I used to be able to search one of the search engines in my list and open it in a new tab by pressing alt-enter . I can no longer do this. The steps used to be: 1. enter a search term 2. switch the search engine to the one i want to search - I did this with alt-down arrow to pick an engine 3. press alt-enter Now I would have to open the options dialog and change the current engine so I can search that engine by using alt-enter. At minimum a fix would be to allow middle-clicking on one of the other engines in the new dropdown so I could search that engine in a new tab. But a real fix would allow this to be done with a keyboard. The real issue is no longer being able to change the current engine without having to open the options dialog. Since I suppose that is what I was doing in step 2.

Pretty similar for me on Mac OS X ... In current Beta (35, with the 'old' search) all search requests open in a new tab, when I 1) enter the search term 2) choose the engine (via mouse, or via alt + arrow down and confirm with return) 3) pressing return -> search opens in a new tab With the new search it ends up performing the search in my current tab (that I am still using, like for this comment): 1) enter the search term 2) choose the engine (not via mouse, but via arrow down) 3) pressing return -> search opens in the same tab So I would have guessed, chossing the engine with the keyboard and pressing enter would enter the request in a new tab. I also found that in order to get to e.g. the second engine - first line, second engine - I need getting used to pressing the arrow down, as pressing arrow right - the direction I want to go to, closes the dropdown and brings me back to the cursor in the search field. Brian, middle-click is handled in bug 1106101.

(In reply to Brian Polidoro from comment #0) > Now I would have to open the options dialog and change the current engine so > I can search that engine by using alt-enter. Not being able to change the default search engine from the keyboard directly in the searchbox is an intentional change. We may in the future re-add the ability to change the search engine used for the next search, but we haven't decided yet. I have a proposal for this in bug 1108488. > At minimum a fix would be to allow middle-clicking on one of the other > engines in the new dropdown so I could search that engine in a new tab. As mentioned in comment 1, middle click is bug 1106101. > But a real fix would allow this to be done with a keyboard. This is already possible in Firefox 34. Just highlight the icon of the provider you want (using the <tab> or down arrow key) and then press alt+enter. > The real issue is no longer being able to change the current engine without > having to open the options dialog. This is either something we wontfix if you mean 'change the default engine' or bug 1108488 if by 'current engine' you mean the engine for the next search.

(In reply to Florian Quèze [:florian] [:flo] from comment #2) >> But a real fix would allow this to be done with a keyboard. >This is already possible in Firefox 34. Just highlight the icon of the provider you want >(using the <tab> or down arrow key) and then press alt+enter. I recently found this out by doing it by accident. I was stuck on changing the current engine like the old way. But this way is better since you don't have to change the default to do a one-time search. Nice. I think I was also was deterred from finding it by the mouse way not working. Another one filed in the bin of the problem of the discover ability of keyboard shortcuts and navigation that may never be solved.