Loss of functionality
by Mez on Mar.01, 2006, under Geeky, Rants
Isn’t it annoying when you use an app for about a year – and then they go and upgrade, and remove one of the useful shortcuts that you’ve always used?
The reason I first decided not to use konqueror as my primary Web browser was the fact that when I middle clicked a tab, it didn’t close the tab – but tried to open whatever was in your clipboard as a URL. I found this very… very annoying…
Now, firefox has gone and changed and does the same thing – so now I have no way of quickly middle clicking a tab to close it. Which just … p**ses me off. It’s the thing in firefox that always saved me the most time. I’m very annoyed at losing this functionality – but meh – I guess I have to live with it.
March 1st, 2006 on 10:58 pm
What version of firefox was that? I use firefox frome Ubuntu Dappper (1.5.0.1?) and for me that works. That aside, there used to be an extention to firefox which gave you a closebutton on each tab instead of one to the right. That should give you the same amount of workload for closing a tab.
March 1st, 2006 on 11:15 pm
I know how you feel. I find middle clicking tabs to close them a way more useful than pasting a URL from clipboard.
It’s still possible to get that functionality by typing about:config to Firefox addressbar and searching “middlemouse.contentLoadURL”-line. Just set that line to false by double-clicking and now you can enjoy old good middle click funtionality.
This funtionality is enabled as default in Windows but not in Linux because of different behaviour of operating systems. In Linux it’s common to paste things with a middle click and e.g. my friend prefers Firefox’s default functionality (middle click paste URL) because it’s more logical.
March 1st, 2006 on 11:16 pm
You can have back your functionality editing FF config in this easy way:
open FF and put in the url “about:config”
find the line “middlemouse.contentLoadURL”
change it to “false”
you are done! Middle-click the tab to close it
March 1st, 2006 on 11:17 pm
For me, I’ve always had to install the tab preferences extension; I’ve never had this feature (that I can remember) even with the original alpha and beta builds. Of course, the tab preferences extension is still an option. Middle click is enabled by default.
March 1st, 2006 on 11:19 pm
There’s an option for that. You must install the advanced pref plugin and change the “MiddleClickPaste” to false or something like that.
I use Epiphany and I’m happy
March 1st, 2006 on 11:24 pm
Try the extension “Tab Mix Plus”. You can handle the middleclick with it.
March 1st, 2006 on 11:25 pm
yay! I have the functionality back!
Thankyou people
*bows down*
Lol – I love the fact that people read my blog – because all those niggly problems always seem to have a solution
March 1st, 2006 on 11:37 pm
You can enable the same functionality in Konqueror through a config file: http://wiki.kde.org/tiki-index.php?page=Secret+Config+Settings
Cheers,
L.
March 2nd, 2006 on 4:52 am
So THAT’s why firefox didn’t have a close button on each tab. That does sound like a nice feature.
March 2nd, 2006 on 9:21 am
I know how that feels. I was so used to to right clicking a mail and clicking on filter email (or some such option) that when they removed that option, I was also kind of lost. Though, I got used to the ctrl+y also pretty soon, but thats not the point.
March 3rd, 2006 on 6:56 pm
And thank you for asking; this has been bugging me for years, but yet not enough for me to actually go and hunt down a solution.
But here’s the million dollar question: how do I go about getting my very own lazyweb?
March 3rd, 2006 on 11:13 pm
By the way, the “new” behavior (middle click pastes URL) has been the upstream default on Linux forever. The behavior you prefer (middle click closes tab) is the upstream default on Windows. Ubuntu patches their packages to use the Windows default instead of the Linux default. Did you switch from an Ubunut package to one from a different source?
March 3rd, 2006 on 11:38 pm
yeah i used the main one
March 6th, 2006 on 8:19 pm
Isn’t ctrl+w faster to close a tab anyway? You don’t even have to take your hands off the keyboard.