Tabbed Browsing

Tabbed browsing makes browsing the Web more convenient. This section describes how to use tabbed browsing and how to customize it to make browsing the Web even faster.

Using Tabbed Browsing

Tabbed browsing lets you open tabs, each displaying a web page, within a single &brandShortName; window. This frees up space on your desktop.

You can also "browse ahead" with tabbed browsing. If you are on a long web page, you can load links in new tabs. The linked web pages will load in tabs while you read the current page.

Creating and Loading Tabs

To open a new tab, press &accelKey;+T, select File > New Tab, or double-click an empty space in the Tab Bar.

To load a link in a tab, you can do one of the following:

• Middle-click the link. (If you have a mouse wheel, clicking the wheel is equivalent to middle-clicking.)
• Drag the link and drop it on an empty space in the Tab Bar. (If only one web page is open, the Tab Bar may be hidden. See Customizing Tabbed Browsing for information on how to change this.)
• Drag and drop the link onto a tab to open the link in that tab.
• Right-clickPress &ctrlKey;, click on the link and choose Open Link in New Tab from the context menu.

Closing Tabs

To close the current tab, press &accelKey;+W, click the Close Tab button, middle-click the tab, or select File > Close Tab.

To close all tabs other than the current one, right-clickpress &ctrlKey;, click on the tab and choose Close Other Tabs.

Keyboard Shortcuts

While it's easy to select tabs with a mouse, you can also cycle through tabs using the keyboard: use &ctrlKey;+PageUp (or &ctrlKey;+Tab) and &ctrlKey;+PageDown (or &ctrlKey;+&shiftKey;+Tab). You can also select the first tab by pressing &accelKey;&altKey;+1, and so on up to the 9th tab with &accelKey;&altKey;+9.

Bookmarks and Tabbed Browsing

To bookmark a set of tabs:

1. Press &accelKey;+D or select Bookmarks > Bookmark This Page.
2. Check the Bookmark all tabs in a folder checkbox to store all the tabs in the current window into a bookmark folder.
3. To open bookmarks in tabs, open a bookmark folder menu and choose Open in Tabs. You can also middle-click on the folder to open its contents in tabs. The bookmarks will open in existing tabs, not new ones.

Home Page as Tabs

Instead of using only one web page as your homepage, you can make your home page a set of tabs. Select your favorite web sites and open them in tabs in a single window. Select &pref.menuPath; and open the General panel. Under Home Page, press the Use Current Pages button. Now when you press the Home button, your favorite web sites will load with just a click.

Customizing Tabbed Browsing

To customize tabbed browsing, select &pref.menuPath; and open the Advanced panel. &pref.pluralCaps; for tabbed browsing can be found under Tabbed Browsing.

Helpful Tips

• You can add a New Tab button on the toolbar to easily open new tabs by customizing your toolbars.
• While &brandShortName; already provides the most widely-used tabbed browsing &pref.plural;, you may wish to tweak tabbed browsing even further using extensions.

Copyright © 2003-2004 Contributors to the Mozilla Help Viewer Project.