Tip #17: Become a tabmaster

Remember the old times when you had to do this?

Now that you can handle forms easily, today I'll show you how to master tabbed browsing. Back in the days of Internet Explorer 6, we would have to open one window for every single webpage, unless if you were using Firefox, Opera or Safari then. With the introduction of IE7 a few years back, tabbed browsing became mainstream. Yet, there are still some people around me who don't know how to use tabbed browsing!

Just in case anyone here is still not aware of what tabs do, tabs let you open multiple pages in a single browser window, so that you don't clutter your taskbar (the long bar with the Start button below) with lots of instances of your web browser. Having multiple instances of your browser open slows down your computer during heavy browsing. Of course, this doesn't quite apply in Mac OS X, since there is only one icon of the running program shown, but still you would have to right-click on the dock icon to pick which Safari window to show, like how Windows XP grouped similar taskbar items together.

1 Let's begin with today's tutorial. Again, it should apply to any web browser you use. To open a link in a new tab, there are several ways you can do this. One is to right-click on the link and choose Open link in new tab. Or you can also hold on to Ctrl and left-click the link (Mac users, it's Command + click for you). But my personal favourite, is to middle click the link. To middle-click, click using your mouse's scroll wheel by pressing it (some cheaper mice don't have middle click even though they have a scroll wheel). If you are using a laptop touchpad, try pressing both the left and right buttons together. I am not sure if middle-clicking is possible on Apple touchpads or the Mighty Mouse, anyone who knows please be kind enough to point this out to me. Nuff said, now try to open the link below in a new tab.

Open me in a new tab

There is one small caveat if you are using Firefox, by default you need to manually switch to the newly opened tab by clicking on it in the tab bar. You can change this behaviour by going to Tools > Options > Tabs, then tick When I open a link in a new tab, switch to it immediately.

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3 You can switch to the next tab by pressing Ctrl + Tab (same on the Mac). Try that now to switch to the second tab which you opened previously using the link above.

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5 You can also drag tabs around to reorder them. Try dragging this tab to the right to make it the second tab. After doing that, switch to the other tab using any method to see how to close it.

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7 You can reopen a previously closed tab. Press Ctrl + Shift + T (Command + Shift + T if you are using Firefox for Mac) to open the last tab you closed. This doesn't work in Safari for Windows nor Mac, but it's okay if you proceed on to step 9 here.

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9 Lastly, to open a new empty tab, press Ctrl + T (Command + T for Mac). Depending on which browser you use, you may also have a tiny New Tab button on the tab bar. If the tab bar is visible, you can also double click on the empty space after the last tab.

That's it! Now you can surf faster with tabs! There are a handful of add-ons or extensions you can find for Firefox and Google Chrome to make tabbed browsing better, or to customise it to your taste. I hope the jumping around between the tabs wasn't too confusing ;)