more or less

Some of the small details can often matter the most. Take this simple conundrum:

Which remaining tab should I activate when I close my current tab?

A simple question indeed, but the answer really depends on what the user expects and he context of what you are doing. Opera have traditionally taken your previous viewed history into account. When you close a tab, you are taken back to the last tab you were looking at. Seems simple and clear.

But other browsers do something different. They take you to the next tab to the right along on your tab bar. In general this may seems a step back, but it has its uses. If you've just opened 5 new tabs from my parent page, moving to the right allows you to read each of the child tabs in turn. Close, move to the new page, read, repeat. And as many users are used to this behavior from their previous browsers, they are confused when Opera takes their viewing history into account instead.

So, trying to cater to this conundrum, Opera have just added some preferences in the latest 9.5 snapshot:

1. MODE 1: "Activate the last active" — Opera standard mode described above.
   
2. MODE 2: "Activate the tab to the right" — The way other browsers do it.
   
3. MODE 3: "Activate the first tab opened from closing tab"
   

The first two options are exactly as described above. But being Opera they've created a new, and cool hybrid mode. The name is pretty confusing, but the behavior isn't. Lets detail how each mode will deal with a specific scenario:

I have 3 tabs, "Page A", "Page B", "Page C". I was reading "Page A". "Page B" has a link I'm interested in and I go to "Page B" and open the link in the background, called "Page D":

In this scenario, "Page A" is the last active tab, "Page B" is the parent of "Page D" and "Page C" is the tab to the right of the current viewed tab. If I close "Page B" using MODE 1:"Activate the last tab", I get to "Page A":

If I use MODE 2:"Activate the tab to the right" I will get to "Page C":

(note: I used the default settings, but if you set "open new tab next to active", then the child "Page D" would have been next to parent "Page B" and MODE 2 would be more useful in this case. Therefore if you want to use MODE 2, I suggest you make sure "open new tab next to active"=ON)

MODE 3:"Activate the first tab opened from closing tab" does the following:


Notice that as "Page B" is the parent of "Page D", then "Page D" is the activated tab (even though it was not physically next to its parent). However if the page I wanted to close has no children, then MODE 3 will use the last active page (in this case "Page A"). Basically this takes the best features of both MODE 1 and MODE 2; it takes your last viewed history into account while respecting parent->child relationships. These three modes allow those comfortable in their ways (MODE 1 and MODE 2 users) to keep their expectations of where they'll end up, but allows power users to use the best of both worlds, a new and elegant mode that adapts to our useage patterns. I just wish it had a more intuitive sounding name!