Tab Navigator introduces an ingenious method that should remind Windows users of the Alt Tab navigation in their operating system. The Firefox add-on enables the keyboard shortcuts [ALT W] and [ALT R] which can be used to open a small window and navigate to all tabs pressing the W or R keys repeatedly. The keys that are used to power this new function can be changed in the add-on’s options. It is possible to use a combination of CTRL, ALT, Shift plus one other key on the keyboard for each function.

This is important for users who make use of other add-ons that use these keyboard shortcuts (the Last Pass password manager for example uses [ALT W] to open the site search window. Another interesting option that is provided by the add-on is the ability to enable thumbnail previews of open tabs. The thumbnail preview size is set to 400 pixel with the option to decrease or increase the size in the options.

The main benefit of tab navigator is the use of only one hand to switch to another tab. Tab Navigator is an experimental add-on for the Firefox web browser. It can be download from the official Mozilla Firefox website.

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We already discussed numbered tabs in the past to make the identification of the correct corresponding number easier. All those extensions on the other hand did was to display the number. This changes with the NumExt add-on for Firefox. The add-on is currently in experimental stage which means that users have to log into the Mozilla website before they can download it.

Once installed it adds the numbers at the beginning of the tab name. The interesting aspect is that the add-on will continue numbering the tabs even if their count exceeds nine. That would not make much sense if it would not provide a function to access those tabs greater nine with a shortcut.

Pressing [ALT X] will open a small box in the lower right corner of the status bar. The user can then enter the number of the tab that he wants to activate which will be displayed as soon as he presses the enter key.

Several additional commands have been integrated to make life just a bit easier.

• open [url] – will load the url in a new tab
• close [number] – will close the tab with that number
• hide – will hide all tabs
• show – will display the tabs again
• title [number] [string] – will change the title of a tab

A few things could be improved. It would be nice if the # sign that is following each number could be removed to save screen estate in the tab bar. Another interesting option worth investigating would be to use [ALT 1-9] to open the tabs 10-18 automatically without having to use the form at the bottom.

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