Selecting multiple tabs (e.g. by holding down CTRL and clicking) would be very useful. For example, with many tabs open I often want to close all but a few (i.e. all but >1, so 'Close Other Tabs' doesn't work). It's faster to close the whole window and reload the tabs I want than to wait for the UI to respond to closing tabs one at a time. Performing the operation simultaneously on mutlple tabs would be much faster. As a side editorial, if that's allowed, Excel (yes, the MS spreadsheet) might be a a good model for tab functionality.

I'd prefer: * ctrl+click to turn a tab into a window * ctrl+shift+click to turn a tab into a window behind the current window (maybe also alt+click) * shift+click to close a tab (like in mirc) ... bug 121873? By the way, if you have a three-button mouse, you can middle-click to close a tab.

Jesse - You may want to file a seperate RFE for those requests. This RFE is for selecting multiple tabs, and not for the functionality of ctrl+click. To me, it doesn't matter if the specific command is ctrl+clk or something else.

I suggest wontfix for adding the ability to select multiple tabs.

why?

I like the idea of selecting multiple tabs, and think that this will be necessary in order to make a more convenient interface for saving bookmark groups.

what would you do with multiple tabs except either close them or bookmark them? don't see any big advantage in selected several tabs and then closing, vs just closing several tabs. if the issue is the speed of closing tabs, then I'm not sure this would help - it would probably take 3 times as long to close the 3 tabs as to close one of them...

re comment #6: I think there are higher priorities at the moment, but I still think it's useful, including for bookmarking, closing tabs, and future features (e.g. one RFE is for rearranging tabs). For example, right now, I have 20 tabs open. I'd like to close #'s 2-10 but it's not worth the hassle of doing them one at a time ... I just did it anyway, and it took ~ 20 seconds ... I wanted to close them so I could locate other tabs more easily. "it would probably take 3 times as long to close the 3 tabs as to close one of them..." 'Close Other Tabs' will close 10 tabs as fast as 1; I assumed this feature would work the same, but maybe that's a bad assumption?

*** Bug 160510 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

I entered bug# 160510, which was duped to this one (and rightly so -- bad search critera on my part). The one difference in my bug was that you'd use Ctrl-Click to select multiple individual tabs, and Shift-Click to select all tabs between the currently select tab and the new selected tab. I suggested right-click options of - Close selected tabs - Open selected tabs in new window but, as I read this bug, I think the options should be - Close selected tabs - Bookmark selected tabs as group - Open selected tabs in new window - Close un-selected tabs Re: Comment #6 > what would you do with multiple tabs except either close them or bookmark them? Open them in a new Window Leave them open while closing the others

Addressing comment #6. There is more than just "Close Tab" and "Close Other Tabs" that this would be useful for. I would like to do "Reload Tab" for multiple tabs. This would be very convenient for discussion boards, news sites, etc. As far as interface goes, is there enough screen space for simple checkboxes? This has the advantage of being an easy metaphor, not being a hard-to-remember key combination, and making it really clear which tabs are selected and which aren't (which a border that would probably be the ctrl-click implementation would not do). It has the disadvantage of creating two UI targets on a tab; the checkbox and the part that makes that tab the active one (especially when the tabs have been shrunk down because I have 20 open). While I'm blue-skying, I could see this being used for something like "Move these tabs to new window." Those URLs get closed in the current window and re-opened as tabs in a new one. And I second the bookmark group idea, although I suggest extending that to saving that group of links to something other than bookmarks. There are often sites that I want to remember just for a couple days that are not bookmark-worthy. On windows that could be done as saving shortcuts to a specified directory on the fs. That sort of sounds like a new RFE, but I can already drag 'n' drop from the URL box to the fs now; this would be mapping it to multiple tabs in a similar way as other features specified in this bug.

I don't think I'd use this for "close selected tabs" or for "bookmark selected tabs", but I would use it for "move selected tabs to a new window".

> As far as interface goes, is there enough screen space for simple checkboxes? When they're are a lot of tabs the existing tabs as drawn is congested enough - we don't need another graphic. However, the existing tab icon could easily be changed to represent the fact that's it's selected (change it's colour and/or the image used).

Some people are questioning the use of this feature. They are correct that right now it wouldn't be much good except for closing selected tabs, or closing all tabs that aren't selected. There are, however, other features looming that would make this much more useful, and that would be made much more useful by this feature. One of these is bug 105855 about reordering and rearranging tabs. Another one is bug 102132 , about moving content from a tab into a window, and from a window into a tab, and moving tabs between windows. The uses of this seem very obvious to me... you're browsing with several tabs open, then you find yourself opening more and more tabs that are closely related to one of the tabs. Perhaps you want to take several of the tabs and rearrange them to be together. This would be made much easier by being able to select multiple tabs. If your window is getting really crowded, you may want to take half the tabs and put them into a different window, or make a new window with them. This is also made much easier (and probably faster too) by being able to select several tabs at once. Tabbed browsing in mozilla is still at a relatively early stage in its development compared to where it should be when it is "complete". These features of multiple selection, tab reordering, and tab migration, are pretty basic functionality for a tabbed interface, in my opinion. So we should be looking forward, not getting stuck in the present. These things are coming, its now just a matter of when. I for one, would prefer sooner rather than later... ;)

Well, now that Bug 103354 has been "fixed" by removing the "close other tabs" menu item alltogether, this becomes a more plausible way to re-instate a way to close all but one tab. Infact this way of doing things makes more sense in the long run. Oh, a click+drag method for selecting multiple tabs would be ideal. (Or is that another enhancement?)

personally I think clicking and dragging to select tabs is a bad idea. when I drag a tab, I expect it to move. and hopefully someday it will.

Keith you might have a point. It's better to think of tabs as a rather odd list view. Then Ctrl+click makes sense to select multiple tabs one-by one. But as well as ctrl+click you usually get shift-click modifier: Select from last selected tab up to the shift-clicked tab. This leaves the click-drag action free to re-arrage tabs, and drag to other windows.

*** Bug 222792 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

*** Bug 318544 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

not going to do this in Firefox, leaving open since its a core bug so may apply to seamonkey. Multiple selection of tabs is of limited use, and I think there's better things we can do with click handlers if we choose to expand them to tabbrowser tabs.

Why not make use of the new drop down menu in tab bar to add an option to manage open tabs? It could open a dialog listing all tabs with check buttons next to their names. Of course it will be possible to select/check multiple tabs via shift or control keys. Besides it would be possible to : - select multiple tab for closing them, - select multiple tab for bookmarking them, - select multiple tab for moving them in a new (or another) window - a more friendly interface to reorder tabs when a lot of them are open (Maybe I should post a new bug to request enhancement)

For those interested in the feature. the Multiple Tab Handler extension, plus probably quite a few others, provides it. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4838

Just to clarify, this is a bug filed for Seamonkey. The related Firefox bug is bug 566510.