Wandering electrons... but not too far

This is a tips and trick for Opera versions 9.2x. In version 9.5 re-opening closed tabs is done with Ctrl+Shift+T (unless you've activated 9.2 style keyboard shortcuts.)

A forum post entitled "2 old bugs" attracted my attention this morning. One of the "bugs" in question was indeed something that's been bothering me for a while as well.

The problem:

You probably know already that the keyboard shortcut "Ctrl+Z" will re-open a tab that you (usually accidentally) closed. However, this may not work when there is only a single tab (web page) open. This is the case for me: If I accidentally close a single page, my Speeddial appears and Ctrl+Z will no longer open the previous page.

Bpm took the time to look at this problem closely and found the problem.

What's happening is this: When you close that last webpage, Opera sends you to a "blank" page (or an "empty tab" if you prefer). According to your setup, this may bring up the Speeddial, but the Speeddial is a blank page from Opera's point of view. Because the page is blank, Opera activates the address field (you'll see the cursor blinking there). You can think of the address field as a type of text box. When you're in a text box, Opera presumes that you will want your keyboard shortcuts to affect the text your typing and not the browser as a whole; it can't do both at once. For example, as I'm typing this blog entry, Ctrl+Z undoes what I just typed, but if I click outside of the text box, Ctrl+Z opens the last page that I closed.

So two things are now together: 1) you're on a blank page, so it's impossible to "activate" it, and 2) Opera has moved you to the address field, but you haven't yet typed anything. Result: Ctrl+Z does nothing.

(For that matter, this can also happen when multiple tabs are open. If you close a tab, Opera sends you, by default, to the previously active tab. If by chance that tab has its address bar or some other text box active, you'll have the same problem: Ctrl+Z will affect the text field and not re-open the just-closed tab.)

The solution:

As bpm pointed out: the fact that Ctrl+Z can re-open closed tabs in certain circumstances is just an extra that comes from it's nature: "I, Ctrl+Z, undo that last thing that was done, according to where I am." For the situation described above, Ctrl+Z finds itself in a conundrum: "here where I am, there is nothing to undo."

So how do we resolve this?

Simple.

Use the keyboard shortcut that was meant all along to re-open closed tabs: Ctrl+Alt+Z

Yep, it's been there forever and I had never noticed. Click your trash can and you'll see this shortcut next to the last-closed webpage that's listed there. This shortcut will re-open the last-closed webpage (and then the next-to-last-closed page, etc.) whatever the circumstances may be.

And then finally, think of Ctrl+Z as a 'text-oriented' keyboard shortcut, like in Word, just to avoid confusion.

A big thanks to bpm!