Firefox Question
 

After reading the Firefox thread last week, I made the switch from Opera. Compared to Opera I think it's lacking in some functional/usability areas. Mostly small anoyances that I can live with. The big plus is that I have found several sites that were incompatible with Opera that work fine with Firefox. That alone will make it a keeper.

I'm experiencing some behaviour that I can't figure out. I'm a tab kinda guy. So in Opera I'm used to clicking on a link in a flyertalk thread and it launching a new tab. Firefox launches a new window - very annoying. I've been all through the Firefox menus and can't seem to see where I might change an option or two to fix this. Anyone have any idea?

Ctrl-click or the middle mouse button should open a link in a new tab.

Also, some of the tabbed browsing behaviours can be twiddled in Tools / Options / Advanced / Tabbed browsing.

FewMiles..

I forgot about trying Ctrl-click. I really was hopeing for a single click solution. thx

The Tools/Options/ Advanced stuff seems to only affect other applications launching, not Firefox.

how about right click open link in new tab?

Almost all of the Firefox key shortcuts are nicely summarized here:

Firefox Help - Keyboard Shortcuts.

If there's something you can do in either IE, Opera or FireFox, this matrix shows you how to do it in the two other browsers.

Thanks, JadedTraveler. I also recently moved to FireFox (love it!) and that is a useful link.

Thanks for that link JadedTraveler. ^ I wasn't really looking for keyboard shortcuts. My philosophy is: If it's in a browser it should all be doable with the mouse via a click (left or right) or a scroll. But, your link did help me find this...

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Select new tabs opened from links

When you middle-click on Web links (or hold down Ctrl while clicking with the left mouse button), the links will be opened in a new tab. That tab will not be shown directly; it will be loaded in a background tab. Check this option to load the link in a foreground tab instead, which will show that tab directly."
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The above is found under Tools / Options / Advanced. I tried this method out on a link in Flyertalk. By clicking on the link with my middle mouse button (scroll wheel) it opened the link in a new tab. ^ ^

Then, have you looked at this:

Firefox Help - Mouse Shortcuts.

It is a matrix comparing mouse shortcuts in all three browsers. (The menu on the LH side of that page has more useful links.)

This matrix is possibly lacking, though, I recall many more 'mouse gestures' (I think that is the correct term) that Opera has but that I don't see listed.

Yes, saw that. Your keyboad link turned me on to all the right stuff.

You are correct about there being lots more Opera gestures that Firefox doesn't have. For example, Opera does have a "paste and go" but it's not listed.

My main reason for leaving Opera is that they do everything by the book, which means I still had to use another browser for lots of sites (UAL.com & hilton.com are examples). Firefox seems to work everywhere I want to go.

Which, of course, is exactly what FewMiles told you in his response to your original question 11 minutes after you posted it.

Well the greatest thing about Firefox is all the extensions available.

You probably would like the tab browser preferences extensions
http://piro.sakura.ne.jp/xul/_tabextensions.html.en

And I love the mouse gestures extension:

http://optimoz.mozdev.org/gestures/

True, and I'd been to Tools/Options/Advanced 20+ times. The fact is that particular option isn't self explanatory and only became apparent how it related to my query through reading from JadedTraveler's link.

Type about:config instead of a URL and you'll get more configuration options than you'll know what to do with. There'll be a filter window at the top of the screen. Type "tab" in the filter window. You screen should then display only configuration options that contain "tab" in their name. That includes all the "browser.tab" options. You can google on the various "browser.tab" settings to find out what they do. Or you change a setting and play with it to see what it does.

Firefox is immensely configurable. There is also a tabbrowser extensions download that you might want to try. Other tab extensions are available. If you google on firefox tab extensions you should see a lot of options.

Every Firefox user should be aware of about:config options. There are performance tweaks you can make by setting cache options. Have you ever gotten a non-resizable pop-up where the text display is truncated? Using about:config options you can force every window to be resizable, have scroll bars, whatever. The settings will override the web site's javascript. You should be able to configure Firefox to behave just as you desire.

Bill

I'm a big fan of Tabbrowser Preferences 1.0.0 for Firefox.

For V. 1.0:

type about:config in address bar. Then find browser.tabs.showSingleWindowModePrefs
right click on it and select toggle. Set to true.

then go to tools > options > advanced

You will notice a new option to force links to open in tabs.

Got this tip from Mozillazine.