275519 - [Mac] Support Command+Option+Arrows for tab switching (like Camino)

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Toolkit :: UI Widgets, enhancement, P2)

Description

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

We have decided to drop ctrl+tab/shift-tab on mac for tabbrowser (see bug 169589
and bug 264787). As Ctrl+PageDown/PageUp isn't a good replacement, we need to
support a different keybindings on Mac.

Best would be to use Safari's keybindings; as of the time of writing, it uses
Command+Shift+Arrows which is not acceptiable as it drops common selection
keybindings.

However, Camino uses Command+Option+Arrows which
(1) doesn't conflict with anything else.
(2) won't be needed on other platfroms (Accel+Alt keybindings)

Comment 1

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

Attachment: patch v1

Comment 2

[Quentin Smith]

I think the reason that Safari uses cmd+shift+arrows is that it's pretty darn impossible to press 
cmd+option+arrow on a laptop keyboard. There's only one option key, on the left side of the keyboard, 
whereas you can easily press cmd+shift+arrows. Something as simple as changing tabs shouldn't 
require two hands.

Comment 3

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

We're not going to drop Command+Shift+Arrows for text selction.

Comment 4

[Balazs Nagy]

In Safari, select to end of line and select to beginning of line is bound to
ctrl-shift-arrow.  Why using command-shift-arrow for this is so important?

Besides, I tried to use right command-right shift-arrows to switch tabs in
Safari (I have a PB), and it was a pain.  Besides, I redefined Return key to
Option, thus a command-option-arrow would be good to me too.

Comment 5

[Hiro]

depend bug211247 ?

Comment 6

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

no (and that one will be wontfixed, at some point)

Comment 7

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

Attachment: v1.1

update to tip + nit picking.

Comment 8

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

Comment on attachment 178913 [details] [diff] [review]
v1.1

bah, it's becoming late.

Comment 9

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

Comment on attachment 178913 [details] [diff] [review]
v1.1

needs update

Comment 10

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

Attachment: patch

Comment 11

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

Checking in tabbox.xml;
/cvsroot/mozilla/toolkit/content/widgets/tabbox.xml,v  <--  tabbox.xml
new revision: 1.25; previous revision: 1.24
done

Comment 12

[Marc Bejarano]

asaf: so the "fix" for bug 275549 was checked in 6/28/05.  any trunk nightly
after that is going to have this problem.

ff 1.0.6 still allows one to switch tabs with ctrl-tab.  i guarantee we're going
to see a lot of folks reporting this problem as soon as there is a real release
based on the trunk.  at the very least, we're going to need to relnote this.

can we pref this behavior, or something?

making a user hit three keys (cmd-option-arrows) requires both hands which just
sucks for something as commonly used as tab switching :(

Comment 13

[Nico Edtinger]

(In reply to comment #12)
> ff 1.0.6 still allows one to switch tabs with ctrl-tab.  i guarantee we're going
> to see a lot of folks reporting this problem as soon as there is a real release
> based on the trunk.  at the very least, we're going to need to relnote this.

You're right. Seems like I'm the first one to report this ;) First I thought
it's a focus problem, but even after clicking in the window ctrl+tab didn't
work. I did take a look at the release notes but it only mentioned something
about "better support for mac os x" and nothing about removing stuff.

> can we pref this behavior, or something?
> 
> making a user hit three keys (cmd-option-arrows) requires both hands which just
> sucks for something as commonly used as tab switching :(

As a powerbook user ctrl+tab is the only combination I can press without makeing
my hands hurt. And even without p0rn it's usefull to switch tabs with only one hand.

My fix was searching the files mentioned in this thread and reading thru the
source code (at least the source is open - although it's not the most
user-friendly way to make someone do this). As long as there is no preference
for this here's how to enable ctrl+tab again.

1) Quit Firefox
2) Go to Firefox.app, Choose Show Package Contents (my Finder show the german
text so I can only guess what's the wording in english) and go to
Contents/MacOS/chrome/
3) Backup toolkit.jar and rename it to toolkit.zip
4) unpack toolkit.zip and go to content/global/bindings/
5) open tabbrowser.xml
6) Replace (in line 1977 in my file)
     this.mTabBox.handleCtrlTab = !/Mac/.test(navigator.platform);
   with
     this.mTabBox.handleCtrlTab = true;
7) Create an archive of the content folder
8) Rename it to toolkit.jar
9) You can now use ctrl+tab again

Maybe the line could be replace with something like
     this.mTabBox.handleCtrlTab =  
       this.mPrefs.getBoolPref("browser.tabs.forceEnableCtrlTab")
       || !/Mac/.test(navigator.platform);

I guess this should be working and make enabling ctrl+tab much easier.

Comment 14

[Luke deGruchy]

I second Nico's request.

I respectfully suggest that Firefox reintroduce Control-Tab and Shift-Control-Tab for scrolling among tabs.

Comment 15

[John Morrison]

Thanks Nico, for how to put this back.