Address bar history does not prioritize active tabs?
Ive noticed that firefox does not appear to prioritize active tabs when display the address bar search history.
So for example lets say i use google a lot and i have a long history of google tabs. Let's say all these tabs had similar names with the word "tea" in it.
So i type in "tea" and instead of displaying the active google tab with the word "tea" in it, it displays a long list of old tabs. So i cant use the "switch to tab" function to switch to my active google tab, because it doesnt appear in the list of tabs i have active.
This only happens if i have a long search history and im guessing its because firefox doesnt prioritize active tabs when displaying the search history. Is there a way around this, or can this be fixed in the next version?
Please dont tell me to reinstall firefox or use a new profile.
All Replies (3)
The sequence on the URL bar autocomplete drop-down is based on "frecency", or a combination of frequency and recency. As a result, a unique search title and URL is not going to come up at the top until you get far enough into the text to distinguish it from the rest of your history.
The official shortcut for limiting your address bar query to currently open tabs is the % symbol. If you type % at the start of the line, Firefox should list open tabs and as you add characters (after a space), the drop-down should shrink progressively toward the best match. Or you can add it at the end (after a space).
I don't know whether there is a way to change the weight of currently open pages (so you don't have to use %). There are a number of variables you can manipulate to change how the sequence is computed, but "page is now open" is not one of them... a mystery to explore some other day.
By the way, since % is inconvenient to type, if you plan to use this often, you could choose another character -- preferably something you wouldn't normally type when matching history. You can change the character using the about:config preferences editor.
(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Click the button promising to be careful.
(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste urlb and pause while the list is filtered
(3) Double-click the browser.urlbar.restrict.openpage preference and enter your preferred alternate character, then click OK.
I tested with a forward slash (/) which is something I would never type by itself (i.e., I wouldn't need to search for it isolated, with spaces on both sides) and that worked.
Hope this helps.
I dont suppose its possible to make this a future feature? Where typing in the address bar automatically prioritizes open tabs?
It could be an interesting feature to allow users to enable.
Until then, I wonder whether someone might already have created an add-on? Many users want to more quickly find an open tab, so there have been a range of different graphical approach. I just don't know whether anyone has created a textual one.
In another thread, someone found it helpful to use the "all windows" search feature of this extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/findbar-tweak/