Firefox Keyboard Shortcuts For Navigating Between Tabs (OS X)

December 14, 2005 7:03 AM

The keyboard shortcuts for moving between open tabs in Firefox 1.5 on OS 10.4.3 don't work - any ideas on how to fix this, possibly using the Keyconfig extension?

On the relevant Firefox help page, the keyboard shortcuts for 'Next Tab' are listed as Command+Tab and Command+Page Down. The former won't work as that combination is reserved for the OS X Application Switcher, and disabling that would appear to involve replacing the Dock entirely with an app like Dragthing, or using a haxie, neither of which I want to do (though Liteswitch X overrides this somehow), the latter combination just doesn't do anything.

I've tried installing the Keyconfig extension, but 'Next Tab' doesn't appear in its list of keyboard shortcuts. There is, however, an option in Keyconfig to 'Add a new key', which is a bit mysterious, and seemingly undocumented: it provides a field asking for 'code', but I can't find anywhere which would tell me what sort of code it's after. The closest I've come is this page, but adding the 'Next Tab' snippet listed there to Keyconfig and assigning a keyboard shortcut has no effect.

Alternatively, does anyone knows how to disable the Application Switcher's use of Command+Tab so I can use that combination in Firefox as intended?

(Also, I'm aware of other extensions like Foxposé and Tab Sidebar which let me navigate around my open tabs in various groovy ways, and the possibility of using one of the mouse gestures extensions, but none of these options let me quickly zip back and forth via the keyboard.)

So, I'm stumped. Any ideas?

posted by jack_mo to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

That's weird. In my version of the Firefox 1.5 help text Keyboard Shortcuts section: "Next Tab" is assigned to "Cmd+Opt+Right Arrow" and "Previous Tab" is assigned to "Cmd+Opt+Left Arrow". Both of those work fine.

It never says anything about Cmd+Tab being assigned.
posted by majick at 7:32 AM on December 14, 2005

Best answer: Are you misreading the keyboard shortcuts? Mine says, not command-PageDown/Up but control-PageDown/Up. Just tried it and it works for me--yay! I'd been wondering about this myself and never bothered actually looking in the Help, heh.

So try control-PageDown/Up and see if that doesn't work.
posted by cyrusdogstar at 8:27 AM on December 14, 2005

Response by poster: Hmmn, weird indeed. It looks like that help page I referred to in the question is wrong/out of date, but there must be some sort of conflict going on with another app, or a bug - Cmd+Opt+Left/Right Arrow doesn't work for me, but a further Googling confirms that that is indeed what it's supposed to be.

Suppose I'll have to disable everything keyboardy I have installed and see if that helps.

In any case, if anyone knows how to use that 'code' bit of Keyconfig, I'd still have a use for that information.
posted by jack_mo at 8:32 AM on December 14, 2005

Best answer: code for "next tab":
gBrowser.mTabContainer.advanceSelectedTab(1, true);

for previous tab, it's similar: "gBrowser.mTabContainer.advanceSelectedTab(-1, true);"

were you trying to add all of the stuff listed on that mozillazine page? Because it looks like that had what you were looking for, but buried under some other crap that breaks it.
posted by ckolderup at 8:34 AM on December 14, 2005

Response by poster: Thanks ckolderup, that's just the ticket!

were you trying to add all of the stuff listed on that mozillazine page? Because it looks like that had what you were looking for, but buried under some other crap that breaks it.

Yep, I was pasting in all the gobbledegook:

user_pref("keyconfig.main.xxx_key__Next Tab", "!][][][gBrowser.mTabContainer.advanceSelectedTab(1);");
posted by jack_mo at 9:44 AM on December 14, 2005

On my system (OSX 10.4.3 / FF 1.5) I can switch tabs via Option+Command+{Left,Right}-arrow. This only works when the main part of the web page is in focus but not an input element, i.e. it doesn't work when the cursor is in a textbox or the address bar, etc.
posted by harmfulray at 9:51 AM on December 14, 2005

Response by poster: Oops, missed your comment earlier, cyrusdogstar. It must be a typo on the help page I referred to before (though it also explicitly states that 'Mac OS X uses Cmd instead of Ctrl as the accelerator key').

Whatever, your way does indeed work, as long as I do fn+ctrl+pg dn/up (which is what you meant, I guess, but I just thought I'd add that in case someone came along in future and didn't know you have to hold the fn key to get at pg dn/up, home and end).

So now I have two ways to wander about my tabs (cmnd+opt+left/right arrow still won't work for me, for whatever reason).

Thanks awfully for your help, everyone. Firefox is set as my default browser...
posted by jack_mo at 11:54 AM on December 14, 2005