Wednesday 18 June 2008

Opera Ctrl-Click to open in new page / tab - updated

Well, it has been a while now since I originally posted about wanting to use Ctrl Click as my shortcut for opening pages in a new tab (or a new page as Opera calls it!).

I had a couple of comments from people who said they had managed it, but no matter what I tried, I had no luck (perhaps it works differently on different operating systems). I even posted about it in the Opera Dev forums (not sure whether that was the right place!), but no joy there.

However, while searching for more information, I stumbled across a piece of Opera User JavaScript in the My Opera community forums - from shoust here.

If you want to implement it, you'll need to set up your User JavaScript folder, as described on this page. Then follow the link to shoust's post and save "allinbackground.js" to the folder you set up (you can ignore the bit about the "button"). Restart Opera (not sure if you have to, but I did) and you're all set up!
[Edit: You don't even need to restart! Opera gets better and better]

One further change might be to enable User JavaScript on HTTPS sites - but do so only at your own risk!

I hadn't realised that Opera had a flexible JavaScript engine out of the box; I'd only recently started using the Firefox Greasemonkey extension and enjoying it, so I should be able to port my scripts straight over!

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks :) I've been waiting for Opera to add this feature forever!

Anonymous said...

Thanks!

one thing to note (which was mentioned in your opera dev forum link) is

you must enable javascript to lower windows for this to work.

Marv said...

Thanks Johan, you're right - I missed that! I think that reply came along after my post here.
As the link says, it's:-
Tools -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Content -> JavaScript options -> Allow lowering of windows.

Without that option checked, new tabs are opened using the Ctrl key, but in the foreground rather than the background.

Rick said...

Thank you very much! This fixed one of my biggest annoyances with Opera!

Anonymous said...

how can I open a link by ctrl-click in a new active (focused) tab?

Anonymous said...

Hmm I don't really want to add javascript to a page to get this to work. I'm liking opera, but changing the keyboard/mouse shortcuts just doesn't seem to do anything. Kind of stupid...

Anonymous said...

Sure, it would be nice if we could get this behavior without resorting to javascript, but what a relief to have finally solved this problem.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Anonymous said...

The easiest solution I have found is to reprogram your brain to use SHIFT CONTROL Click to open a link in a new tab.

Anonymous said...

a big thanks!
I am a new user of Opera on Linux
and this impediment was preventing me from adopting it.
But now I have started liking it more and more even than Firefox which has a very buggy version on Linux.

Anonymous said...

Hello ,
does someone of you have a clue how to SKIP the "save as" dialog when using "ctrl click" on images opened in opera?

I want to save images DIRECTLY by "ctrl click" (or some other simple shortcut).

Himliano said...

Thank you very much for this tip.
It's very annoying that Opera does not use Ctrl + click as most os web browsers.

Now I can enjoy using Opera without this annoying behaviour.

Unknown said...

just go to tools-preferences-advanced-shortcuts-middle click options and select open in new tab. much simpler then f***ing with javascript.

Anonymous said...

shift + left click = open new tab in foreground

ctrl + shift + left click = open new tab in background

ctrl + alt + z = re-open last closed tab

Marv said...

Hi Anonymous,

Yep - I know there are other keyboard shortcuts that work, but my problem is that I use Ctrl-Click in every other browser, and that's what I'm used to. Opera, good as it is, does not have enough benefits to make me change my habits!

Cheers,
Marv

Anonymous said...

Why can't Opera be normal? I'm using Opera for the first time in a long while and I'm almost ready to drop it because of this issue.

Now I have to screw with javascripts to get something that should be the default; or at most a checkbox in the settings tab.

I develop web pages and program in javascript and I don't even want to have to screw with it to get simple normal behavior.

I use IE, FF, Chrome, and Safari, on my desktop.. they all ctrl-click to open a new tab..

uggh;

Anonymous said...

opera really needs to add an option somewhere for ctrl click...after years of other browsers its really becoming a bother because that behavior is part of me i may switch back to FF simply because its so annoying

Marv said...

It is ridiculous, I agree.

Actually, the main thing stopping me from moving to Opera right now is the lack of a (proper) Xmarks implementation. That would be a big step for my willingness to switch over!