Forum Discussion
Tab behaviour enhancements
Chrome refused it because some devs decided they didn't want it, then in typical fashion stuck to their decision with superhuman levels of stuborness.
I suspect it was leadership preference rather than developers. Anyway, it yet another time shows the value of extensions, giving users freedom of choice.
FYI, I've been following that Chromium feature request for the last 10 years and I've been developing Chrome extensions since before the Chrome Webstore even existed and I'm not exaggerating when I'm saying that it's impossible to implement this functionality as an extension, using the existing APIs.
Also, the decision of not implementing this feature in Chromium was taken by a guy named Glenn (I don't remember his full name) that, at the time, was part of Chromium's UX team... What I remember though is a comment from him in which he stated that he simply doesn't like that feature, thus he won't agree for it to be added as a built-in feature, not even under an experimental flag...
If you don't know what that is or you simply don't need it, please refrain yourself from commenting on this thread.
Help me entertain the value of MRU feature pls. Would you?
For me rational tab control encompasses proper close and open order augmented with fast switching btw last 2 tabs. If one wants fast switching btw multiple tabs in a certain order, is it really faster and simpler when you go beyond the 1st switch cycle than selecting the right tab from the list? Try Ctrl+Tab MRU by using Ctrl+Y .
Now, you are claiming that only Yes votes are allowed in this thread. Not the case. Its a privilege you don't have - and that's the exact behavior you object in Chrome devs. 😊
So the main thing here is that your solution is dependent on constantly re-arranging tabs so that current tab switching method (position based) works.
In a situation where one of the two tabs you're working with is newly opened then this works. But for people who constantly have multiple tabs open, its not as efficient. My work flow for example, involves having several always open tabs logged into various web front ends. So to get this working with your method, I need to first re-arrange all my tabs. Even then I need to switch between CTRL+Tab and CTRL+Shift+tab all the time (and also be conscious of which one I need to use).
Just imagine if the OS worked like this - forcing you to re-arrange your task bar every time you wanted to enable a proper alt+tab workflow. I don't think anyone would consider that viable.
The value of this is immeasurable. I simply can't work with "round robin" style tab switching with Ctrl-Tab... it makes Ctrl-Tab almost completely USELESS.
MRU is the only logical, efficient, and sane method of tab management, period. If I close a tab, I should see the last tab I was looking at, not the jarring re-appearance of a tab I haven't looked at for a while just because it was "adjacent'. And If I am Looking at one tab, switch to another, Ctrl-Tab should take me immediately back to the tab I was just looking at. And Ctrl-Tab should then allow me to easily switch back and forth between those two tabs, even if they're not adjacent. And if I want to see the tab I was looking at before that, Ctrl-Tab-Tab, and boom, I'm there.
It's consistent with the way EVERY OTHER interface works... from Alt-Tab, to Ctrl-Tab in Firefox, IE, Notepad++, SQL Server Management Studio, Visual Studio, etc, etc.
Not having it in EDGE is just … ridiculous. Frustrating. Infuriating. It slows me down and makes navigating more than two tabs PAINFUL. There's zero excuse for not providing this as an option. I cannot fathom how anyone can do any real work in a tabbed UI without MRU tab-switching.
I do work with multiple tabs and can see your logic, but is it deep enough? Did you try both extensions jointly: Tab Position Options and Ctrl+Tab MRU ? Explore all their options? Now you see, the logic choice gets more diverse? The MRU definition more complex?
Now think of the basic feature you ask for: switch multiple tabs in the order they were looked at or created before. Sounds intelligent - at the 1st run. What do you expect to happen at the 2nd run? Where do you want to go AFTER you looked at a certain tab again? Are you sure, you always want to go to its parent instead of simply back or closing it? Starting from step 2, I doubt a rigid order will work whatever it is. 😉
