The Greatest Keyboard Shortcut Ever

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Ryan Vogt writes in the Mercury News that Shakespeare described death as 'the undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn no traveller returns.' Did you know there is a the miraculous way to resuscitate tabs sent to the 'undiscovere'd country,' a sort of Ctrl-Z for the entire Internet, that means 'no more called-out cusswords, no more wishing the back button had you covered when, aiming to click on a tab, you accidentally hit the little X on the tab's starboard.' For Macs: Command [plus] shift [plus] t reopens the last tab. For PCs: Ctrl [plus] Shift [plus] T. 'Try it right now. Close this tab and bring it back. I dare ya.' Melia Robinson's trick [described for Chrome] works in Firefox and Internet Explorer, too, so clumsy mousing won't send the the E*Trade tab you mistakenly closed all cued up to sell those 10,000 shares of stock or your long political post on your uncle's Facebook page on a one-way trip to the undiscovere'd country in those browsers, either." No guarantees on the stock trading.

Comments

Huh? What?

[Frosty Piss]

Maybe it's the alcohol... But I really have no idea what the summary is talking about.

Re:Huh? What?

[m1ss1ontomars2k4]

I agree. Is this just a bad /. post, or literally the worst /. post ever?

Re:Huh? What?

[greenreaper]

It's saying that "undo close tab" is a thing. Somehow this is a surprise to some people.

Re:Huh? What?

[c0d3g33k]

Thirded. No clue what this is actually about.

Re:Huh? What?

[alphatel]

Maybe it's the alcohol... But I really have no idea what the summary is talking about.

I didnt know either, but after I used the greatest shortcut ever, porn popped up. So it's a porn-regrabber!

Re:Huh? What?

[Fwipp]

It's sort of trendy here to talk about how the once-great Slashdot has fallen, and I've mostly considered those people to be whiny old men.

Today, I realize that they were right.

Re:Huh? What?

[BitterOak]

Maybe it's the alcohol... But I really have no idea what the summary is talking about.

They're talking about Firefox, but astonishingly, don't mention that in the summary. At least, I tried it with Firefox and it works. Maybe it works in other browsers, too, but I'm too lazy to experiment. It is a useful shortcut that I didn't know about.

Re:Huh? What?

[BitterOak]

Ooops. My bad. Reading the summary more carefully, they do mention it works in Firefox, Explorer and Chrome.

Re:Huh? What?

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

All I use is alt+s on firefox, and click one of the last places I was at.

Re:Huh? What?

[Old Wolf]

I knew about it in Chrome but hadn't been able to find a similar option in Firefox. (Going to the Firefox history and reopening the last closed page there, loses anything you'd typed into forms)

Re:Huh? What?

[asmkm22]

This is one of the worst summaries ever. The topic is bad. The summary is bad. It's confusingly written, without any clear idea as to what point it's trying to convey.

TLDR: CTRL+Shift+T restores tabs you accidentally closed.

Re:Huh? What?

[hairyfeet]

I think they are talking about using a fucking up 3 finger keyboard shortcut to do what any Gecko or Chromium based browser does with a right click. Why on earth you'd want to go through a 3 finger keyboard shortcut when its just right click>reopen closed tab and unlike the 3 finger bullshit you can undo as many levels as you want, all the way back to when you opened the browser.

I'll probably get hate for saying this but "keyboard commanders" seem to think its some great accomplishment when they trip over some funky fucked up keyboard shortcut and when they point it out a good 90% of the time I have to reply with "Uhhh...you know there is a button that will do that, right? See just click here, no need to twist your fingers into pretzels when there is a GUI button right there" but then they get all pissy, like we should all be amazed at the fact they can twist their fingers into pretzels to do what the rest of us can do with a single click of the mouse in the right place.;

Re:Huh? What?

[ifiwereasculptor]

Well, it's both very badly written and seems to exist for the sole purpose of informing about a browser feature that is already very well-known and can be accessed via the always intuitive context menu, which will also provide the shortcut information. So I'm going to go with B, even though I feel a fellow /.ter will prove me wrong by linking to an even more stupid story.

Re:Huh? What?

[Just Some Guy]

It's where some half-assed tech journalist wannabe discovers the History -> Reopen Last Closed Window shortcut (and the Chrome equivalent) and wants to blare it from the rooftops like we've cured cancer or something.

He's gonna lose his freaking mind when he discovers Time Machine.

Re:Huh? What?

[vidnet]

The summary should read "Several browsers let you press Ctrl-Shift-T to reopen a closed tab. That is all."

Why this is deserving of an article I don't know.

Re:Huh? What?

[Aaron B Lingwood]

Thirded. No clue what this is actually about.

I think this is a story about a guy who logs into some banking/trading platform only to leave it idle and proceed to random web browsing in other tabs of the same browser instance.

I'm sure the story doesn't end well.

Re:Huh? What?

[vidnet]

Somehow it claims it's "a sort of Ctrl-Z for the entire Internet".

Come back when it lets me undo posting Slashdot comments with mipselled words.

Re:Huh? What?

[greenreaper]

You can also right-click on the tab bar, it's an option there.

Re:Huh? What?

[pjbgravely]

Right click, then click?

At least in firefox for I, it is a single middle click in the tabs bar to reopen the last closed tab.

Re:Huh? What?

[Jmc23]

Took you some time to get to the party!

Grab a beer and watch the rest of the pieces come down.

Re:Huh? What?

[EvanED]

It's just the "recently closed tabs" feature that has been in Firefox since the dawn of time.

To be fair, it's not been around for quite that long. My guess/investigation was that the feature was added to Firefox 2; for a while, I used an extension that provided that functionality. Even if you count from Firefox's 1.0 release, that would be a quarter of the way through it's life (in human terms, it'd have learned that feature while in college), and FF was gaining traction among well before then.

That being said... why the heck is this a /. story?

Re:Huh? What?

[EvanED]

Correction: I guess 2/9ths instead of 1/4 of its life. Still, it'd have been a senior in high school. :-)

Re:Huh? What?

[jrumney]

The keyboard shortcut is spelt out in full right there in the "Recently Closed Tabs" submenu, inside the History menu you're looking at, and you needed some random blogger getting a front page article on Slashdot to find it for you?

Re:Huh? What?

[frozentier]

Why this is deserving of an article I don't know.

It's not. I've been doing that with Chrome since it first came out.

Re:Huh? What?

[GumphMaster]

Maybe it's the alcohol...

More specifically, the lack of strong tipples sufficient to deliver one into the alternate universe where this article was news.

Re:Huh? What?

[jrumney]

It's where some half-assed tech journalist wannabe discovers the History -> Reopen Last Closed Window shortcut

Tab, not Window. They were saving Ctrl + Shift + N for next Sunday's front page story, until you scooped them just there.

Re:Huh? What?

[The MAZZTer]

I assumed it was making fun of people who didn't already know this?

Chrome puts closed tabs in the main menu so anyone who doesn't know the shortcut can find them easily, as well. I dunno what other browsers do but there's certainly an add-on for Firefox that can do it somewhere.

Re:Huh? What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um...just because I know some keyboard shortcuts doesn't mean I just learned them to impress people. I learned them because it's faster and because moving back and forth between keyboard and mouse is annoying. You come across as an input device equivalent to one of those people who gets mad at others for using big words.

Re:Huh? What?

[demonlapin]

What do you think this is, Reddit?

Re:Huh? What?

[TheABomb]

To be fair, it's only "very well-known" by people who know how to use browser tabs, which rules out 99% of my family, cow-orkers, and (I'm guessing through extrapolation) the population at large.

Re: Huh? What?

[Anonymous Coward]

The shitty part is, if you're in incognito mode and you accidentally close a porno tab and then change your mind, thinking it deserved another shot, you're SOL - Ctrl+Shift+T does nothing in incognito mode.

Re:Huh? What?

[Nerdfest]

Something actually works in Explorer? That must be the "news" part of the article.

Re:Huh? What?

[hawguy]

I think they are talking about using a fucking up 3 finger keyboard shortcut to do what any Gecko or Chromium based browser does with a right click. Why on earth you'd want to go through a 3 finger keyboard shortcut when its just right click>reopen closed tab and unlike the 3 finger bullshit you can undo as many levels as you want, all the way back to when you opened the browser.

I'll probably get hate for saying this but "keyboard commanders" seem to think its some great accomplishment when they trip over some funky fucked up keyboard shortcut and when they point it out a good 90% of the time I have to reply with "Uhhh...you know there is a button that will do that, right? See just click here, no need to twist your fingers into pretzels when there is a GUI button right there" but then they get all pissy, like we should all be amazed at the fact they can twist their fingers into pretzels to do what the rest of us can do with a single click of the mouse in the right place.;

I can press a 3 finger key sequence a lot faster and easier than moving the mouse to the narrow tab bar at the top of the browser window, right clicking, scrolling to the right menu entry (in Chrome, if you right click on a tab, it's the 6th entry on the list, if you right click on an empty space on the tab bar, it's the 2nd), and then clicking it.

Do you actually find it easier to use the mouse to do this? But then, usually when I inadvertently close a tab, it's because I hit Ctrl-W, so my hands are already on the keyboard.

Re:Huh? What?

[Anonymous Coward]

A keyboard command can be delegated to muscle memory. The mouse almost always has to be moved to the right place. Moving my hand off the keyboard to begin with takes time. I don't care if you use shortcuts or not, but they are much faster if you pick them up. After a while, you even get a sixth sense for guessing what a shortcut key should be. It just makes sense to me, for instance, that ALT+ENTER will open search results in a new tab when searching from the search box or address bar.

You can use your buttons. I'll hit CTRL+P when I want to print and CTRL+S when I want to save. Of course, there are mouse shortcuts too. Middle click a link to open in a new tab. Or middle click a tab to close it. So, I can hit 3 buttons in a fraction of a second or I can move my hand over to the mouse, find the carrot, move it to the right place, right click, move the carrot down the proper option and click again. Repeat, to reopen more. Or, I can hit CTRL+SHIFT and tap T for each reopen I need.

Re:Huh? What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fourthed. This is just pathetic. All modern browsers have a reopen tab function and most people already know about it. Opera has an entire closed tab history, not only letting you reopen the last closed tab, but dozens of previous ones.

Re:Huh? What?

[johnsnails]

would be funny if a sub 100 id said that.

Re:Huh? What?

[mdenham]

2/9ths of the way through its life, considering it as "mature enough to be able to get into the Senate", maybe. It's not anywhere near dead yet.

So, more like "since it's been in 2nd grade".

Re:Huh? What?

[CronoCloud]

You must be new here. (I'm only saying this try to get some of the 4 digits to show up)

I was thinking the same thing to tell the truth...usually I dismiss those "There are no real nerds on Slashdot, it's not the same, it's turned into reddit" guys... but on this non-story... I sort of agree.

Re:Huh? What?

[noh8rz10]

doesn't work in safari on mac, so no dice.

Re:Huh? What?

[sconeu]

Will a 5 digit count?

Re:Huh? What?

[RedHackTea]

They trolled us all! Also, Opera has a list of recently closed tabs button in the top right -- which is extremely useful, and it re-opens the tab in exactly the same spot it was on the tabbar. I'm sure IE, Chrome, and Safari will copy it soon.

Re:Huh? What?

[dasunt]

The summary should read "Several browsers let you press Ctrl-Shift-T to reopen a closed tab. That is all."

Why this is deserving of an article I don't know.

I just find the following part humorous: "a sort of Ctrl-Z"

Why is that humorous to me? Because I use Opera, which maps "control-z" to restore an accidentally closed tab. ;)

Re:Huh? What?

[Maxo-Texas]

Probably the alcohol!

I had never heard of this feature and tested it and it's going to be useful.

I dislike the way smart phones and browsers are no longer documented and are just expected to be "intuitive". It was over a year before I pressed and held the icon on my phone that brought up a app history list of what I'd run since last boot. The icon did something else basic when hit for shorter periods of time.

I guess I just have ot hit every possible key combination after every patch to figure out what has changed.

The summary says, "if you close a tab by accident, you can reopen the tab with the content it was displaying by pressing "Ctrl Key + Shift Key + 't'" key. And gives an alternate key combination for the Mac.

Re:Huh? What?

[Main Gauche]

I am not kidding, I really, really thought that was going to end with
"... lets me undo reading a Slashdot article."

Re:Huh? What?

[chmod a x mojo]

I can use tabs, I even don't mind them too much on a tablet. But on my PC? No thanks, I'm an ornery old cuss that got used to using multiple windows back in the stone age of browsers and don't work well with tabbed browsers in front of a keyboard and mouse.

Same reason I use Seamonkey, it's almost a direct clone of the old Mozilla suite / Netscape Navigator... without the crashes.

Re:Huh? What?

[Anonymous Coward]

If only we could Ctrl-Z the editors of slashdot.

Maybe we need a new poll.... What previous editor would you like to Ctrl-z back to slashdot?:
* CmdrTaco
* CmdrTaco
* CmdrTaco
* Where's the CmdrTaco option ?

its only too ironic the capture for the post was "longing"

Re:Huh? What?

[Snotnose]

This got greenlit? Really? Maybe I should post an article about a wunnerful shortcut that almost always lets you restart your computer without power cycling. Hold these 3 keys down at the same time: control - alt - delete. I call it the 3 finger salute. Maybe I should patent the idea and trademark the name and retire?

Re:Huh? What?

[Anonymous Coward]

In other breaking news "CTRL+P" brings up the print dialog! "CTRL+S" SAVES!!!!! More news at eleven!

Re:Huh? What?

[CronoCloud]

Yes it does! I bow before your Slashdot grognardness.

I joined in either 1999 or 2000 can't remember which.

Re:Huh? What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Duh. Right-click a tab...there's a bunch of goodies in Firefox. If not, Tab Mix Plus also adds a load of goodies to tab management.

Re:Huh? What?

[cluening]

Four digits to the rescue!

Re:Huh? What?

[WillKemp]

Or, in Chrome, open a new tab and in the right hand side bottom corner there's a link that says "recently closed". It doesn't get much easier than that!

Re:Huh? What?

[lahvak]

I think it must be an entry to some sort of obfuscated crap contest.

Re:Huh? What?

[lahvak]

Maybe it's a new "achievement".

Re:Huh? What?

[gigaherz]

HISTORY -> RECENTLY CLOSED TABS

If you don't show the menubar, I'm sure it's also there in the "one" button.

Re:Huh? What?

[gigaherz]

Firefox has has a F*ing "Recently Closed Tabs" submenu since like Firefox 3?

Re: Huh? What?

[Fjandr]

Blackberries do.

Re:Huh? What?

[Fjandr]

Currently using the latest build and Ctrl+Z still re-opens closed tabs in the order closed.

Re:Huh? What?

[Fjandr]

Not only that, but Ctrl+Z is already mapped to re-open closed tabs in reverse order of closure in Opera.

Re:Huh? What?

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

Maybe the 3ditors just got so confused by the article.

OTOH they seem to have rejected my article on Ben Affleck playing Batman in the new Superman flick. ( I could understand if they had accepted some other submission on the topic... but no. For some reason stories about comic book characters isn't nerdy enough. )

Re:Huh? What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Command [plus] shift [plus] t

Re:Huh? What?

[hardaker]

I'm whiny. I'm old. I'm a man.

And this article is proof if the rest of your sentence.

Re:Huh? What?

[hardaker]

No

Re: Huh? What?

[lxs]

Please don't encourage them.

Re:Huh? What?

[lxs]

The users reject the submissions these days. I guess that even nerds are sick and tired of superhero movies by now.
Personally, I wanted Affleck to play Superman.

Re:Huh? What?

[richlv]

i'll submit a story about the great land of miracles where lots is possible and which looks like arcane art. i will introduce those ignorant slashdot users to... commandline !

i'm so getting on the front page of slashdot.

(is this "story" coming from dice, somehow ? their "paid" stories were of similar quality)

Re:Huh? What?

[evilviper]

Noob!

Re:Huh? What?

[Nethead]

No. Go back to bed.

Re: Huh? What?

[Mister J]

I've been using good old command-Z for that for as long as I can remember. It's just undo. Why would you need another, more complicated shortcut?

Re:Huh? What?

[93 Escort Wagon]

s/spelled/spelt/

You meant to comment about grain?

Re:Huh? What?

[Darinbob]

I would like to apologize to the entire internet, for accidentally undoing your last 3 hours of work when I tried out this key combo.

Re:Huh? What?

[Misagon]

That shortcut opens a new Incognito window in Chrome, also called "Private browsing" in Firefox.

Also very useful. Incognito windows lets me can log into my gmail account without having to log out of Youtube ... and when the incognito windows are closed, I am automatically logged out of gmail.

Re:Huh? What?

[Mashiki]

Shh...don't tell anyone but there's this snappy little button on the front that let's you power down a PC without even trying!

Re:Huh? What?

[Pieroxy]

There should be a way to punish people for stupid posts so that they cannot post anymore. Whoever is behind this story however deserves a title to have come up with the stupidest, most ridiculous /. story ever that has been accepted and published.

Re:Huh? What?

[Tom]

TLDR: CTRL+Shift+T restores tabs you accidentally closed.

It also restores tabs you intentionally closed. Ain't that great? Can we get another article about that? Fuck, I hope I didn't give him an idea.

Re:Huh? What?

[blackest_k]

handy shortcut to know, especially when you accidentally close 2 tabs when you meant to close just the one. most of us are self taught and we tend not to go much beyond what we need to know. Probably why we tend to get pissed off with ribbons and the like as it throws out what we already knew.

Being taught is also a problem as usually there are a few methods available to do something and just one is usually taught which may not be the most convenient -the ECDL courses seem to be taught that way.

I don't mind learning something new to me, recently my young nephew taught me something (he didn't know he did) on android. I didn't realise that on the app switcher menu list if you kind of flick an app off to the right side it gets removed from the list. That is handy to know normally your only interested in reopening a few at a later point.

A recent slashdot article let me know about suspending by closing the lid on my netbook. A few years ago it was broken and wouldn't suspend or resume properly, so i closed it after a while it went quiet. with resuming in less than 2 seconds it was back where i left it when i closed the lid. It obviously got fixed at some point. Ok it takes a few seconds before it remounts my sd cards and reconnects the wifi and if it hasn't finished restoring it seems to object to suspending again but I'm using that handy feature regularly now.

echo 1 > /sys/bus/pci/rescan as root is another handy one if you have an aspire one as it brings the right hand card slot on line if you booted or suspended without a card in the slot.

So while ctrl shift T may not be new to some people, I bet many would use the recently closed tabs menu option (which seems to take longer as it has to fetch the page again) it is quite handy.

This being Slashdot, and the comments being better than the stories, I expect there will be more useful tips mentioned in the comments. Yes a particularly garbled story with little value in its self, as a starting point for useful comments it isn't that bad. Would you rather read another Balmer story?

Re:Huh? What?

[rjforster]

1563, hmmm would that mean you registered towards the end of day one or was it day two? I wondered whether there was any point in registering at all and so didn't get around to it until towards the end of day two. I think. It's been a while :-)

Re:Huh? What?

[nospam007]

"Maybe it's the alcohol... But I really have no idea what the summary is talking about."

It's some bullshit from a guy who didn't read the fucking manual and he's now surprised that there are things in it he didn't know.

Re:Huh? What?

[TeknoHog]

Somehow it claims it's "a sort of Ctrl-Z for the entire Internet".

Come back when it lets me undo posting Slashdot comments with mipselled words.

Ah, another little-endian MIPS user!

Re: Huh? What?

[somersault]

Because undo is used in other contexts too, and it may confuse certain users who wouldn't think to click outside of a text box before hitting ctrl-z for example.

I'm not sure why this is on Slashdot though. I'd expect people here usually actually look at the options on menus. I usually just right click a tab and choose "reopen closed tab" rather than use the keyboard shortcut.

Re:Huh? What?

[flex941]

Fair, but that doesn't mean this should be featured as an article on Slashdot. C'mon! There are plenty of webpages/blogs for that 99% of population, some of them even talking about computers and how to use them too. New generation of superficial wannabe reporters and editors recruited by Slashdot too now? This is madness. The world is really going down the ****hole.

Re:Huh? What?

[cbiltcliffe]

I've never understood why all other major browsers make such a simple function so complicated.

They don't. You're just an Opera fanboy, so anything Opera does is "glorious perfection"TM, and anything in another browser that's even slightly different than Opera does it is horrendously complicated and unnecessary.
Firefox & Internet Explorer:
- Right click on tab bar->Reopen closed tab
- or -
Ctrl-Shift-T. Since Ctrl-T opens a new tab, it makes perfect sense that Ctrl-Shift-T would reopen a closed tab. How is this "so complicated"?

Re:Huh? What?

[cbiltcliffe]

...which rules out 99% of my....cow-orkers,.....

Tell me something:
What is orking, and how do you do it to a cow?

On second thought....I might not want to know the answer to that...... :)

Re:Huh? What?

[cbiltcliffe]

I am not kidding, I really, really thought that was going to end with
"... lets me undo reading a Slashdot article."

Now THAT would be the greatest keyboard shortcut ever!

Re:Huh? What?

[cbiltcliffe]

Whoosh.

Re: Huh? What?

[evilbessie]

Ctrl+T (Cmd+T) is new tab and Shift is 'backwards', Ctrl+Shift+Alt is scrolling reverse through the Alt+Tab menu. Makes perfect sense, not like the inability to tab through dialogs in MacOS without turning on an option.

Re: Huh? What?

[Joce640k]

Yep, I've always wondered why it isn't just CTRL-Z...

Re: Huh? What?

[Your.Master]

Ctrl-Z is already used if you're typing into an input field. Say you're typing an email, then you close background tabs for whatever reason. Then you realize you accidentally moved a paragraph. Should you have to reload those tabs to undo the operation?

You could validly say yes to that based on user expectation, even though reloading tabs is expensive (hits the network and CPU and everything). But then what if you switch tabs? Now your undo stack corresponds to a different tab's actions (try it! Try typing in two tabs and see that ctrl-z is local to each tab). Where do you "insert" the close tab undo?

Further consider: what if the previously-active tab was closed. Do you insert the undo operation into the new foreground tab arbitrarily? Into every tab's undo stack?

One option is if keyboard focus is in one place (like on the tabs themselves), then undo behaves differently. But then it's not really any easier to use, is it?

Ctrl Z works best if you literally never type into any field, or perhaps if you only type usernames and passwords. Which is valid but not universal.

It's really easiest to use a separate command. It's a very different action and it exists in a different scope.

Re:Huh? What?

[oodaloop]

which rules out 99% of my family, cow-orkers,

I'm sure I don't want to know what orking a cow means.

Re:Huh? What?

[Evil Pete]

ctrl-shift-t or on macs command-shift-t will re-open the last closed tab. Interesting but hardly revolutionary. I think someone must have been hyperventilating.

Re:Huh? What?

[qubezz]

How about "All browsers have had keyboard shortcuts since the days of Mosaic"

That you can restore closed tabs in Firefox is news from 2006: http://lifehacker.com/210111/firefox-2-tip-undo-closed-tab-keyboard-shortcut

Re:Huh? What?

[Inconexo]

I discovered it several years ago, when after accidentally closing a tab I thought "What if I could bring it back", and the combination came to my mind instinctively.

But now, I think it's so widely know, at least for nerds, that I also don't understand how this is in the front page.

Re: Huh? What?

[cammoblammo]

Doesn't sound very private to me. I kinda like to think that when I kill a single-use tab it stays dead.

Re:Huh? What?

[citizenr]

The summary should read "Several browsers let you press Ctrl-Shift-T to reopen a closed tab. That is all."

Why this is deserving of an article I don't know.

not to mention some browsers let you just press CTRL-Z - the universal UNDO shortcut

Re:Huh? What?

[machine321]

Come back when it lets me undo posting Slashdot comments with mipselled words.

Come back when it lets me undo Slashdot summaries with mipselled words.

Re:Huh? What?

[Charliemopps]

I just closed this tab and tried it... I was very sad to see this article return.

Re:Huh? What?

[poena.dare]

The summary should read "Several browsers let your significant other press Ctrl-Shift-T to reopen a closed tab chock full of furry pr0n. That is all."

Re:Huh? What?

[rwise2112]

Somehow it claims it's "a sort of Ctrl-Z for the entire Internet".

So it suspends the internet. Wouldn't the rest of the world find that annoying?

Re:Huh? What?

[nedlohs]

http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/C/cow-orker.html

I guess don't click if you really don't want to know.

Re:Huh? What?

[cbiltcliffe]

My browser knows when I close tabs accidentally and not on purpose? Scary...

Your browser doesn't know by itself. It only knows when the NSA tells it.

Re:Huh? What?

[LordLimecat]

Someone discovered the "undo close tab" shortcut thats only been around since Firefox's 1.5 days. Congrats, guys! Welcome to the internet!

Re:Huh? What?

[hackwrench]

I've been thinking about where to put this, whether hitching it to the most visible somewhat relevant post I could find, or making a completely new post, etc, and pondering which would be the least likely to either get downvoted or otherwise buried into oblivion. Readers feel free to comment on whether my decision to hitch to this post and to mod me up/down to oblivion and beyond.

Anyway with that out of the way, I came her to say that I downvoted this summary when it was in the process of being greenlighted. I think I marked 'stale' option. I did my part to keep this from being green but it happened anyway. Oh well, so much for democracy.

Re:Huh? What?

[jellomizer]

Yea it is pretty bad, and no where near the "Greatest Keyboard Shortcut Ever"
Because you you restore you tabs, but not not you full state of the page you were in. So it is not like a Ctrl-Z.

Ok yes it is handy if you closed your tab, But nothing I would worry about.

Re:Huh? What?

[Mad-Bassist]

I get more of a laugh by telling my coworkers to quit messing with the browser history at work (and making it obvious to the bosses by leaving IE's star menu on the history tab) by hitting, "Control-Shift-P for Privacy!"

Re:Huh? What?

[skids]

Funny, but I actually was bummed to notice this option. I thought closing a tab would free its resources. Apparently they just stick around and use RAM anyway.

Re:Huh? What?

[hairyfeet]

Yes I do find it easier because my mouse is always in easy reach of my right hand and the few milliseconds you save is probably blown by the 4 or 5 seconds to remember which of the bazillion combos you need for a particular task. It has been tested and documented that keyboard commanders are actually SLOWER than mouse users in pretty much any environment where a mouse is usable at all, a primitive CLI like DOS or Bash is the ONLY place where a keyboard commander gains ANY advantage and frankly if your PC is so shit that the only way it will run worth a piss is to not have any shells at all? Frankly you have bigger problems than remembering keyboard shortcuts as an 8 year old dumpster dived PC has more than enough power to run a modern shell.

If remembering a few keyboard shortcuts, even though the figures show you are being slowed down makes you happy? Then please use them, I'm all for personal choice. Where I have to throw the "bullshit on the field" flag is when keyboard commanders act like they are somehow faster or better because they know some arcane rarely used throwback to DOS when in reality the data shows all they are doing is slowing themselves down. Anybody who thinks about it for even a second will see why, we humans are VERY eye hand dominant and can pop GUI icons without even actual thought required whereas the simple act of recalling a keyboard shortcut adds seconds that simply aren't required to just pop an icon with a mouse.

Re:Huh? What?

[deadsquid]

It's been in Firefox for a very long time. https://wiki.mozilla.org/Tabbed_Browsing/User_Interface_Design/Restoring_Closed_Tabs

Re:Huh? What?

[RedHackTea]

Whoosh whoosh.

Re:Huh? What?

[vidnet]

The quality of this article did make me suspect that, yes.

Re:Huh? What?

[Nethead]

I think it was mid-afternoon, west coast time.

Indeed a while. I was hosting images.slashdot.org on a Pent 120 running Slackware at the ISP I worked for. Rob's T1 was saturated and our T3 had a lot of bandwidth left.

Re:Huh? What?

[recoiledsnake]

By latest build do you mean Opera 15 or 12? Doesn't work in 15.

Re:Huh? What?

[houghi]

"Cow orker" is something I saw years ago for the first time in AFU. That group predates Usenet and is the origin of snopes.com. That was in the time when people wanted to know if floss glows(*).

It was funny as hell, but I guess you should have been there.

hou-"I have only one name, so where is the middle"-ghi

(*)No, that was not the actual subject. I don't even DARE to bring up the actual subject and I do not use any smileys either.

Re:Huh? What?

[danlip]

tried it, doesn't work on Safari on a Mac. But good old command-Z does.

Re:Huh? What?

[Fjandr]

You're confusing Opera and Opera Next. They are completely separate build tracks.

Re:Huh? What?

[danlip]

it probably just stores the URL, which it stores anyway as part of your history. Not much in the way of resources.

Re:Huh? What?

[geekoid]

ah, well if YOU have been doing it, then clearly everyone knows about it.

Not that it's worthy of an article, but your 'logic' is annoying.

Re:Huh? What?

[jimbo]

Hmm, I signed up when I first noticed it, can't remember why or when. The Internet was all exciting then and full of gyrating "under construction" GIFs.

Re:Huh? What?

[Charliemopps]

I have history turned off, and when I had a form partially filled out it re-opened it with the data I had put in so.. yea, it appears to store the entire page.

Re:Huh? What?

[Jarik C-Bol]

Indeed, it actually just hides your toolbar in Safari, but its such a subtle thing, that your immediately sitting there going "ok, something happened, and it was NOT my tab returning, so what the hell just changed?"

Re:Huh? What?

[Jarik C-Bol]

To bad it totally reloads the last page, instead of pulling it from cache like the back button(mostly) does.

Re:Huh? What?

[Safety Cap]

Help, help!

How do I cut and paste without a mouse?!

Sincerely,
PEBKAC

Re:Huh? What?

[rjstanford]

To "fix" this you'd have to cache the contents of closed tabs, which among other things might be a security nightmare. Simply reloading the tab costs you almost no memory and doesn't chafe with people's expectations of privacy.

Re:Huh? What?

[rjstanford]

Prior art. The "3 finger salute" is already covered by the "blue screen of death" patent.

That's the "1 finger salute." Its subtly different.

Re:Huh? What?

[rjstanford]

How about "All browsers have had keyboard shortcuts since the days of Mosaic"

Hell, for that matter lynx had nothing but keyboard shortcuts.

Re: Huh? What?

[fbobraga]

It's not the same thing, bro :P

Re:Huh? What?

[Ericular]

To the contrary, this submission on Reddit likely wouldn't have gained any traction. Here, it's front page news!

Re:Huh? What?

[recoiledsnake]

Opera 15 is the current Opera. Try downloading from opera.com.

Opera Next is the beta build of Opera 15.

Opera 12 is the deprecated one, but they haven't pushed an update to Opera 15 for Opera 12 users

Re:Huh? What?

[SirSlud]

Why would you infer that it's storing the entire page? It's easy enough for the browser to remember what fields had what data in them, load the page, and restore any form data.

Re:Huh? What?

[FS]

User #22 here!

Re:Huh? What?

[AbominousSalad]

Oh, look, Timothy is wasting everybody's time again.

Re:Huh? What?

[doccus]

The worst, and the most damn stupid I have ever heard.. Goo goo ga ga.. Better tell dem dum /. readers that theres a reopen last tab option. Holy crap how did that EVER get past the editors..

Re:Huh? What?

[doccus]

Nope, so use Chrome. Safari *still* can't save pages correctly, and i positively hate it on Lion..

Re:Huh? What?

[Meski]

You have to press and hold it now. Or it merely hibernates. Or it hibernates if it's not crashed.

Re:Huh? What?

[noh8rz10]

if u use chrome then you're goog's bitch.

Re:Huh? What?

[Fjandr]

It may be deprecated (I haven't checked), but they're still releasing new versions of 12.

Re:Huh? What?

[RedHackTea]

Not as good as Area Man: Area Man Knows All the Shortcut Keys

Re:Huh? What?

[cbiltcliffe]

Whoosh whoosh whoosh.

... Keyboard shortcuts are news?

[DavidClarkeHR]

I'm not trying to jump on the "slashdot has gone down-hill" bandwagon, but ...

KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS ARE NOT NEWS.

Re:... Keyboard shortcuts are news?

[Samantha Wright]

Wait till they discover Ctrl-Shift-N, and gain the power to recover whole windows!

Also, minus 10,000 points to the original author and those who quoted him without (sic) for writing "undiscovere'd." Seriously, what the fuck do you think that apostrophe is doing? Get rid of that last E!

Re:... Keyboard shortcuts are news?

[Xacid]

I want to shake my fist in frustration over the quality control here but I find myself thinking "damn, how did I go this long without knowing that?".

So thanks and all but...damn. Someone go build a Beowulf cluster out of gameboys so we can get some good news back.

Re:... Keyboard shortcuts are news?

[Nerdfest]

This is like Homer discovering he only needs to press "Y" and tripling his productivity.

Re:... Keyboard shortcuts are news?

[margeman2k3]

Ctrl-Shift-N does something infinitely more useful in Chrome.

Re:... Keyboard shortcuts are news?

[pspahn]

While I don't know an equivalent on Mac (though I'm sure there is one), I've always been fond of the evil Windows key sequence:

Winkey + D, Ctrl + A, Enter, Enter

It's not going to do any damage, but I think it's great.

Re:... Keyboard shortcuts are news?

[meta-monkey]

Indeed. That's it for me. Been my homepage for 15 years, but this is my last post.

So long, and thanks for all the trolls...

Re:... Keyboard shortcuts are news?

[lahvak]

Darn it! Now I will have to buy and install Windows just to try it and see what it does!

Re:... Keyboard shortcuts are news?

[You're All Wrong]

> KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS ARE NOT NEWS.

They might be to non-nerds.

That of course leads to a single conclusion - perhaps I don't belong here any more.

How did this nonsense get through the hosepipe, or whatever they call it?

Re:... Keyboard shortcuts are news?

[pspahn]

Winkey(or 'super' as some like to call it) + D just hides all windows and shows the desktop. Ctrl + A, that's your standard select all. Enter opens everything selected. The second enter is just to open it all again... for good measure.

Re:... Keyboard shortcuts are news?

[Daniel_Stuckey]

Yeah, this is just disappointing. It's cute, and yes, I'll admit to posting things here that I sometimes feel are more suited for /r/todayilearned, but what angered me the most about this was that the OP would might think this is something /. didn't or needed to know.

Re:... Keyboard shortcuts are news?

[Samantha Wright]

Not in any modern edition, it's not:

Hamlet. To be, or not to be—that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep—
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die—to sleep.
To sleep—perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub!
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death—
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns—puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.—Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia!—Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins rememb'red.

You have to remove the "e" when putting an apostrophe there. The point is to make the word fit the verse. "remember'd" is how we pronounce the word today; without the apostrophe, the correct reading would have been "re-mem-ber-ed" in Shakespeare's time. Squint more carefully!

Re:... Keyboard shortcuts are news?

[Nezic]

Slashdot is trolling us:(

Re:... Keyboard shortcuts are news?

[MiniMike]

I'm not trying to jump on the "slashdot has gone down-hill" bandwagon, but ...

not sure how this got past the caps filter...

KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS ARE NOT NEWS.

Well, that's news to them...

Re:... Keyboard shortcuts are news?

[jones_supa]

I'm not trying to jump on the "slashdot has gone down-hill" bandwagon, but ...

KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS ARE NOT NEWS.

Indeed, this has to be the silliest Slashdot news in a long time. :)

But hey, while we are at the topic, let me throw in my two cents: you can press CTRL-D on an empty UNIX prompt to close the shell.

Re:... Keyboard shortcuts are news?

[TangoMargarine]

Maybe this is their attempt to put an accent mark over the e, like in old poems where for the meter to work, you pronounce the suffix as "er-ed" (2 syllables) instead of "erd" (1 syllable)?

Re:... Keyboard shortcuts are news?

[Samantha Wright]

They started putting the grave accent over the e when it became silent. In Shakespeare's time there was no such thing; it was assumed that the "e" was pronounced. If you read the actual passage, it's an apostrophe, meant to reduce it to one syllable because two doesn't fit the metre.

How did this pass moderation?

[Bringer128]

How is a combined keypress (Ctrl+Shift+T) that is supported by the major browsers worthy of a news article? Even with my low UID this is the lowest of the low I've seen on Slashdot...

Re:How did this pass moderation?

[c0d3g33k]

My UID is lower, and this is indeed the lowest of the low.

Re:How did this pass moderation?

[Just Some Guy]

N00b.

Re:How did this pass moderation?

[John Marter]

Maybe he is just trying to start something.

Re:How did this pass moderation?

[SeaFox]

His ID is seven digits, not eight. But I still agree with your sentiment.

Re:How did this pass moderation?

[Frosty Piss]

My UID is lower...

With a UID as low as yours, I'll bet you know some really hot keyboard shortcuts! I hear it really works up the chicks...

Re:How did this pass moderation?

[__roo]

My UID is five digits, so maybe I'm just old—but I liked the Ctrl-Shift-T post. Also, people have been posting the same exact complaints about /. going downhill since I joined. It's not. Deal with it.

Re:How did this pass moderation?

[Yosho]

My UID isn't quite as low as yours, but I think the worst story I've ever seen was the front-page story bonk posted that was just a picture of a snake eating its own tail.

This one might take second place, though.

Re:How did this pass moderation?

[adolf]

Piss off.

Re:How did this pass moderation?

[hduff]

My UID is lower, and this is indeed the lowest of the low.

I've never been able to use my UID for anything that benefits me. . .

Re:How did this pass moderation?

[CronoCloud]

You must be new here, to have not used a "You must be new here" to someone with a UID with more digits than yours (even in friendly jest)

Admittedly that's about the only thing I've been able to use my 6 digit UID for...because I am relatively new here.

Re:How did this pass moderation?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I downvoted it as slownewsday, I can't believe it made it through either.

I wonder if the submitter being Hugh Pickens had anything to do with it, isn't he a prolific submitter with a ton of accepted stories?

Re:How did this pass moderation?

[hutsell]

My UID is lower, and this is indeed the lowest of the low.

2^0 + 2^1 + 2^1 + 2^3 + 2^3 + 2^1 + 2^3 = 2^5 - 1

Being low may not always be indicative of being better.

Re:How did this pass moderation?

[Nethead]

Yeah.

Re:How did this pass moderation?

[Tom]

be nice to each other, kids. no fighting. and get off my lawn.

Re:How did this pass moderation?

[epo001]

Oh, so this there the 5xxxxx's are hanging out.

Re:How did this pass moderation?

[c]

I'd say it's the lowest ever, too, but I've had a number of slashdot editors in my filters for years... Guess I'd better put timothy back on the list.

Re:How did this pass moderation?

[JayAEU]

It sure does.

Re:How did this pass moderation?

[Zibodiz]

I agree that this is a worthless article, but oddly enough, I was just searching for a way to do this. In Opera, there's a button to press that will bring back a closed tab (it keeps all of the closed tabs since you started the browser), but since Opera 15 removes all of its features and is just a skinned version of Chrome, I'm switching to Firefox. The other features I miss (a zoom slider, Opera Link, rocker gestures, etc) I've been able to replicate with Add-Ons, but this one feature was still missing. There were add-ons to add the ability to reopen the last page of a tab, but it didn't come with its history (the back button was greyed out).
Frustratingly, I was not able to find any information on this at all. I had actually given up looking a couple days ago, until I happened to read this article (which I only clicked on because it had a bizarre name)... so maybe someone should write a better article about this hidden feature? Or maybe FF should just add a button like Opera 12 had.

Re:How did this pass moderation?

[Frosty Piss]

Piss Off

UID snob.

Re:How did this pass moderation?

[Just Some Guy]

"Sorry, grandpa."

Re:How did this pass moderation?

[Nethead]

Yes sir. Sorry sir.

Re:How did this pass moderation?

[Inda]

Pink ponies. That's all I have to say.

Re:How did this pass moderation?

[PCM2]

Admittedly that's about the only thing I've been able to use my 6 digit UID for...because I am relatively new here.

Yeah, you must be. ;-)

You've Got to be Kidding Me

[bill_mcgonigle]

Go home, timothy, you are drunk.

Re:You've Got to be Kidding Me

[aliquis]

You've Got to be Kidding Me
Go home, timothy, you are drunk.

Wait for the dupe in a couple of hours.

Re:You've Got to be Kidding Me

[bemymonkey]

Just wait until he discovers *gasp* Tab Mix Plus and finds out you can map these actions to things like middle-clicking on an empty spot in the tab bar :O

Who the hell posts something like this as an article on a tech site? It's like my grandma's on Slashdot now :S

Fuck this, I'm heading over to Reddit.

New Slashdot feature: RTFM Sunday!

[adolf]

Seriously? This functionality has existed as long as tabs have existed.

And even if the magic keystrokes are forgotten, they're just a Google away.

That said: There really should be an easily-identifiable way in Firefox to restore a closed tab without using a keyboard. Perhaps an entry next to "New Tab" under the now-hidden-by-default file menu would suffice.

And...

[guruevi]

You discovered a keyboard shortcut in your browser that may or may not work on any other browser in existence and has been in use by yours truly since the invention of tabs? Woohoo, you rock, now go help your mom connect to that YouTube video you posted...

Slashdot? News for nerds? Stuff that matters?

This is not new. Really.

[Static]

The Opera web browser has had the ability to re-open closed tabs for years. There's even a menu so you can pick which page!

It was news five years ago. It's not news today.

Re:This is not new. Really.

[EvanED]

Don't worry, that's true of the other browsers too, the article is just dumb. (From what I can tell, it was added to Firefox in late 2006 and I had the feature provided by an extension before then.)

seriously?!!?

[larry bagina]

Next on slashdot: Did you know you can read the paper while taking a shit?

Re:seriously?!!?

[MattskEE]

The paper that I have next to my toilet doesn't have anything written on it...

Re:seriously?!!?

[bunkymag]

Mine does. It says:

"Ryan Vogt writes in the Mercury News that Shakespeare described death as 'the undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn no traveller returns.' Did you know there is a the miraculous way to resuscitate tabs sent to the 'undiscovere'd country,' a sort of Ctrl-Z for the entire Internet, that means 'no more called-out cusswords, no more wishing the back button had you covered when, aiming to click on a tab, you accidentally hit the little X on the tab's starboard.' For Macs: Command [plus] shift [plus] t reopens the last tab. For PCs: Ctrl [plus] Shift [plus] T. 'Try it right now. Close this tab and bring it back. I dare ya.' Melia Robinson's trick [described for Chrome] works in Firefox and Internet Explorer, too, so clumsy mousing won't send the the E*Trade tab you mistakenly closed all cued up to sell those 10,000 shares of stock or your long political post on your uncle's Facebook page on a one-way trip to the undiscovere'd country in those browsers, either."

Safari

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just Command-Z for Undo (Close tab)

Daaaa Whaaaat ?

[giorgist]

I have always simply right clicked on the toolbar and select"open closed tab". The shortcut has always been there to see, I could not bother to memorise it.

Re:Daaaa Whaaaat ?

[VortexCortex]

Do this: Click the "Reply to This" link below the post. Then type something, then close the tab. Now restore the tab. Note that the text you typed is gone (at least on Chromium and Firefox, can't bring myself to care about other browsers off the clock). The TFA acts as if this will save you some headache, and perhaps it does if the form fields were not dynamically generated via DOM manipulation... Otherwise you lose your shit. Especially if you use Dvorak, where the Ctrl+V is dangerously close to Ctrl+W (which closes the current window / tab). Sadly the plugin that allows you to remap / disable Ctrl+W no longer works in Firefox. I could make a new one to re-add the feature, but it's no big deal to remove it when merging the other changes prior to browser compilation.

Do this instead: Middle Click the "reply to this" link, or right click it and select: "open in new tab". Now Navigate to that tab (Ctrl+Tab for toggling tabs like Alt+Tab does for applications). Now enter some text in the box, then close that tab (Ctrl+W). Re-open it (Ctrl+Shift+Tab).... Aha! There's your content, still typed in the box, and even survives restoring from crashes in most cases.

The only downside is, you can post text without being forced to preview it... Which I'm doing right now because I still like to live a bit dangerously.

Re:Daaaa Whaaaat ?

[EvanED]

Especially if you use Dvorak, where the Ctrl+V is dangerously close to Ctrl+W (which closes the current window / tab).

OH GOD. You have described the bane of my existence.

Well, a bane anyway. A little bane.

Re:Daaaa Whaaaat ?

[mdenham]

A little bane.

Is he fighting a little Batman?

Re:Daaaa Whaaaat ?

[You're All Wrong]

> Re-open it (Ctrl+Shift+Tab).... Aha!

If my firefox (running on linux), this just takes me to the previous tab. Ctrl+tab takes me to the next tab, adding shift just reverses the direction.

On Safari for Macs

[DavidinAla]

If you close a tab that you didn't mean to close, just hit Command-z and the tab will reopen. It was the last thing you did, so it makes sense that Command-z would undo that. This isn't exactly rocket science.

Re:On Safari for Macs

[Anubis IV]

Yeah, I got a good chuckle out of the whole "Ctrl-Z for the internet" line in the summary, since Command-Z already does this in Safari on a Mac, as you said, and I wouldn't be surprised if Ctrl-Z is the hotkey they use on Windows in Safari to do the exact same thing.

Re:On Safari for Macs

[thegarbz]

Not a universal shortcut. Ctrl-Shift-T works across multiple browsers. Ctrl-Z works on one browser.

Re:On Safari for Macs

[evilbessie]

What happens if it wasn't the last things you did? I close tabs do other shit then realise I should have that tab back, undo sucks in this situation, undo specific action much more useful.

Re:On Safari for Macs

[Moochman]

Holy crap, this whole time I thought Safari just didn't have a feature to re-open a tab, and it turns out it does after all!! I feel... disappointed in myself for not knowing this. ;) But really, Apple should get with the program and add the Cmd-Shift-T shortcut to help out folks coming from other browsers. Right now it's not mapped to anything so it's not like it's going to cause a conflict. And also, it's nice to be able to reopen a tab independently of, say, undoing that comment you just typed...

Re:New Slashdot feature: RTFM Sunday!

[_merlin]

That said: There really should be an easily-identifiable way in Firefox to restore a closed tab without using a keyboard. Perhaps an entry next to "New Tab" under the now-hidden-by-default file menu would suffice.

There is - in fact I never use the keyboard shortcut: History menu, Recently Closed Tabs, choose the one you want back from the submenu. Of course you actually have to make the menu bar visible to find it, but doesn't everyone do that anyway?

Seriously?

[gman003]

OK, I can see this becoming a filler article on some crappy "tech" website (coughcoughgizmodocough). But Slashdot? Seriously?

And it's not even written for our audience. I could see a "top ten keyboard shortcuts users don't know (but should)" or a "comparison of undo buttons between every program" (I can never remember the Emacs one... it's ctrl-x u, right?). But a "dude, check out this awesome keyboard shortcut I just found" for something I've been using at least daily for years?

Normally I don't say this, but maybe Slashdot really is starting to go downhill...

Re:Seriously?

[CronoCloud]

And it's not even written for our audience. I could see a "top ten keyboard shortcuts users don't know (but should)" or a "comparison of undo buttons between every program" (I can never remember the Emacs one... it's ctrl-x u, right?).

That would be a good idea for a story submission.

Normally I don't say this, but maybe Slashdot really is starting to go downhill...

You must be new here. I'm joking with this one since I'm not one of "those guys".

Re:Seriously?

[vlueboy]

OK, I can see this becoming a filler article on some crappy "tech" website (coughcoughgizmodocough). But Slashdot? Seriously?

And it's not even written for our audience.

To be fair, I recently asked someone about what forum someone could point me to where slashdotters could freely talk about encryption. We can only talk about something for about 2 days here, and then container story gets buried no matter how important the topic. When the Journal system debutted here it sort of provided that, but besides technolust there was very little eyeball traffic.
Your post made me realize that what /. is missing is a forums.slashdot.org. Imagine a PHP-like board where we can post freely and start our own new topics or questions without needing to mind how long ago something was added. Stuff like reddit comes to mind, but it's too mainstream and joke-ish. Others have stringent rules where everything must be on topic (stackexchange et all) and moderation is too in your face, causing competition (down to editing, moving and closing other people's threads) / there's no real community, unless you count meta.

Re:Seriously?

[macshit]

(I can never remember the Emacs one... it's ctrl-x u, right?)

Emacs contains multitudes...

undo is on C-_, <undo>, C-/, C-x C-u, C-x u, <menu-bar> <edit> <undo>

Re:Seriously?

[thereitis]

We can only talk about something for about 2 days here, and then container story gets buried no matter how important the topic.

I've thought of this as a problem as well. Slashdot also disables comments on a story after some time. One thought I had was the ability to post stories under a set of tags, and people could view all the stories under a set of tags and view all the comments under a set of tags. Hopefully the tags wouldn't dilute the conversation too much - I'm not sure it's a good idea, actually, but might spark someone's imagination.

Re:Seriously?

[TangoMargarine]

The coolest part is if you C-g, you can reverse and start going the other direction with the same keystroke; there is no "redo" function.

Netscape called...

[waddgodd]

ctl-shift-t has been a staple of all tabbed browsers since quite literally they came out. While this IS "stuff that matters", it's hardly news for many nerds

The greatest shortcut is Ctlr-Alt-Delete

[mykepredko]

It should have been used on the computer before submitting this article.

Disappointing,

myke

Re:The greatest shortcut is Ctlr-Alt-Delete

[Anubis IV]

Honestly, I was expecting it to be about Ctrl-Alt-Del, and I already had a draft rant in my head for why it's not the greatest, so it was kinda nice to be surprised by something completely different than I was expecting. In every other way, however, this story came up short.

This gibberish gave me a fucking headache.

[Type44Q]

This gibberish gave me a fucking headache. Enough said.

uh, it's right there

[50000BTU_barbecue]

in the menus. Hey, does pressing Windows + X blow your mind too? (on a laptop at least).

ctrl + w

[WaffleMonster]

OMG I just found a super secret undo command.

First you have to unlock secret undo commands. This is done by visiting your favorite porn site and pressing the left shift key five (5) times.

Once unlocked press Ctrl + 'W' and go wash your hands.

Re:New Slashdot feature: RTFM Sunday!

[adolf]

Not people who are surprised that a keyboard combo that restores a closed tab is the Greatest Ever.

Tell me something I don't know,

[hack slash]

bitch.

A slashdot article about resurrecting a tab? Are you fucking serious?

Safari?

[singingjim1]

Nope. My Macbook Pro just clicks at me pointlessly with this "miracle" shortcut. Doesn't work with Safari.

Re:Safari?

[thadman08]

Safari makes it too easy- Command-Z works fine.

Re:Safari?

[Smurf]

Try Command-Z.

Re:Safari?

[singingjim1]

Hey, you're right. :)

This summary is about as useful as my comment

[wlandman]

Whoever approved this or submitted it should have posting/approving privileges revoked. T\he beginning, middle, and end of the summary make very little sense and provide barely any value. The new learned shortcut is new, but one could have added that this feature will not work for Chrome running Incognito mode (as other bloggers have pointed out).

And next week... The Greatest Keyboard Key Ever!

[MOSFET Explosion]

Wow with the backspace key I can remove my mistakes without having to put whiteout all over my monitor!

Re:New Slashdot feature: RTFM Sunday!

[EvanED]

There really should be an easily-identifiable way in Firefox to restore a closed tab without using a keyboard

Firefox Menu -> History -> Recently Closed Tabs not "without a keyboard" enough for you? :-)

Re:New Slashdot feature: RTFM Sunday!

[adolf]

Except for failing on the "Easily identified part," yeah, that's fine.

I thought /. stories were moderated

[wisnoskij]

But apparently any idiot with a keyboard can get on the front page.

Re:I thought /. stories were moderated

[boarder8925]

What's the keyboard shortcut for getting drek like the submission published?

Great ! Shortcuts now worthy a an article

[obarthelemy]

I'm gonna hit the little red cross now, and NOT shift+ctrl+t it back.

Slow

[Vlijmen Fileer]

If we got articles like this every time some very slow mind discovered some very basic functionality in some very basic software, ./ would be a very sad place indeed. Too bad this was posted.

There's a magic new command you can use...

[TooTechy]

Which will automatically download all the porn from the Internet over a period of a few short hours.

sudo rm -rf /

Re:There's a magic new command you can use...

[TooTechy]

For those that don't get it. Please don't actually try it at home!

Re:There's a magic new command you can use...

[JohnG]

They'll be trying to get porn, but Instead of pretending to get fucked, they'll be fucked for real.

Re:There's a magic new command you can use...

[sbditto85]

where is mod points when i need them!

Melia Robinson? MELIA ROBINSON?!?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

What the fuck is a "Melia Robinson", who annointed her the second coming of Christ??? "Extra, extra, read all about it! Soccer mom realizes that applications have keyboard shortcuts, declares them "The.Next.Big.Thing".

I must shout this from the mountaintops...

[sootman]

... because only 1.1 million other people already know this.

FUCKING SERIOUSLY?!?!?!??!1111

Command-Shift-T = Reopen Closed Tab

[James McGuigan]

The one line summary of this article is: Command-Shift-T (or Ctrl-Shift-T) = Reopen Closed Tab (in some browsers)

Nevermind the haters...

[itwasgreektome]

I think this was an awesome post. I had need for it just today. Had a bunch of tabs open, accidentally closed one, didn't know which I closed...so had to do Ctrl+H for history then open them all again and close duplicates. Pain in the arse. Simple solution. Thanks.

Re:Nevermind the haters...

[loufoque]

In Chrome, create a new tab, then take a look at the "recently closed" list.
They're listed by order in which they were closed, and you can open one or several at once.

Doesn't fix the real problem.

[cnaumann]

I cannot count the number of times that I have been filling out a form on a web page and hit the backspace to edit only to discover that I had lost focus on the form and had the tab slammed shut and all information on the form lost. This is a problem on EVERY version on EVERY browser that I have ever used. Unfortunately this little shortcut does not fix that issue. I don't find backspace to be a useful navigation tool. I want to be able to turn it off or at least have a way to recover the information.

Re:Doesn't fix the real problem.

[silver]

I cannot count the number of times that I have been filling out a form on a web page and hit the backspace to edit only to discover that I had lost focus on the form and had the tab slammed shut and all information on the form lost.

To solve that problem, you need the Lazarus Form Recovery addon
http://getlazarus.com/download

Re:Doesn't fix the real problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

try https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/textarea-cache/

Re:Doesn't fix the real problem.

[oo_00]

about:config -> browser.backspace action (http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.backspace_action)

Re:Doesn't fix the real problem.

[DNS-and-BIND]

Failing to mention that you need to use a supported browser. Firefox, Safari, and Chrome only. But that's OK because if I use a browser that means everybody on the entire internet does too!

Re:Doesn't fix the real problem.

[Valdrax]

I only have backspace go back in history when I use MSIE
*all* other browsers behave correctly and don't map the back button to backspace.

I just tested this in the most recent versions of Chrome and Firefox on Windows, and both go back a page when you hit Backspace without focus on a typeable element. It is super annoying.

Thank you

[nettxzl]

Well, it was news to me, and something I've been wishing for, for a long time, and didn't know how to do. So, I appreciate it.

Re:Thank you

[wonkey_monkey]

That doesn't change the fact that this is the lamest excuse for a Slashdot story ever.

Re:New Slashdot feature: RTFM Sunday!

[strength_of_10_men]

There is. Right click on any tab->Undo Close Tab. It's similar in Chrome.

Re:New Slashdot feature: RTFM Sunday!

[viperidaenz]

Press Alt and your previously hidden menu bar magically appears as if out of thin air!
You can then press any of the underlined letters to open the relevant menu, or simply navigate them with your arrow keys.

Be careful though, I've just filed a patent on a method to navigate previously hidden keyboard actuated menus. I don't want to have to sue you.

New tabs! Try it!

[umafuckit]

You know what I just discovered? If you press ctrl [PLUS] T then it takes you away form this page and to a new tab. Then you can get BACK to this page by pressing ctrl [PLUS] W. Go on, try it! I dare you!

Next week on Slashdot...

[FuzzNugget]

Slashdot Introduces Much-Needed "Beer Goggles" Feature on Submissions Page

I pressed the buttons and...

[Arkh89]

where is my internet?
Where is my internet??
WHERE IS MY INTERNET???

You should try ALT+F4

[FuzzNugget]

Use liberally whenever you're about to post some stupid-ass babbling to Slashdot.

Re:New Slashdot feature: RTFM Sunday!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's change the topic slightly to most awesome keboard shortcuts ever, my nomination was installed at the MIT AI Lab in the Tech Square building.

Emacs Meta-Ctrl-e called the elevator to the 8th floor...

I may have some details wrong, but there was a wire run from the lab out to the elevator control--saved a lot of time, the elevators were very slow. Didn't RTFM come from MIT too?

Re:New Slashdot feature: RTFM Sunday!

[SeaFox]

Recently Closed Tabs not "without a keyboard" enough for you?

Hold on... I think we've hit on something patentable.

Ignore other commenters, this was very useful

[Tyr07]

I didn't know about this! I've been the IT career for most of my career life!

I tried it today and it blew my mind! I first went around showing all my co-workers this. They were super amazed and thought I was extra smart!
They told my manager how incredibly smart I am and I gained +1 to salary! Thank you Slashdot!

Now all the cute blondes at work worship me to! Knowing this has made me more attractive and successful, and gets me laid!

Please post more articles like this, a few more and I will be the CEO of a major corporation by being the super office hero guy.

Re:Ignore other commenters, this was very useful

[whoever57]

Now all the cute blondes at work worship me to!

It's such a shame that the set of "cute blondes at work" is an empty set!

Re:Ignore other commenters, this was very useful

[Tyr07]

This article made me click my own sig.

Re:Ignore other commenters, this was very useful

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the trouble is that your t-shirts only have two wolves on them, when you really need three to attract that kind of coworker.

Re:Ignore other commenters, this was very useful

[ImprovOmega]

That's the great thing about symbolic logic. It is a harsh, emotionless beast that does not care one whit for absurdities, and yet you can claim that bizarre statements are logically valid and be completely correct. Those who best (mis)use its power end up as politicians and lawyers.

In the instant case it translates roughly as (For all Females)(If (Female is cute, blonde, and co-worker) implies (Female worships poster)). This is perfectly valid for all cases where (Female is cute, blonde, and co-worker) is the null set because either False implies True or False implies False is correct, logically. You get away with it when no one calls you on it. A false premise always tautologically builds a correct and valid logical construct.

Did you know...

[SGT CAPSLOCK]

'dd' is a useful command which can be used to concetenate files, back up disks, and even copy data? The possibilities are limitless!

You can use SATA disks with SAS backplanes and HBAs, but you may not plug SAS disks into SATA equipment.

In Skyrim, it's possible to earn high-end daedric armor quite early in the game by grinding your conjuration skill and doing a mage guild quest to power up the atronach forge below the Winterhold's college.

And perhaps most important of all, you need to know that kcachegrind can be used to help you easily parse the output of valgrind's cachegrind tool when searching for bottlenecks in your code.

Re:Did you know...

[Swave An deBwoner]

Wait! Stop! My head is going to explode with all this additional knowledge! Please have mercy!

I didn't know this

[istartedi]

I honestly didn't know this. I didn't need to know it, because I guess I'm not klutzy enough to close tabs by accident enough. If I were, I guess I would have gone looking for it, or complained about it and been told by somebody. I'm kinda lazy about looking for keyboard shortcuts. I know other people just love 'em and it's the first thing they look for... but I'm fine with just using the mouse for a lot of things. I can see how others might find tab restoration useful though, and I can kind of understand why you're giving timothy shit for making a whole article out of it... and gushing about it as if it were virginity restoration or something.

It can't be that simple

[Ilgaz]

Go home, timothy, you are drunk.

I really hope something other than being drunk or completely tasteless will be an explanation for this story. A keyboard shortcut made news on slashdot...Hope they cracked his /. account, even that would be better.

Re:And next week... The Greatest Keyboard Key Ever

[steelfood]

It's like, a sort of Ctrl-Z for the dcument.

Re:And next week... The Greatest Keyboard Key Ever

[aliquis]

But seriously, why isn't it mentioned in the menues or when right clicking on a tab in Firefox?

Luckily,

[tpstigers]

I was born knowing every keyboard shortcut ever in use, so I can rationalize being a snarky dick about this.

Re:Luckily,

[thegarbz]

I was born with the innate ability of ctrl-w

Oh my god. You fixed it! You actually saved me from this garbage. I had to Ctrl-Shift-T back just so I could post this. Anyway excuse me while I hit Ctrl-W agai

Re:New Slashdot feature: RTFM Sunday!

[adolf]

Now that is an awesome keyboard shortcut.

Mods, please improve the rating of parent AC's brilliance.

Re:New Slashdot feature: RTFM Sunday!

[pthisis]

If you mean the rtfm command, it was part of the Andrew system; it was implemented first at CMU.

If you mean RTFM as an acronym, the earliest known citation comes from the LINPACK manual in 1979, but oral tradition has it originating in the US Air Force in the 40s or 50s.

MIT's "rtfm" ftp server (which hosts USENET FAQs) came later.

Awesome non-news

[mattr]

Well it blew my mind for 15 seconds. But then I remembered I just use Chrome's History menu, last time was yesterday I think.

Basic functionality is now a trick?

[loufoque]

Here is another amazing trick: you can use Ctl-T to open a new tab!
Who knew?

History - Recently Closed Tabs

[gigaherz]

It even has more than one closed tab! Do you not use Firefox?

Opera user snikers, best short cut claim

[Trax3001BBS]

Opera browser has a small arrow pointing down to the far right of the address bar, if you click on that all of the sites you've been to that session will show,
you can then select one you've closed earlier. Close Opera and they are all gone, a temp history of your current browsing and yes it's very helpful.
- Ctrl [plus] Shift [plus] T works as well. (Yep, Windows and Mint).

I would say the pause/break key is the best as well as a virtually unknown shortcut. it allows you to stop a post from scrolling during boot up.

You know how it is, your looking for info on your system and the bios post flashes by way to fast to read.
You press the Pause/break key and the post will stop, Enter key to continue. I've found many BIOS numbers this way; timing is everything.
(Intel chips at least).

Re:Opera user snikers, best short cut claim

[YoungManKlaus]

not to forget, you have contextual undo, ctrl-z for restoring tabs forever!!!

I did it!

[hoborg1]

I used the so called shortcut and it opened https://www.abine.com/abine-products-post-install/ which I have never installed or been to that website. Did it pull it out of thin air? Some sort of product placement? Space robots controlling my computer? Website Noscript blocked? I WILL NEVER KNOW.

noobs of the 'net

[l3v1]

"Melia Robinson's trick [described for Chrome] works in Firefox and Internet Explorer, too"

I think I'll make a feature request for the next Firefox, to rename the Recently Closed Tabs menu to Melia Robinson's Trick Parlor.

Some people are just idiots. And the Sun is shining again today.

Picard says WTF is this shit

[readingaccount]

I was honestly expecting it to say EVARZ instead of Ever. It would have fit the summary/story a lot more appropriately.

Middle click can do the same on Firefox

[anss123]

Firefox has a IMO more useful shortcut: Middle click with the mouse over the area right next to the rightmost tab will open the last closed tab.

Since I close tabs using the mouse I find it more convenient than reaching for the keyboard.

You can also close tabs with middle click, which is how I discovered the feature.

Re: Middle click can do the same on Firefox

[instagib]

Wait a minute. You are saying you have an "area right next to the rightmost tab"? How do you do that?

Re: Middle click can do the same on Firefox

[anss123]

Sorry, I should have said right after the rightmost tab. On my current Firefox it's a angle bracket, on other verions it's a pluss button or a blank button.

Re: Middle click can do the same on Firefox

[Hognoxious]

Sure. It's right next to it, on the left side. Right?

Re:THIS DOESN'T WORK

[Ja'Achan]

On Windows, you can switch caps lock and ctrl with a registry hack. I always set it up like that to help combat RSI. You most probably the same on Linux, but I don't use Linux enough to know how.

I joined to say this

[m0hawk]

Whoever let this on /. should be shot, assuming articles are moderated.

Re:I joined to say this

[hotrodent]

It's a sad day when a simple, fully documented (in FF it's History > Recently Closed Tabs), keyboard shortcut appears as a newsworthy post on the front page of one of the geekiest websites on the web. Is there an emote for a double facepalm?

Stunned

[SinShiva]

Words escape me reading this article. This must be the worst article i've ever seen on any tech site of any caliber. Wow!

Its a nice feature to know about

[Rooked_One]

If you open a browser at the beginning of the day and don't close it until the end, you're going to run into cases when you wish you didn't close out a particular tab. ctrl-shit-t undo's closing a tab like ctrl-z undos. Pretty cool.

Get offa my lawn!

[Hartree]

Paper? Why you young whippersnappers have it so easy.

We had to use corncobs. Use a couple of the red ones to get the worst, and then use a white one to see if it was clean yet.

And then they ruined everything by coming out with that commie propaganda called the Sears Catalog!

Re:Get offa my lawn!

[Hartree]

You poor deprived soul.

You've never experienced the olfactory joys of an outhouse.

Re:I too remember my first time

[Hartree]

So, you're saying your GUI was written for tabbed intercourse?

The whole world is now jealous of you.

*puzzled*

[Tom]

Uh... yes?

I've been using this daily for so long I don't remember when it was added to Firefox.

But, who are you and what did you do to slashdot, the news for nerds site. You know, people who know how to use Google. People who don't look a piece of software and think the main menu is all there is to it. People who *gasp* might think about looking up keyboard shortcuts to a program they use every day just because.

And most importantly: Are we going to run individual articles for one keyboard shortcut from now on? Seriously, at least do what every other online magazine does when it doesn't have a good story for the day and lump 10 or so of them together into an article.

I think this is a personal low-point in the history of /.

In case of emergency: Grab the data from /dev/mem

[tamyrlin]

What is even more annoying is when the webserver serves up an error page after you have just written a very long comment (or similar) hit "post". My solution (in Linux) is to simply dump /dev/mem to /tmp/memorydump and then search this file for keywords present in the recently written form. While this is not a perfect solution, it has certainly saved me a lot of extra work in a few situations. (Nowadays I mostly write longer entries in emacs and cut&paste everything into the form to avoid this kind of issues.)

If you are going to try this out, note that you'll need to do this immediately, before the memory has been overwritten by another process. (And you obviously need to be root to be able to access /dev/mem in most situations.)

A better way

[jez9999]

Here's a better way: don't have close buttons on tabs. They're freaking annoying. If I'm in SeaMonkey or Firefox I disable all tab close buttons and use ctrl-F4 or middle-click to close a tab.

Chrome's interface is shitty and one of the shittier things about it is having a close button on every tab which makes me close them accidentally sometimes. Good job I don't use it as my main browser.

Does not work in anonymous mode

[krenaud]

It sucks that it doesn't work when trying to close pop-ups from pr0n-sites and I accidentally close the tab I want to see.

What the hell, Slashdot?

[wonkey_monkey]

The Greatest Keyboard Shortcut Ever

Are you serious? This passes the Slashdot submission test?

Right, everybody, submit a story about your favourite keyboard shortcut. Go! I'll take Win+D.

Mine is bigger than yours!

[eatvegetables]

Not really .... Didn't get my delivery of "male enhancement" this week.:(

I may be new here

[Skyshroudelf]

I may be new here (my UID is very high) but this post makes me sad.

Nonsense. ALT + F4 is the greatest shortcut

[jafiwam]

First, you can use it to weed out noobs in videogames that ask for cheats. "ALT + F4 for cheat menu" and often a bunch of them will "quit the game" Also, people who think you need a mouse to close a window won't realize you weren't working on what you said you were working on, and they won't get you just closed the hentai porn containing window. Only a few times have I needed to get a tab back. Many times I want to close a program fast. My vote is ALT + F4

Submissions / Firehose

[chill]

Education time. When browsing the submissions list in Slashdot, if you click the - button to vote down an article, it gives you optional reasons.

One of those reasons is "slow news day". Learn it. Live it. Love it.

So wrong

[Livius]

The greatest keyboard shortcut ever is:

control-F1 : minimize Ribbon.

Not merely convenient, but prevents a host of mental health disorders!

Nope.

[azav]

In Safari, Command Shift T, simply toggles the displayed tabs or does nothing.

Re:Nope.

[Andreas Mayer]

In Safari, Command Shift T, simply toggles the displayed tabs or does nothing.

Yup. But, of course, if you accidentally closed a tab, cmd-z will undo that. Like it should.

I've been using this shortcut for many years.

[happy monday]

Also mouse gestures.

esc-y please!

[pyg]

This will be news when I can esc-y till I get the tab I wanted.

No shit

[Mr. Freeman]

This is pretty obvious. Will we see another post tomorrow about the magical alt+f4 shortcut to quickly close windows? How about the super-secret ctrl+alt+delete shotcut that allows you to get to a hidden menu where you can log off, lock the computer, or even open the task manager!

I know that people often complain about slashdot going downhill, but this time I think it really has.

Alt-F4

[fastgriz]

Alt-F4 works even better!

Is it April 1 already?

[QuietLagoon]

Is this a joke article? What in the world is all the fuss about?

What

[jon3k]

Is this a joke? Obvious keyboard shortcuts is news? Is timothy senile?

WOW!

[Andrewkov]

WOW!! This is lifechangingingly awesome!!! Thank you Slashdot!!!!!

PS: That was sarcarsm.

Acute Punctuitis

[Hognoxious]

What's the apostrophe in aid of, you fucktard?

Didn't they teach you that it means "look out, here comes an s" not "darn, you missed an e"?

Re:Acute Punctuitis

[TangoMargarine]

Because everybody knows English grammar and spelling rules sprang fully-formed from the first speaker of the language. You know they didn't even have standardized spelling for a long time?

So what is the purpose of the apostrophe in e.g. don't?

FAIL

[Gim Tom]

Does not work in Firefox 11.0

who is this idiot???

[sribe]

Sort of a ctrl-z for the internet... For Macs cmd-shift-t...

How about cmd-z. Yes, seriously. Close a tab, and the normal every day keyboard shortcut for undo, well, you know, undoes it.

Re:who is this idiot???

[YoungManKlaus]

that only works in opera last time i checked (one of the gazillion of awesome features)

Re:who is this idiot???

[sribe]

that only works in opera last time i checked (one of the gazillion of awesome features)

Then you must have checked years ago, because it has worked in Safari for multiple major versions now.

Re:who is this idiot???

[YoungManKlaus]

safari ... I lol'd ;)

Re:who is this idiot???

[sribe]

safari ... I lol'd ;)

LOL all you want, it won't change a simple fact: when one discusses web browsing "for the Mac" without further qualification, one is discussing Safari.

Re:Android Chrome undo close tab

[Moochman]

The problem is even worse on the Nexus 10 methinks. Chrome for Android has to have the worst tabbed interface of all mobile browsers; it's really puzzling that Google continues to stick with this broken UI, especially considering Chrome is the default browser on all Nexus devices....

Discoverability of Recently Closed Tabs

[tepples]

The keyboard shortcut is spelt out in full right there in the "Recently Closed Tabs" submenu

That keyboard shortcut is displayed two submenus deep. To get to it, one would have to click the Firefox menu and then do two non-obvious things.

The first non-obvious step is to know that submenus can be opened through hovering. In an application using a more or less standard menu bar, clicking the title of a submenu does nothing. Some users traverse submenus by clicking, especially users brought up on touch-controlled mobile devices that don't even have a hover action or people using desktop applications on a touch screen laptop or all-in-one desktop PC. But in Firefox, clicking the title of a submenu of the top-level Firefox menu opens that submenu's primary item.

The second non-obvious step is to know that Ctrl+Shift+T is inside Recently Closed Tabs, and Recently Closed Tabs is inside History. Finding something buried in a second menu is something one does when exploring an application in depth, not when in a hurry to complete a particular task. A lot of users never explore their web browsers in depth because they are effectively in a hurry every time they're using the web: they just want to get back to the web site or web application that they were using. Besides, I don't know if Recently Closed Tabs even shows an option whose shortcut is Ctrl+Shift+T if no tabs have been closed this session.

Offline composition of Slashdot comments

[tepples]

What I sometimes do is write all my replies to comments to a particular Slashdot story in an external text editor (such as Notepad++, Leafpad, or whatever), along with the URL of the comment to which each comment is a reply. Then once I've finished looking over them, I come back and preview each comment one more time before posting it. Having "slept" on each comment for a few minutes lets me look at each comment in a fresh frame of mind. This helps me find errors and awkward phrasings that I wouldn't have found had I been posting in the heat of the moment. It also helps me when I'm reading Slashdot on a 10" laptop on the bus, as I can finish the job once I get to a Wi-Fi network at my destination.

Re:Offline composition of Slashdot comments

[neumayr]

At what step in your mulit-tiered review system does it usually occur to that you're not writing for publishing, but partaking in a online discussion? How often did you decide your phrasing does not fit the purpose and started over? How often did the discussion move along to other sub-threads and your carefully worded post ignored?

some article...

[Jmac217]

lol this is pathetic.

This article is probably the best example...

[sudden.zero]

...of how bad Slashdot has gotten since Dice took over!

-1 Self Worth

[WillgasM]

This makes me a little less proud of the few times I've gotten submissions published.

Goodbye!

[purgedhalo]

That's it, I'm out of here. Talking poo is where I draw the line!

Re:New Slashdot feature: RTFM Sunday!

[DERoss]

Install the PrefBar extension in Firefox or SeaMonkey. Enable the Restore Tab button.

By the way, accidentally closing a tab in SeaMonkey should be rare since the X to close is at the far right of the tab bar, not on the tab. Putting the X on the tab itself has proven dangerous because it is then too easy to close a tab when trying to select the adjacent tab on the right.

The greatest keyboard shortcut ...

[PPH]

... is Alt|-Ctrl-Delete. Try it, timothy, the next time you get an idea for a story like this.

Satire?

[OscarGunther]

Please, please tell me this is a subtly satirical commentary on the current state of popular technology writing. I'm begging you.

For Windows users...

[nuckfuts]

the greatest keyboard shortcut ever is:

CTRL-ALT-DownArrow

:)

Suspend process?

[Rich0]

You want the equivalent of Ctrl-Z for the internet?

Well, Ctrl-Z suspends the execution of a process, so probably the closest equivalent for something remote would be Ctrl-S. Works on any sane terminal since the 70s or so.

Oh, and I don't know what they mean about using the shift key. Last time I checked ASCII only contained 26 control codes...

What the frack

[neminem]

is this crap. While I suppose this technically is "for nerds", it most certainly is not "news", both in the sense of being something that everyone probably already knew, and in the sense of literally not fitting the definition of news at all. So why the crap is it here?

Umm...

[Ferretman]

...didn't work in either Mozilla or IE.

Ferret

Knowing keyboard shortcuts

[phorm]

I don't know about being "born" able to do so, but hopefully most people around here can read the shortcut that's listed beside a menu item.

History... Recently Closed Tabs...
    Yup, the last one has a CTRL+SHIFT+T shortcut listed beside it.

Alt to show menu bar is broken

[tepples]

Press Alt and your previously hidden menu bar magically appears as if out of thin air!

I just tried that in Firefox 23 in Xubuntu. The Alt key by itself doesn't make a menu appear.

Having to hover

[tepples]

But then the user has to somehow be aware that 1. History is itself a menu, not just an item; 2. one can hover over the strange submenu/item hybrid that exists only in Firefox to open the submenu; and 3. Recently Closed Tabs is within the History submenu. With the growing sales of touch laptops, I imagine that a lot of users aren't going to be used to hovering.

Why the rules exist

[tepples]

When the Journal system debutted here it sort of provided that, but besides technolust there was very little eyeball traffic.

To get more eyeballs on my journal, I tend to advertise journal entries in my signature while they're active.

Stuff like reddit comes to mind, but it's too mainstream and joke-ish. Others have stringent rules where everything must be on topic

The stringent rules are all that those forums have to keep them from becoming "too mainstream and joke-ish".

Is an hour too long?

[tepples]

It's not like IRC where real-time replies are essential. It takes me about 45 minutes to get from one hotspot to the next, after which point I pump out one queued comment every two minutes. If an hour's wait is too long, perhaps someone will have already said it better than I. Besides, I have to read the whole discussion anyway so as not to be marked Redundant. And sometimes I keep getting replies a day later if I'm replying to someone who checks his Slashdot messages.

I've Got Another Shortcut for You

[TangoMargarine]

Ctrl+Shift+Delete (clears your history so you can't use Ctrl+Shift+T to bring back tabs)

In other news, Internet browser users sometimes actually know how to use their browser. Story at 11.

Or you have a decent browser ...

[YoungManKlaus]

which has contextual ctrl-z, so it either undos what you type in a text area or brings back up the last closed tab (and has a convenient trashcan easily accessible for people who prefer to use the mouse) ... for those not getting it, I am talking about Opera pre 15.

Timothy?!

[bhiestand]

This is a new low.

RTFM

[cundare]

Or, you could choose the browser menu selection History/RecentlyStoredTabs/Restore. What am I missing here??

And yet another miraculous shortcut!

[cundare]

Wait, wait, also try this: If you type -A, you SELECT EVERYTHING ON THE PAGE!! It's like having a magic guy scroll through the entire page and highlight everything. Really, a little bit of Lourdes on your desktop.

So where's my Slashdot byline?

LAME

[Dabido]

Not only Lame, but I tried it on my Mac and it doesn't work. Command-Z did however.