Wandering electrons... but not too far

(I recently posted this subject in the Wish-list forum and my thanks to sgunhouse for telling me how to do this)

One of Opera's keyboard functionalities is the ability to cycle through open tabs using Ctrl+Tab. You can choose how Opera cycles the tabs in the Preferences dialog:

Tools > Preferences... > Advanced > Tabs -- Choose from the drop-down box under, "When cycling through tabs with Ctrl+Tab".

Your choices are:
Cycle without showing list
Cycle in recently used order
Cycle in tab bar order

If you choose "Cycle in recently used order" or "Cycle in tab bar order", by default, Opera will show a list of open tabs while you're cycling. You can furthermore indicate if you want Opera to show thumbnails in the list by checking or unchecking the box, "Show thumbnails in tab cycle".

If you choose "Cycle without showing list", Opera will cycle in tab bar order, but not show the list.

What's missing from these options is the ability to cycle in recently-used order, without showing the list. Indeed, displaying the list is not strictly necessary because when it's not shown, Opera simply jumps to the concerned tab with each Ctrl+Tab.

As it turns out, cycling in recently-used order was apparently default behavior under Windows in the past. You can thus "re-tell" Opera to do this via the Opera Settings File, a.k.a. "opera:config".

Here's how:

First, make sure that "Cycle without showing list" is chosen in the Preferences dialog (Tools > Preferences... > Advanced > Tabs -- Choose "Cycle without showing list" from the drop-down box under, "When cycling through tabs with Ctrl+Tab").

Then:

1. Open a new tab and type "opera:config" in the address bar (no quotation marks)
   
2. Click "User Prefs"
   
3. Find "Alternative Page Cycle Mode"
   
4. Set it to "0"
   
5. Scrrrroooooooooolllll down and click "Save"
   

Enjoy!

See the Wish-list Forum post that I put up on December 11th, for a few more points concerning tab cycling in Opera:

Add (bring back?) "Cycle in recently used order without showing list"

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!

The invention of the mouse revolutionized how computers are used by removing the need to memorize hundreds of keyboard commands. The idea was all the more brilliant in that it mimicked pushing buttons, a movement that is familiar to everyone.

However, keyboard commands never really went away. The reason for this is because once you've memorized a keyboard command, it is often actually faster to use than the mouse. this is because there is less movement through space if your hands are already on the keyboard. Using the mouse implies moving your hand from the keyboard to the mouse, moving the mouse to place the arrow on what you want to click, clicking, and bringing you hand back to the keyboard. For any one occasion this doesn't seem like that much time and effort wasted and the "no brainer" quality is advantagous. But if you spend the day on a computer, as many of us do, those tiny bits of time and effort, one after another, again and again, start adding up.

Here's a few of my favorite keyboard shortcuts to make your day more efficient...

Read more...