This was another add-on from the 50 Add-ons…Change The Way You Surf The Web post that I thought would be very handy to have. Sadly, I was wrong. This add-on has a lot of potential but it’s default behaviors really bother me and are some what confusing. Once this add-on is install you will get your choice of a couple buttons to help you manage your Closed Tabs. However even that takes some work and is confusing. Here are my complaints:
- By default it adds an ‘Undo Last Closed Tab’ button to the left of the tab bar. I did not find this button useful as it is quicker for me just to do CTRL+SHIFT+T to reopen the last closed tab.
- First off, this button is fixed so you can not place it anywhere else. Second. to get rid of this button you need to go into the add-on options and select ‘Remove the tab bar button’ AND then restart Firefox.
- Suggestion would be add the button to the Toolbars ‘customize menu’ so user can place wherever they like (except on tab bar).
- There is an Undo Closed Tabs Button which feaures a drop-down list. Like any other custom button you have to add on to your Firefox by going to the Toolbars ‘customize menu’. That does not bother me as this is Firefox’s behavior not the add-on.
- The developer needs to make it a lot clearer there are two separate buttons. Yes it does say in the overview ‘This extension allows you to undo closed tabs via a toolbar and/or tab bar button or the right-click context menu.’ and in the long description: ‘You must add the button by going to View -> Toolbars -> Customize, then drag and drop the button anywhere on the toolbar.’
- It can get confusing when Firefox first restarts after installation of the add-on and the users see the ‘Undo Last Closed Tab’ Button on their tab bar. They may think (as I did to) that the add-on automatically installed the ‘Undo Closed Tabs Button’ for them. It is not until they go to click the button and discover that it only reopens the last closed tab on each click.
- Suggestion: Make it clearer on the AMO page that there are TWO different buttons and the restrictions for placement of these buttons.
- The add-on for whatever reason removes by default the Recently Closed Tabs option from the History Menu
- Equally puzzling is in the add-ons options you can ‘Remove the ‘Undo Last Closed Tab’ (option) from the right-click context menu’. But it axes the list from the History menu.
- Not that big of a deal since I never really used these method to reopen closed tabs.
- The instructions on the AMO page indicate that you can use the keyboard short-cut CTRL+SHIFT+Z to reopen the last closed tab. This DOES NOT work (nothing happens), but CTRL+SHIFT+T still works. This short-cut may work in Firefox 2 as there is separate version for Firefox 2.
A nice feature of this add-on is the ability to set a specific number (0-99) of closed tabs for Firefox to remember. But again you have to restart Firefox for that option to go into effect.
Undo Closed Tab Buttons works with Firefox 2.0-3.0.*
