Question about IE8 tabs | The Coffeehouse

BitFlipper

I have a question about IE8 Beta 2 tabs:

In IE7, you had the option to open new tabs right next to the current tab. In IE8 that option has been removed and new tabs open all the way to the right (or within the same "group": useless in my case). Now some people have commented that they prefer it that way, but why take away the option to choose between the two modes? The way I browse, I open multiple new tabs from the same page by middle-clicking with the mouse. Lets say I do a search on Google. I scan down the page and middle-click on all interesting looking results. In IE7, all the new tabs were nicely grouped to the right of the current tab. Now, if I have many tabs open, the new tab gets lost all the way to the right, and I have to scroll to the new tab, view it, close it and then try to find my original starting tab again somewhere to the left. Really annoying.

And yes, I know about tab groups, but I found them to be useless for me because often times all the new tabs I open come from the same general site, which means they are all in the same group. I even turned grouping off and it still opens new tabs all the way to the right.

Is there maybe a plugin that will restore this functionality in IE8?

PaoloM
Hypermediocrity

I don't understand what you mean. If I open a link in a new tab in IE8, I get a tab just to the right of my current tab.

Dovella
Go Microsoft !!!!!!!

In reply to PaoloM

#Nov 18th, 2008 @ 1:26 PM

from my point of view I can only say that the new TAB of IE8 BETA 2are a bit heavy in OLD PC

BitFlipper

In reply to PaoloM

#Nov 18th, 2008 @ 1:26 PM

1) Open a few tabs from the same website.
2) Go to the leftmost tab.
3) Middle-click on any link inside this web page.
4) Notice that the new tab opens all the way to right, instead of right next to the current tab.

The option to open new tabs right next to the current tab has been removed in IE8. When you have a lot of tabs open, this is really annoying. If you never browsed in this way, it might not make sense why this is useful. If this was the way you always browsed before, removing this functionality is super annoying and reduces productivity while browsing. I tried to get used to the missing functionality but no matter how hard I try, I keep wishing it had not been removed.

Why was it be removed?

BitFlipper

In reply to PaoloM

#Nov 18th, 2008 @ 1:26 PM

This is what I am talking about. Below is the IE7 tab settings dialog. Notice the "Open new tabs next to the current tab" option is no longer available in IE8.

Tabbed Browser Settings

PaoloM
Hypermediocrity

In reply to BitFlipper

#Nov 18th, 2008 @ 1:54 PM

I can't middle-click (on a laptop), but if I right click on a link and select "Open in new Tab", the new tab is open just to the right of the current one. I actually don't know how to open them to the right of the list...

BitFlipper

In reply to PaoloM

#Nov 18th, 2008 @ 2:19 PM

That is definitely not what I am seeing. Even "Open in New Tab" on the context menu for me opens it all the way to the right.

Are you also using IE8 Beta 2? Are you using some plugin that might change the default behavior? You might have grouping turned on, although when I had grouping turned on, it still opened the tabs all the way to the right. So I am not sure why it is different for you.

PaoloM
Hypermediocrity

In reply to BitFlipper

#Nov 18th, 2008 @ 3:32 PM

I have whatever version came with my Win7 build from last week. I do have grouping turned on, maybe it's a behaviour that has been fixed since the build you have.

What happens if you enable grouping and then right-click and open a link in a new tab (not middle-click, so we can repro the behaviour I'm seeing)?

BitFlipper

In reply to PaoloM

#Nov 18th, 2008 @ 4:09 PM

If I have grouping enabled then it does the same thing. My version of IE is 8.0.6001.18241.

I am running this on Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP1.

BHpaddock

In reply to BitFlipper

#Nov 18th, 2008 @ 4:23 PM

Right, the option still exists. It was renamed to "tab grouping" and is on by default.

If you turn off tab grouping, they won't be grouped (ie. opened next to each other).

BitFlipper

In reply to BHpaddock

#Nov 18th, 2008 @ 5:28 PM

Tab grouping is not the same thing. It doesn't act like "Open new tab next to current tab".

If you have tab grouping enabled, and you open multiple tabs from the same site, new tabs will still be added to the end of the current group, and not next to the current, active tab.

So if you go to one site only and open multiple tabs, it acts the same as if "Open new tab next to current tab" (in IE7) is disabled.

I can see how someone that implemented "Tab Groups", but who never really used the "Open next to current" feature might have thought that it was an improvement over "Open next to current", and therefore sadly removed the original functionality.