Browser ShortCuts

Review Of Common Browser Shortcut Keys


Before we get started on Firefox, let's do a quick review of the most common Web browser shortcut keys from another article on Common Shortcut Keys:

Ctrl+N	Open a new window
Ctrl+T	Open a new tab
Ctrl+W	Close the current window/tab
Ctrl+R	Refresh
Esc	Stop
Alt+←	Back
Alt+→	Forward
Alt+Home	Go to your homepage
Alt+D	Move focus to the address bar to type in a URL
Ctrl+Enter	Add "http://www." and ".com" around an address
MiddleClick	Middle-clicking a tab will close it, even if it's not the active tab

All of the above work in Firefox, as well as Internet Explorer, so learn them and love them!

Firefox Shortcut Keys

If you know the above shortcut keys, you are well on your way to working faster with Firefox. But, there are some Firefox-specific shortcut keys that will save you even more time. Check them out:

Ctrl+T	Open a new tab
Ctrl+W	Close the current window or tab
Ctrl+Shift+T	Undo close tab (re-open the last closed tab)
Ctrl+Tab	Switch to the next tab
Ctrl+Shift+Tab	Switch to the previous tab
Ctrl+[0-9]	Switch to the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. tab
/	Open the "Find Text As You Type" widget (bottom of screen)
'	Open the "Find Links As You Type" widget (bottom of screen)
Ctrl+G	Find the next occurrence of a search phrase
Ctrl+Shift+G	Find the previous occurrence of a search phrase
Ctrl+K	Move cursor to the Web Search widget (top right of screen)

Some of these shortcut keys need additional notes:

• Ctrl+W will close the current tab. If there is only one tab left, it will close the window, exiting Firefox.
• Think of Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab as analogies to Alt+Tab andAlt+Shift+Tab. Whereas the Firefox shortcut keys (using Ctrl) switch between tabs, the Windows shortcut keys (using Alt) switch between windows.
• Just to be clear, Ctrl+[0-9] actually means Ctrl+1, Ctrl+2, Ctrl+3, etc. Here,Ctrl+0 will switch you to the 10th tab.
• The "Find Text As You Type" widget that appears at the bottom of your Firefox browser when you press / looks like this:
  
  Figure 1 - Search Widget
  Type in a phrase and Firefox will move the browser window to the first occurrence of the phrase in the website. Ctrl+G finds the next occurrences andCtrl+Shift+G finds previous.
• Note that instead of searching through a whole website, you can search just through the links on a website by using the ' shortcut key.
• If the search phrase you entered highlights a link, you can simply press Enterto navigate to that link.
• Pressing Ctrl+K moves your cursor to the Web Search widget, which looks something like this:
  
  Figure 2 - Web Search Widget
  Once your cursor is there, you can type in a search phrase, press enter, and you're on your way to Google.

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