Firefox - retaining tab history is back again (and I'm excited)

[hello_hello]

Back in the dark ages, when IE6 ruled the internet, opening a link in a new window involved right clicking on it, selecting "open in new window", the link would open in a new window that stole focus in a typically annoying Microsoft way, you'd curse and minimize it to go back to the window you were still using, but......

When the link did open in a new window, that new window would inherit the history of the previous window. You could close the first window and still navigate backwards and forwards in the new window as you could before. Then tabs were invented and browser developers decided this basic, common sense function was no longer required.

For quite a while the Firefox "Tab History" extension saved the day, but it stopped working a long time ago. Tab History Redux never worked properly. TabMixPlus would at least retain the original tab's history when duplicating a tab, but it's not quite the same. Today, I discovered the BackTrack Tab History extension and sanity has finally been restored (so far it works well).

It's the little things.....

[hech54]

Interesting.

[TreeTops]

You close the window by clicking on the little x in the first tab? I never do that unless I know that I don't want to go back to that tab. I leave the tabs open so that I can just click on the tab I want to return to. I suspect that is the way most people use tabs.

[hello_hello]

You close the window by clicking on the little x in the first tab?

I assume you're asking if I close the parent tab? Sometimes, yes, if I think I'm not longer going to need it.
But no, I don't click on the little x. That takes up unnecessary space so I've removed it. I close tabs by middle clicking on them.

I never do that unless I know that I don't want to go back to that tab. I leave the tabs open so that I can just click on the tab I want to return to. I suspect that is the way most people use tabs.

It can cut down on tab clutter quite considerably if you don't have to keep leaving tabs open just in case you need them again. I close them without stressing too much, and if need be, after opening a new tab via a link and closing the original, if I want both tabs open at the same time again I can now double click on the new tab to duplicate it, then use the back button and I effectively have both the original tab and the new one open again. Sometimes that's much faster than hunting through the list of closed tabs.

Plus I'm not perfect. Sometimes I change my mind. Sometimes I close the parent tab thinking I no longer need it, then I realise the link that opened a new tab didn't take me where I expected it to, so I need to go back and try a different link.

Maybe one day you'll open a page of Google search results and middle click on lots of links to open each in a new tab in the background. Twenty new tabs, for example. That's twenty tabs that can take you back to the original page of search results by using the back button. It's often quicker than having to scan through a whole bunch of open tabs looking for the original, even if you didn't close it. And of course if a link in each of those twenty tabs was used to open another new tab, you now have twenty tabs that can take you back to the search results with one click on the back button and twenty more tabs that can get you there in two clicks, even if you didn't close the original....

Or BackTrack Tab History can be configured so if you open a new tab via a link, then use the back button while viewing the new tab, it'll close the new tab and return you to the original.

[hello_hello]

While I was finishing off a fresh Firefox install today I re-remembered TabMixPlus has a similar function. It can add a right click menu item labelled "open links in duplicate tab" which does the same thing. The link opens in a new tab retaining the parent tab's history. I completely forgot it had that option, although it's a pity it can't be made the default method for opening links, as the right click menu takes longer, it involves an extra mouse click, and you've got to remember to use it.