additional Tab Options” instead, because they have as much value as the new options.

By: Niklas

Niklas — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:02:54 +0000

I’m not sure the wording in the drop down box is the best. It makes no sense at all when you have all your tabs in a vertical column on the right or left side of your browser.

But I don’t care much about that since I’ll be sticking to the default behaviour, that is the only thing that works for me. Since I have about 30-50 tabs open at all time I would have to spend a lot of time to find the tab I was at previously if that isn’t activated when I close the tab I’m at.

By: mc

mc — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 14:21:18 +0000

Opera has no tabs! Long live MDI! Heh I dont know how many people remember but Opera was about the first browser with “tabs” but it was called multi-document interface. The philosophy was that the browser was a platform and that you werent supposed to ever create more than one instance of it, because it handled all the windowing.

By: EC

EC — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:23:55 +0000

Funny, I also have the LastTab add-on for Firefox to make it act like the default/old Opera behavior. It seems more intuitive and less annoying.

By: Ben Buchanan

Ben Buchanan — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:24:25 +0000

Hmm, my only concern here is that if the Firefox-y behaviour isn’t enabled by default, the average switching user won’t find it. Unless installation will have an option like “I’m used to Firefox, make it use Firefox-style settings”

By: non-troppo

non-troppo — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 10:42:47 +0000

I just posted more details on how Mode 3 works:

http://my.opera.com/non-troppo/blog/2008/02/12/does-it-blend-combining-the-best-of-both-tab-activation-modes

By: non-troppo

non-troppo — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 08:47:41 +0000

Both modes have clear and identifiable useage patterns, neither is *better*; functionality depends on the needs of the user in this case. Moving to the tab on the right, as Kelson describes, is great when you are going through a stack of child tabs one by one. In this case Opera’s old behaviour was inefficient. But “tab on right” was inefficient when simply having many tabs open and your viewing pattern matters.

BUT WAIT — Opera have done something even better!!! If you use the third option you get a combination mode where when you just have a bunch of tabs open, Opera will use the “last-active” method. However, if within your page mix you have a parent->child, then closing the parent will give preference to its child over the last active tab. This gives you Opera-mode efficiency where viewing history is taken into account while at the same time allowing tab parent->child relationships to keep a special place. Mode 3 rocks!

By: Vlad

Vlad — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 08:12:46 +0000

I suppose this is good news for the Firefox users (the ones that open New tabs with Ctrl+T :P).

Please don’t remove the “Activate the last active tab” option, though. I find it the easiest to understand, and it is consistent with the way Alt+Tab works in Windows.

By: cousin333

cousin333 — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 06:43:16 +0000

But I really don’t know, why they left out the “activate tab on the left” option. I don’t think that was too difficult to implement.

I also miss the expansion of the syncronisation feature (to sync Searches, Notes and some settings from opera:config). I think even Firefox fans could agree: that would be more welcomed than these actual changes.

By: cousin333gmail.com

cousin333gmail.com — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 06:34:41 +0000

minghong: No! I guess Opera had been downgraded enough to Firefox’s level :P.

Glex: Did you take a look at Preferences, Advanced, Shortcuts to see, that there is a “Opera 9.2 Compatible” setting with an option for “Enable single-key shortcuts” (an other good example how to make Opera Firefox-fan-proof)? They are there for a while now, you should use them like I do.

By: Steve Barker

Steve Barker — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 06:15:39 +0000

The Firefox way makes some sense if you only have a small number of tabs. I tend to have 25-30 open at any one time, some of which may have sat there for days. However, the ones to the right are the most used, e.g. bbc.co.uk etc., The Firefox way keeps taking you back to the “waiting” tabs not the active tabs - you tend to want to go back to where you came from!