Topic awaiting preservation: Firefox: Closing Last Tab

I installed Firefox last night for a friend exasperated by IE and included a few extensions I thought she could use. In the process, I was trying to figure out how to prevent one's closing the last tab from shutting down the whole browser and I couldn't remember how to do it.

I went home and looked at mine -- and what do you know -- I still couldn't figure it out. When I close the last tab in my browser, the tab simply goes blank (like I like it). But I can't find a single setting or extension that sets this behavior!

I know there's the BlankLast extension, which I know I had installed for a former installation of Firefox, but it's not in my current extension list. Besides, it won't install for the current version of Firefox, anyway.

Anyone have any ideas how I made this work?

The way you describe? No.

But in the options dialogue, under the advanced section, is the Tabbed Browsing area. Checking the 'hide tab bar when only one web site is open' acheives essentially the same thing - when there is only one tab left, it stops being a tab at all.

if that helps at all...

Open a blank tab, close the original. Blank page, sans tab bar. That's about the closest I think it ever comes.


Justice 4 Pat Richard

(Edited by Skaarjj on 10-26-2005 05:37)

My FF has a little red "dot" on the upper right. It shuts tabs. If one shuts the last tab, then one has a blank field.

I just started using an extension over the last month called Tab Mix Plus that's compatible with the newest version of FF and is very configurable. There's an option in the preferences to do just what you want.

- Butcher -

In the "Preferences for Tabbrowser Extension" go to "General > Close Tab"
It says "Close Tab" Actions. Uncheck the box that says "Close the browser window when there is no tab which can be closed"

I believe that's what you're lookin for.

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Wes said:

...trying to figure out how to prevent one's closing the last tab from shutting down the whole browser...

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My Firefox does just that when the option DL mentioned is not checked.

Just keeps a blank "Untitled" tab open when all the others are closed.


And I just saw WS' reply.... which seems to confirm that it's possible

Yeah, I just tested it, do what DL-44 said.

My question is why you would want to do this? What good is an open browser with a blank screen?

Ah but what good is a closed browser at all? You just have to open it up again.

with the hellacious memory leak in Firefox you'd daggum sure better close it now and then

.

JK - right on. My firefox browser is currently chewing on 132MB of my precious ram; time to shut it again soon i think.

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briggl said:

What good is an open browser with a blank screen?

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Same reason an open Photoshop is good with no image loaded. You don't have to wait for Photoshop to start next time you need it.

Besides, sometimes when I find I've hit a dead end on a bit of research, I like to clear all my tabs and start completely fresh. Other times, I just don't want someone knowing what I've been looking at.

Anyway, I've determined that the close-last-tab feature on my desktop (turns out it wasn't working on my laptop) must be some vestigial behavior of something since uninstalled. I compared everything in Firefox on my desktop with Firefox on my laptop and there's no disparity in settings or extensions anywhere that should be creating the difference.

So I decided to give Tab Mix Plus a shot, which butcher mentioned, and it does what I want, plus ties together several other tab functions from other extensions. So -- thumbs up and problem solved!

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Wes said:

Same reason an open Photoshop is good with no image loaded. You don't have to wait for Photoshop to start next time you need it.

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I don't get it.

How does that make a blank browser preferable?

I almost always ahve a browser window open, whether I am using it or not, just sitting on the home page.
The home page, of course, has all the main links I use ready and waiting....

I don't see why anyone would want a blank window instead...

Not that it really matters - everyone has there own way of doing things. the reason just doesn't make sense to me. =)

Because most of my browsing involves research I'm working on. If I come back to my computer at some point and see some page up, I may not remember whether I was done following that resource or not. So if I am done, I like a blank slate.

Besides, I don't have a home page for my browser. I guess it would be Google if I did, but I always use my Googlebar anyway.