Firefox, tabs, and the address bar
Dec. 3rd, 2005 08:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edgDear Lazyweb,
Yesterday I upgraded to Firefox 1.5 for the Mac. I am seriously regretting having done so.
I'm sure that there are a lot of fancy features that I'm not using at all (because, well, I don't really do any hardcore web browsing). It's nice to have Bookmark All Tabs as an actual menu option. I do like the ability to tab-select a browser tab and then navigate through the tabs with the arrow keys.
But.
Firefox 1.5 breaks the two browser features that I used most often in 1.0.7: Ctrl-Tab to switch browser tabs, and automatically selecting the full current URL when the address bar receives a left-click. Instead, Ctrl-Tab moves between the document and the address bar (and does not address the browser tabs at all, which is strange given that unmodified Tab does), and clicking in the address bar puts the cursor at the click point instead of selecting the URL. (Strangely, I've discovered that both of these actions produce the results that I expect and desire in Windows Firefox 1.5.
As far as I am concerned, this is a broken browser. I don't care if that's how Safari does it. I don't like Safari for exactly these reasons.
Is there any way for me to fix this - a preference I haven't found, an extension I'm not seeing, what have you - or do I have to uninstall 1.5 and reinstall 1.0.7 to get Firefox to work the way I want it to?
EDIT: Okay, after some prowling, I've figured out how to move between tabs; they've changed it from Ctrl-Tab to Cmd-Option-Right/Left Arrow. Also, Ctrl-Tab - when I'm focused on the document - does select the entire URL in the address bar, so that I can type over rather than typing into.
But, seriously, guys. This is a major change in the way the user interacts with the browser. You could at least mention it in the damn release notes.
EDIT 2: On occasion, open source software is useful. In this case, having followed instructions from another irritated Firefox-Mac user, I've successfully re-enabled Ctrl-Tab tab switching. For those of you playing the home game, here are the instructions:
1) Quit Firefox
2) Go to Macintosh HD:Applications:Firefox.app, right-click, and choose Show Package Contents
3) Go to :Contents:MacOS:chrome
4) Duplicate toolkit.jar (so you have a backup)
5) Rename toolkit.jar to toolkit.zip
6) Right-click toolkit.zip and unpack it (which will create a folder called content)
7) Go to :content:global:bindings
8) Open tabbrowser.xml
9) Replace
this.mTabBox.handleCtrlTab = !/Mac/.test(navigator.platform);
with
this.mTabBox.handleCtrlTab = true;
10) Go back out to :chrome
11) Right-click :content and create an archive
12) Rename it to toolkit.jar
13) You can now use ctrl+tab again
Yesterday I upgraded to Firefox 1.5 for the Mac. I am seriously regretting having done so.
I'm sure that there are a lot of fancy features that I'm not using at all (because, well, I don't really do any hardcore web browsing). It's nice to have Bookmark All Tabs as an actual menu option. I do like the ability to tab-select a browser tab and then navigate through the tabs with the arrow keys.
But.
Firefox 1.5 breaks the two browser features that I used most often in 1.0.7: Ctrl-Tab to switch browser tabs, and automatically selecting the full current URL when the address bar receives a left-click. Instead, Ctrl-Tab moves between the document and the address bar (and does not address the browser tabs at all, which is strange given that unmodified Tab does), and clicking in the address bar puts the cursor at the click point instead of selecting the URL. (Strangely, I've discovered that both of these actions produce the results that I expect and desire in Windows Firefox 1.5.
As far as I am concerned, this is a broken browser. I don't care if that's how Safari does it. I don't like Safari for exactly these reasons.
Is there any way for me to fix this - a preference I haven't found, an extension I'm not seeing, what have you - or do I have to uninstall 1.5 and reinstall 1.0.7 to get Firefox to work the way I want it to?
EDIT: Okay, after some prowling, I've figured out how to move between tabs; they've changed it from Ctrl-Tab to Cmd-Option-Right/Left Arrow. Also, Ctrl-Tab - when I'm focused on the document - does select the entire URL in the address bar, so that I can type over rather than typing into.
But, seriously, guys. This is a major change in the way the user interacts with the browser. You could at least mention it in the damn release notes.
EDIT 2: On occasion, open source software is useful. In this case, having followed instructions from another irritated Firefox-Mac user, I've successfully re-enabled Ctrl-Tab tab switching. For those of you playing the home game, here are the instructions:
1) Quit Firefox
2) Go to Macintosh HD:Applications:Firefox.app, right-click, and choose Show Package Contents
3) Go to :Contents:MacOS:chrome
4) Duplicate toolkit.jar (so you have a backup)
5) Rename toolkit.jar to toolkit.zip
6) Right-click toolkit.zip and unpack it (which will create a folder called content)
7) Go to :content:global:bindings
8) Open tabbrowser.xml
9) Replace
this.mTabBox.handleCtrlTab = !/Mac/.test(navigator.platform);
with
this.mTabBox.handleCtrlTab = true;
10) Go back out to :chrome
11) Right-click :content and create an archive
12) Rename it to toolkit.jar
13) You can now use ctrl+tab again
