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Comment by Aardwolf | Hacker News Reader

"Set a preference to have Ctrl+Tab cycle through tabs in recently used order "

Finally something that is an actually improved UI feature!

Not some "removed status bar and instead hover its info over text you want to read sometimes" or "moved refresh button to different place than before just to annoy you" or similar thing :)

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I have this feature in sublime text & Atom and absolutely hate it.

I feel like ctrl + tab has to move to next tab & ctrl + shift + tab should move to previous tab (cycle if it reaches the end).

I feel like that's more predictable behaviour.

I don't know about Firefox or Atom, but in Chromium you can achieve that via Ctrl-PgUp and Ctrl-PgDn.

Which is a pretty dumb shortcut to use one handed and compared to alt+tab.

Probably pretty nice for left handed mouse / trackpad users though.

On Mac at least you can use Command Shift [ and ]. Which is the same as in the browsers.

I have never seen a keyboard which doesn't have a Ctrl on the right side.

Tons of laptop keyboards. Of course lots of those have no PgUp either.

Sure, but there's way more distance between Ctrl and PgUp then Ctrl+Tab (I'm taking a classic desktop keyboard in the account now). There are quite some more compact models where PgUp/Down are between the NumLock and - on the right side with the Numpad.

Not to mention you'd need to set the hand from one end of the keyboard to the middle, just to press something you'd otherwise move 1 key.

As I said, it's dumb.

It exists for ages already, though. You use the same shortcuts to cycle tabs in dialog boxes. And that goes back to at least Windows 95, if not further.

Every non-macOS browser I've used supports those shortcuts. They're old enough to be universal among tabbed browsers.

I know I can ctrl-pgup/down in Firefox (it's the best alternative to alt-tab afaict) but on one of my laptops it's incredibly impractical (pgup/down is way up the top right), and on the other pgup/down is in a practical, but very different, location to tab so it's "disjointed" in my mind (ie "do I want to go mru? ctrl-tab; do I want to go ltr/rtl? alt-tab" they're still in the same area, and hence it seem logical/simple to switch between those options often, whilst pgup/down seems very different?)

(And then meta-tab is also hanging out there, being simple and ready for an alternative context switch (mostly browser <-> terminal).)

Is there a way to disable this ctrl+tab behavior in Sublime Test? I can't stand it either.

I guess people are down-voting you because it's a simple google search away. However, to answer your question:

On Atom, I've set ctrl + tab to remap to pane:show-next-item, and ctrl + shift + tab to pane:show-previous-item.

(view your keymap, and see what ctrl + page-up/down is bound to, and then bind it to ctrl + tab /+ shift)

Edit: here are my settings:

   'body':
     'ctrl-tab': 'pane:show-next-item'
     'ctrl-tab ^ctrl': 'unset!'
     'ctrl-shift-tab': 'pane:show-previous-item'
     'ctrl-shift-tab ^ctrl': 'unset!'

The problem with this feature is that it depends on hidden UI state. With the "last used" behavior there's no way at a glance to know which tab will be activated when pressing ctrl-tab, so you either have to maintain the state in your head, or guess-and-check how many times to hit the key combo.

If you only have a few tabs open, it can be useful in conjunction with Ctrl-[1-9], but I am also still strongly in the next/prev tab camp.

Pressing Ctrl-Tab once without letting go of Ctrl shows you a graphical overlay of most recently used tabs. If you don't like what you see, just add one Shift-Tab to your already pressed Ctrl.

I agree. It's the worst!

I don't use ST, but at least in Atom, I know you can easily override it in your keymap:

  'body':
    'ctrl-tab': 'pane:show-next-item'
    'ctrl-tab ^ctrl': 'unset!'
    'ctrl-shift-tab': 'pane:show-previous-item'
    'ctrl-shift-tab ^ctrl': 'unset!'

It's all personal preference, but since Opera 12 I've been addicted to ctrl-tab for most recently used switching (Opera 12 had a nice tab switcher that made the interaction very understandable/manageable), and then alt-tab for switching in "physical" order. (I run a large number of tabs, and quickly switching between two (or a small number) that I've used recently seems to be a common interaction for me - but then being able to look at favicons and traverse quickly to a closely located tab too (is less crucial, but important enough that I don't use FF (because I can't remap that alt-tab interaction simply).)

And I love it :-p It is literally the reason (in combination with "open new tab next to current") I use the browser I do (Vivaldi; would consider Opera, but it doesn't/didn't do "open new tab next to current").

To each their own :-)

a feature that I've loved about Vivaldi (and vimium on chrome) is the spotlight like search for tabs. When you run a lot (~30-40) of tabs, that's an killer feature right away!

Pentadactyl for Firefox also allows that (press 'b') and it's absolutely amazing. Way quicker than searching for the tab visually and manoeuvring the mouse to it on a notebook.

Actually, Firefox has it natively since 48. Just enter the title in the URL bar, and it'll suggest going to that tab.

Firefox has had it native since firefox 4. See this article: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Location_Bar_search#Location_Bar_s...

You can enter "% string" into the location bar, and it will suggest switches to open tabs which contain that string either in their title or URL.

I've been using this little-known location bar feature for a long long time.

Hm, then 48 just changed the way it works, because I've never seen it before that one.

Aside from the fact that the regular URL bar in Firefox does this, Tab Center (https://github.com/bwinton/TabCenter) puts tabs on the side with a filter-search at the top.

This is brilliant! I wasn't aware of tab center. The best part is that it works really well with tabgroups too.

However, I am unable to use it through the keyboard. The undocumented C-S-l seems to trigger a search over there. But there is no way of navigating to a matching tab without the mouse. Any tips?

Ctrl-tab seems to work for me.

The search and hide/unhide function seemed interesting to me, but in my opinion the Tree Style Tab add-on is superior. Perhaps that is because TabCenter is aimed at a less technical audience [1]. Hierarchical tab structures are more valuable in my opinion, because it implicitly groups related tabs together. The structure in which tabs are opened reflects my workflow while opening them and allows me to e.g. close all tabs that were related to a certain problem. It does however lack a search function and some sort of versioning, as I find my tab-bar clutter over time. Perhaps a aging approach could be helpful for me, but I have yet to come across something better than Tree Style Tab.

[1] https://github.com/bwinton/TabCenter/issues/498#issuecomment...

Oh, yeah, I'm not pitching this as an alternative to Tree Style. I like Tree Style too.

With that filter I wonder if we could combine tabs and bookmarks?

I was trying out the new Opera with its built-in VPN and ad-blocking which I thought were nice default features but the tab switching was driving me bonkers! I could not understand it, it was flicking through recently used first you say? I would never have guessed. To me it just felt random. I want ctrl-tab to cycle sanely left to right and shift-ctrl-tab to cycle sanely right to left. The browser equivalent of alt-tab for app switching. I do not want any application grabbing alt-tab from the system.

I'm joking of course that I think to desire otherwise is insane. Except I'm not. Or am I? :)

Fair point about alt-tab; I didn't quite make it clear, but I'm using DWM with the windows-key as meta, so meta-tab switches between two tags (do that infinitely often (ie, not cycling, just swapping)) and meta-[0-9] for general tag jumping.

Hence, alt was just hanging out being useless :-p (I'm like 95% terminal or browser, so it's a great use of alt to me :-) )

Amusingly, last time I used OSX or Windows properly, I got super grumpy about the fact "(alt|mac)-tab" seemed amazingly inconsistent - I think cause I'd try and switch consistently between two windows, and got surprising-seeming results... I somewhat think I had gremlins :-p

(As I wrote this I actually did a few ctrl-tabs and a few alt-tabs... I hadn't quite realise I used both as often/evenly...)

Check out TabMix Plus extension for firefox - you can set up literally everything about tabs behavior.

(It is literally the reason I will not be leaving Firefox after this Ctrl-Tab moves to most recently used tab abomination :))

Can be fixed in Sublime Text as follows:

{ "keys": ["ctrl+tab"], "command": "next_view" }, { "keys": ["ctrl+shift+tab"], "command": "prev_view" }

Ctrl+shift+P then type "key bindings user"

Cmd+Shift+P for MacOS.

Also Preferences -> Key Bindings works too but I'd encourage everyone to get used to the command palette for all sorts of commands like Set Syntax and Package Control

Seems to be a subjective preference indeed then :)

Usually when programming, the most relevant are the last source files I viewed, e.g. a source file and its header file. I love ctrl+tab switching between most recent files this way.

Same in a webbrowser with related articles. Don't see a use of a next/prev in the list tab shortcut myself, it's not like tabs are ever in some particular order for me :)

Yep. I want to be able to predict where ( Ctrl + Tab ) x 3 where take me.

When browsing, I actually use both behaviors in different cases. C-<tab> and C-S-<tab> to cycle linearly, and then I use vimium shortcuts for more advanced navigation. So I survey tabs by tabbing through them, but when I'm going back and forth between two or three (citing things, for example) I use LRU-type features. Forcing people to use one or the other, regardless of which, is going to make them angry.

I hope I can disable this feature in Firefox about:config.

Ctrl + PgUp , Ctrl + PgDn

I use Ctrl+Tab to switch between two tabs I'm working on.

If I want to go to specific file, I'd just Ctrl+P and type in the filename.

Using Ctrl+PageUp/Down to scroll through all open tabs is predictable but kinda useless since I have 20+ tabs opened after a while.

Yes. In iTerm2 as well, (shift+)ctrl+tab jumps across recently used tabs. Holy hell how it's confusing and I am used to use (shift+)ctrl+tab in Chrome so switching between Chrome and iTerm2 while web developing sometimes is frustrating.

If I want to switch between 2 tabs quickly - I set them side by side and it solves the problem for me.

This has been possible for a very long time, as a side-effect of enabling browser.ctrlTab.previews in about:config

Glad to see they are paying more attention to this though.

Thousands of people have requested that feature for Chrome. To this day there hasn't been (or I haven't found) an official answer and the only way to do it is to use an extension, using an alternative keybind as extensions aren't allowed to interact with ctrl-tab.

It seems as if the feature is just directly using browser.ctrlTab.previews, toggling it also toggles the new option in the Options menu.

Chrome doesn't add settings for things when extensions can do the job because doing so adds to our support burden and slows further development - it's better to appeal to fewer people and have a simpler and easier/faster-to-maintain product than to appeal to more with higher maintenance complexity.

I'm glad you like it. This is one of those personal UX preferences that has you either one or the other camp. Am I right to assume you liked this from your past Opera use?

Actually I like it from IDE's and text editors :)

As well as the alt+tab desktop behaviour

I was excited to sudden see this surprise in the patch notes, now I am the opposite here thinking, "How did they mess up such a simple feature?" The preview bar that pop ups is slow to work and actively delays changing tabs.(If it even attempts to switches tabs.) Additionally, I do not need the preview portion.

FLST: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fww-flst/

It just works. Tab switching is instant, no unnecessary preview, and it has never messed up remembering tab order.

I'm with you and cannot stand the way Opera does it but it also has a quick tab switching mode. I haven't encountered a single switch-with-preview implementation that didn't leave me with forced slowdown and delay of the action I was about to do. I also configure Firefox to not close the window when it's the last tab, which is hard-to-impossible to emulate in Chrome but is the default in Opera and Vivaldi.

Years ago, this used to be the default in Firefox. Since Ctrl+Tab has not been the default, I've been using Ctrl+Tab extension. Other browser like Chrome do not provide APIs to allow extensions access to override tab order. Accessing tabs by order of last used, is a requirement for my daily web browsing, which is why I've stuck with Firefox for so long. I'm glad this is now part of the preferences, and does not require an extension.

Added things with hip names like Pocket or Share that you will never use and inserted it right next to your address bar.

Personally, I wouldn't be comfortable with that activated. It happens in Atom and it's really quite annoying.

on that note: I really wish they would move the refresh button back to the modular interface. I hate where the refresh button is (so do lots of people) and just wish it wasn't the ONE thing on the toolbar you couldn't config. (yes I've replied to and opened a ticket)

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