Keyboard tab switching

[beastie1]

Do you intend to add support for switching between tabs using the keyboard (e.g. ctrl+tab)?

Displaying a list of tabs (with previews, even better!) like in Opera would be really great, but for now we'd be content with just a Chrome-like "next tab" switching (holding Ctrl and pressing Tab repeatedly).

Perhaps having the two as an option would be the best! :)

Thank you.

[Emdek]

Yes, it's planned.

[Decme]

Would like to remind everyone that Opera used "1" and "2" to switch back and forwards between tabs, respectively. I don't mind ctrl+tab being added, but feel it'd be pointless to add the one without the other. I've seen other browsers add ctrl+tab functionality and discard "1" and "2" entirely because they believe ctrl+tab is good enough. It's really not.

[richarson]

+1

Single key shortcuts, FTW!

The single (no pun intended) best Opera feature.
I also use Z and X to go back and forward in the current tab history.

El Viernes 07/03/2014, Decme escribió:

Would like to remind everyone that Opera used "1" and "2" to switch back
and forwards between tabs, respectively. I don't mind ctrl+tab being added,
but feel it'd be pointless to add the one without the other. I've seen
other browsers add ctrl+tab functionality and discard "1" and "2" entirely
because they believe ctrl+tab is good enough. It's really not.

---

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
#205 (comment)

[mgraham]

Yes! Another vote for single key shortcuts!

[Emdek]

To be clear, single key shortcuts won't be treated in special way, they will be simply available (maybe not always by default, but it is easy to set them). ;-)

[mgraham]

Awesome! I guess the main issue with single key shortcuts is that they shouldn't be active inside of form elements like textareas.

In Opera, the F9 key (I think that's the default) removes focus from any form elements allowing you to use the single key shortcuts again.

[redbeardcreator]

I'd also like to make sure that ctrl+tab visits tabs in most-recently-visited order. This is one of a few things I miss desperately from Opera in Chrome.

[Emdek]

@mgraham, sure, Qt handles that for us.
I didn't know about that F9 shortcut, it seems to always focus page (even if address field is focused) and clearing focus only from inputs (links and buttons stay focused). That should be doable with some help from JavaScript.

@redbeardcreator, sure, I guess that it would be a good idea to have option for that, but defaulting to that mode.

[mgraham]

The other fiddly focus feature is that when the page has focus and you press Tab, focus moves to the first form element (not the first link).

This is an incredibly useful feature!

[Emdek]

@mgraham, that part would require JavaScript, query for first element of that type and focus it.

[landroni]

"To be clear, single key shortcuts won't be treated in special way, they will be simply available (maybe not always by default, but it is easy to set them)."

I would actually suggest, when you get around this, to provide users with a checkbox enabling the feature (just like Opera 12 had "Enable single-key shortcuts"). The reason is that some features need to be provided to users (almost) by default, else they won't think of trying them out if everything were customizable. Say, how many of those requesting this feature in Otter today would have tried in old Opera manually configuring 1 and 2 for the purpose of switching tabs?

[ersi-dnd]

Why is this ticket closed? Ctrl+Tab is still unimplemented as far as I can see, and the single key shortcuts work not as desirable.

It is desired in single-key shortcuts is that they not conflict with normal keyboard function. For example I type in a single-row form and typing "1" or "2" takes me to some other tab. This is clearly a bug. Or I have certain character under AltGr+2 but Otter interprets this as "2". Clearly a bug again.

Moreover, how is it planned to change away from single-key shortcuts? Right now it looks like keyboard shortcuts are put into several files in Tools/Preferences/Advanced/Keyboard dialogue and the several files all must function. I cannot switch them off. The only way to switch a certain set of keyboard shortcuts off is to delete the files. When I delete the files, I lose not just the undesirable shortcuts, but everything, including basic important things like New Tab, Close Tab, etc. When I delete the file, how can I get it back when I want the keyboard shortcuts to work again? I can't.

Should I open a new ticket as this one is closed?

[Emdek]

@ersi-dnd, it is not, its duplicate is closed.

These two mentioned issues are Qt bugs, although first one is reproducible only with flash based forms.
Which Qt version are you using?

Shortcuts configuration will see some improvements - checkboxes to decide which items should be active.
This is probably the most user friendly way to do that.

[ersi-dnd]

I have Qt 5.3.1

Looking forward to shortcuts configuration improvements...

[Emdek]

I have no idea how it happened that it wasn't noticed earlier, but it's a duplicate of #52.