Missing the SingleWindow extension in FireFox?
If you're among the many people that have started using Firefox, you've probably noticed that links from other programs open over other pages that you already have open or open a new window entirely. This can be annoying if you didn't want to navigate away from the page that was open in Firefox, and middle clicking the link in your other programs doesn't open a new tab.
I've found it much more helpful to have links from all programs, as well as links that are programmed to open in "pop up" windows, open in new tabs. The SingleWindow extension filled this need until very recently, but mysteriously stopped working in 1.0
It turns out that Firefox 1.0 incorporates that functionality natively. Here's how to turn it on.
- In Firefox, open a new tab so you can keep this page open as well.
- In that new tab, enter about:config in your address bar
- change browser.tabs.showSingleWindowModePrefs to true (you can type part of the name of the configuration item in the Filter: box to quickly reduce the list)
- go to Tools -> Options -> Advanced
- Under Tabbed Browsing,
check:
- Open link from other applications in: a new tab in the most recent window
- Force links that open new windows to open in a new tab
Firefox will now open a new tab for just about everything! You may also want to check "Warn when closing multiple tabs" so that you don't accidentally lose all the pages you had open by clicking the wrong thing. To avoid this, also try to get in the habit of middle-clicking the tabs to close them rather than clicking the red X.
Also, if you're running Firefox on Linux, Middle-clicking on tabs doesn't close them by default. To change this: In about:config set middlemouse.contentLoadURL to false. This is less "correct" on unix, but it will make Firefox behave more like it does on Windows.
