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In Opera there is a nice feature that keeps me hooked:

Shift+Tab will move to the last opened tab. Pressing Shift+Tab then subsequent tabs (Shift+Tab then Tab again) breaks out of the last used tab and cycles the tabs just like Firefox or Chrome.

Invaluable as a developer when I have many tabs open and frequently just shift between two of them. Much the same functionality as seen in PhpStorm.

How to do this in Firefox?

phuclv
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John
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  • There's a built in way to change Ctrl+Tab to switch to the last opened tab. If you bind Shift+Tab to that then how can you go back to the previous item in the tab sequence? – phuclv Apr 27 '19 at 05:41
  • check out opera to see what i mean... in ff and chrome it just cycles to the next tab in a loop which is not helpful, quick to just use the mouse. Opera shit+tab jumps to the last tab, press tab again to break out into a basic cycle. I think that answers your question on my question.. but i am not sure i understand your question :) – John Apr 27 '19 at 05:45
  • I know what "last opened tab" means, and Firefox has supported that since the first versions https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1193670 although that's a change to how Ctrl+Tab works. You can't have a shortcut for both switching to the next tab and the last opened tab at once. By default Tab will switch to the next object in the tab sequence (e.g. the next button, next textbox in the form...) and Shift+Tab cycles in the reverse direction. If you use Shift+Tab for that you'll no longer have the ability to navigate on the page using keyboard – phuclv Apr 27 '19 at 06:43
  • See [Changing Firefox Tab Cycle Order](https://superuser.com/q/18609/241386) – phuclv Apr 27 '19 at 06:44
  • ok so is the answer not possible/i don't know of a solution then? You seem to have said why it cannot be done and expanded the explanation of cycling tabs but not said if it can be done in the same way as opera or not. All of which leave me no better off than when you started responding. – John Apr 27 '19 at 10:26
  • It would really seem that you do not know how opera have done this, would highly recommend downloading and giving it a go. – John Apr 27 '19 at 10:29
  • I am very confused. The link to someone else's answer you gave me does exactly what i was meaning, but i think you should try it. You are able to cycle through all tabs and jump back and forth between last used tabs too... – John Apr 27 '19 at 10:33

2 Answers2

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Don't know where you get that weird tab switching behavior with Shift+Tab from, but by default Opera uses

  • Ctrl+Tab to cycle between recently used tabs. Press Shift to reverse the direction
  • Ctrl+Page Up/Down to move to the previous/next tab. This aligns with all browsers and most tabbed applications
  • Tab to move to the next object in the page. That means Shift+Tab moves focus to the previous object in the page. All application forms behave this way, not only browsers

That's exactly the same as Firefox when enabling "Ctrl+Tab cycles through tabs in recently used order" in Menu > Options. So just enable it and use Ctrl+Tab/Ctrl+Page Up/Down. Now you have the ability to both switch between recently used tabs and switch to the next/previous tab without clashing with the focus moving shortcut

Firefox tab option

See

Here's the default Opera settings if you're curious

Opera tab option

Opera cycle tab shortcut

Opera next tab shortcut

There's even an option for highlighting links and elements while pressing Tab instead of just moving the focus

Tab highlight option

Probably you're using some extension because I tried changing Ctrl+PageUp to Shift+Tab in Opera but failed. That's obvious because as soon as one presses Tab the focus will move away and the shortcut text box can't receive the key combination anymore. But anyway using Shift+Tab is a bad idea. How would you move to the next text box after filling a field in a form? Using a mouse defeats the purpose of shortcuts and you don't even need Ctrl+Tab in that case

phuclv
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  • lol! nope, linux and opera. plus most ide's use this "weird behavior" to save time. Comes default on linux installation of opera. – John Apr 29 '19 at 23:45
  • @John you're wrong. Windows and Linux always have the same shortcuts. Did you read the last links in the post? https://help.opera.com/en/latest/shortcuts/ Tab and Shift+Tab have always been used to move between elements – phuclv Apr 30 '19 at 00:06
  • dude seriously i don't know what your deal is.. i just wanted to know how to mimic this behavior in firefox now i can job done. opera came out of the box like this for me when i was on windows and also when i moved to linux a few years ago. – John Apr 30 '19 at 00:09
  • @John seriously I don't know why you don't even try or read what I said. I've used Linux for decades and I've never seen such a behavior. **Tab always move focus between elements** regardless of the OS, and in Opera it'll also [highlight elements by default](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Rj50R.jpg). The official shortcut for Opera on Linux is the same as Windows, and **Opera on my Linux uses Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Page Up/Down like Firefox by default**. I assure you Tab **cannot be used to cycle through tabs in either Windows or Linux** and it cannot be the default option in any OSes – phuclv Apr 30 '19 at 02:11
  • Right back atcha. – John May 02 '19 at 09:11
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On a Mac, at least, it is in the System Preferences, not the browser preferences, so it makes pressing tab a system-wide standard. Not sure about Windows. And the dumb Mac preference changed all by itself during my system upgrade to Mojave. But c'est la vie.

On a Mac, go to System Preferences → Keyboard → Shortcuts. On the bottom, choose either "Text boxes and lists only" or "All controls." The former (my preference) lets you jump from text box to text box; the latter (which I despise) lets you jump from text box to link to link to link to text box. I was going NUTS trying to figure out how to change this in Firefox, because both the Firefox preference and the about:config preference accessibility.tabfocus are both no longer there.

So, if you cannot find the system preference, or even if you just plain want to override your system preference, here is how you can tell Firefox directly, exactly what you want...

  1. Type about:config in the address bar and hit enter. Ignore all warnings, etc., etc.
  2. Type accessibility.tabfocus in the search bar. You will see one other preference there that is a Boolean, which you can ignore.
  3. Make sure the radio button choice that you use is "Integer." Press the + button to add the preference yourself.
  4. If you type in "1," pressing tab jumps you from form field to form field; if you type in "4," pressing tab jumps you from link to link to anything (as they say, "all controls," meaning link or field, or button, or anything).

That's it. But here's the REALLY weird thing (at least to me). Why isn't it just a Boolean? And you can type in literally any integer and get different one of those two tab focus choices, seemingly at random. SO strange!

  • 1 fields
  • (-1) controls
  • 3 fields
  • 4 controls
  • (-4) controls
  • 7 controls
  • (-7) fields
  • 123456789 controls
  • 1234567890 fields

In any case, hope this helps. If you like it, please vote for it!

phuclv
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Nandorman
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