Why is text history not persistent between tabs anymore?
I used to be able to open a new tab, press ctrl+Z, and have the same address (or random text, didn't matter) of the tab I was just in placed into the new tab as well. I could modify it a bit and navigate to another similar page, or duplicate the tab in a split second if I want.
This was a feature I used frequently and other prominent browsers don't do it. Why was it removed? Was it an accident? I can't think of a legitimately good reason such a unique and unobtrusive feature would be removed intentionally.
All Replies (6)
Could you describe this in more detail? I'm puzzled because Ctrl+z is the shortcut for "undo" which doesn't make sense to me in this context.
To duplicate the current tab, you can try one of these:
- Ctrl+drag the current tab to a new position on the tab bar
- "middle-click" the reload button using the mouse scroll wheel
What I mean is that the text in the url bar isn't consistent across the tabs. This has nothing to do with duplicating a whole tab, it's simply about quickly repeating the last accessed tab's text into whatever tab I'm currently in, whether or not the tab is new.
I'm not looking for different ways to have a similar end result for the various ways I used this feature, I just want to know if its removal was intentional, and if so, why.
rmlw said
What I mean is that the text in the url bar isn't consistent across the tabs.
Consistent? Normally the URL bar shows the address of the currently displayed page, so unless it's exactly the same page, it's not going to be consistent.
When I want to copy/paste an address from one tab to another, I click the address, Ctrl+c, change tab, click the address, Ctrl+v, Enter. If you had a one-step shortcut for that, either I've never heard of that feature or it was supplied by one of your add-ons.
Have you noticed any of your extensions being disabled or removed? You can view, enable/disable, and often configure or remove extensions on the Add-ons page. Either:
- Ctrl+Shift+a (Mac: Command+Shift+a)
- "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons
- type or paste about:addons in the address bar and press Enter/Return
In the left column of the Add-ons page, click Extensions. Then scan down the list on the right side. Any disabled extensions cluster at the bottom.
jscher2000 said
Consistent? Normally the URL bar shows the address of the currently displayed page, so unless it's exactly the same page, it's not going to be consistent.
You're correct that it shows the currently displayed page's URL by default, but you can modify that text after clicking on it. Normally clicking on different tabs changed what was displayed in the address bar, true, but clicking on tabs didn't affect what previously displayed text you could duplicate via undo. Now opening a new tab treats the address bar like nothing has ever been typed into it.
It used to be that I could do this:
• Tab 1 says "www.website.com/example/1" • A new tab, Tab 2, is opened • The address bar in Tab 2 is clicked • Ctrl+Z is pressed • Tab 2 displays "www.website.com/example/1"
The same was also true for text I'd typed into the tab and left there, even if I hadn't pressed enter to load a webpage into said tab.
I am aware of basic keyboard shortcuts to modify text and manipulate tabs, but as I said:
rmlw said
I'm not looking for different ways to have a similar end result for the various ways I used this feature, I just want to know if its removal was intentional, and if so, why.
I've never installed an addon to be able to do something so specific, and have used it lots of times on different computers with fresh installs of Firefox (meaning no addons).
Does it make a difference whether multi-process is enabled or disabled?
You can check "Multiprocess Windows" to see the current state.
- "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" -> Application Basics: Multiprocess Windows
You can disable multi-process windows in Firefox by setting these prefs to false on the about:config page.
- browser.tabs.remote.autostart = false
- browser.tabs.remote.autostart.2 = false
You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can accept the warning and click "I'll be careful" to continue.
Multiprocess Windows 0/7 (Disabled by add-ons)
I checked about:config and found my settings were
- browser.tabs.remote.autostart = false
- browser.tabs.remote.autostart.2 = true
Setting them both to true didn't alter the "0/7 (Disabled by add-ons)" message until I disabled all my addons, but unfortunately, it still didn't fix the problem.
I just tried it on a different computer with a fresh install, and the feature isn't there either. It seems the feature was completely removed, but I still don't have any idea why.
I'm going to give up on fixing this, but thanks to you both for trying to help.