Nicely hidden IE 7 Tab Setting...

If you are like me then you do a ton of web searches everyday. I usually middle click a link from the results of a web search and take a look at that page then close that tab. Which is where my frustration comes in. By default when you close a tab in IE 7 the tab that gains focus is the tab with the same index of the tab you just closed (unless of course it was the right most tab then it just focuses on the right most tab). However, this is not what I want to happen. I would prefer that the tab focus go back to the page that got me to the page I just closed, in this case the search results.

In firefox there is an extension called FLST, which will put focus on the last active tab when you close the active tab. In IE 7 there is an advanced option Use most recent order when switching tabs with Ctrl+Tab, which will provide the same functionality. It will essentially create a stack of the most recently visited tabs and set focus back to tab on the top of that stack whenever you close a tab. Of course, you wouldn't ever really know that from reading the option, at least it isn't obvious to me, which is why I'm posting this on my blog.

So if you want focus to be restored to the last focused tab when you close a tab then you can check the following option:

Internet Options > Advanced > Use most recent order when switching tabs with Ctrl+Tab.

Of course this is also going to change the behavior of Ctrl+Tab which doesn't bother me but you may need to chose which option you want more. Check out the IEBlog for other interesting IE 7 tab settings.