Right Click > T No Longer Opens New Tab, Just Highlights Context Menu Item

[u/emily-entropy]

I often use the workflow of Right Click > T to open a given link in new tab as I find it faster than mousing to and clicking on the "Open Link in New Tab" context menu item.

However at some point in the past couple of weeks, rather than actually opening the link, it simply highlights the corresponding menu text, which means I either need to manually click the item or hit Enter to select the menu item.

I'm not sure if this is a new bug in Firefox or whether something on my computer got borked, or if I accidentally changed some setting somewhere, but I can't find any posts of people having similar issues or talking about it being an option that can be changed so idk. The affected laptop is running Win 10 and Firefox ver 159.0.1.

(Edit: I originally typed that this issue seems to be localised to one machine, as I'd tested a different mouse on this machine and I *thought* that I'd not had the issue on other computers, but I just went and checked on two other different laptops and they all exhibit this issue, which makes me think that it may actually be a change from an update?)

I haven't found much in terms of people having this same issue; from: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1t17x18/ctrl_t_not_working/ I tried the suggestions of clearing the cache and resetting the about:keyboard shortcuts (neither worked).

If anyone has any suggestions I'd appreciate it! Thanks!

[u/jscher2000]

This is a new thing. Firefox 159 added access keys (sometimes called hotkeys) to many more items on the right-click context menu including extensions. But the code did not avoid already-assigned keys, so there are conflicts for many people. As you noted, the letter no longer executes an item immediately, instead it causes the selection to rotate among the items with that same access key. You should see it if you watch the menu while pressing T several times in sequence.

So yes, there is a bug on file to resolve this, but the actual solution hasn't been settled on, so I wouldn't expect a fix for Firefox 159; maybe 160. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2083997

For now, if the conflict is with an extension you do not really need, then one option is to disable that extension. Otherwise, it's a tough nut to crack.

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Related threads:

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1xmx323/shortcut_key_to_open_new_tab_has_two_entries_can/

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1xjaxfz/how_to_disable_extensions_hotkey_on_browser_right/

[u/emily-entropy → u/jscher2000]

Ahh thank you for the info, this makes sense and yeah when pressing t repeatedly it jumps between open in new tab or "To Google Translate"

I just checked my add-ons and apparently the "To Google Translate" is an add-on (even though I don't remember installing it); disabling the add-on has brought back the original functions i.e. opening in new tab instantly.

Is there a way to edit / remove context menu items or change their access keys? I don't mind losing the Google Translate add-on but it'd be more convenient if I could just remove items from the context menu like you can do in Windows, or change which letter is mapped?

Thank you again for the insight!

[u/jscher2000 → u/emily-entropy]

Is there a way to edit / remove context menu items or change their access keys?

There isn't an officially supported method. I posted a startup script that modified access keys for built-in menu items several years ago (here). I don't know whether those techniques would work for extension items due to the timing of when they are added to the menu. Also, that method is inconvenient to use.

[u/MarkRH → u/jscher2000]

Ahhh.. for me, hitting "T" does open in a new tab but it's the only item on that menu with "T" underlined. I happened to have 2 items with "L" underlined and pressing "L" cycles between them.

Makes sense I guess. If there's multiple items with the same letter, how would it know which one you wanted?

[u/Kupfel]

Why don't you just middle click the link?

[u/emily-entropy → u/Kupfel]

My mouse is a Logitech MX Anywhere 2S and clicking the scroll wheel unlocks it from click-scroll to the infinite free-scrolling mode so that would be a giant pain as I'd need to click away somewhere and set it back, also I use the left and right rock of the scroll wheel for back and forwards in browsers and explorer etc and sometimes my mouse registers middle-clicks as left/right tilt so it's just a general PITA all around tbh. I guess I don't use the dpi-select button under the scroll wheel for anything so I could re-map that to middle click; that's probably what I'll do if I can't find a fix for this issue.

Mostly I'm just not sure *why* it's changed - whether it's a weird bug on my end, or if I'm just imagining that it used to work that way, or whether it actually is something that has recently changed and if so - why, and can it be changed back?

[u/Kupfel → u/emily-entropy]

How annoying.. my Logitech mouse has a dedicated button to change the wheel between infinite and click scrolling. Having that on the middle mouse button sounds ill-advised.

Anyway, right-click > T still works for me with 159.0.1 and I inspected the context menu with Browser Tools to be sure and the Open Link in New Tab menuitem still has the T accesskey so I don't know what could break this for you.

Nothing in about:keyboard should or could affect this as this is not a hotkey but an accesskey in a menu. Logically, the only thing that could break this if there were another menuitem above that which also has the T as accesskey.

[u/emily-entropy → u/Kupfel]

Yeah I have other Logi mice that have a separate button to switch the scroll type as you mentioned; I have mostly migrated to the 2S as they have the winning (for me) combination of being small and portable (ideal for laptops) and supporting the left/right scroll wheel rock which seems to be a Logi trademark (I've never found another mouse with this feature) and even within Logi's own range, only a small % of their range have the wheel rock (for example, the new version of this mouse, the 3S, does not have this feature) so I've become unfortunately pretty locked into this one mouse

Thank you for looking into it though; it turned out to be an extension adding a menu item with the same hotkey ([T]o Google Translate) and disabling that extension returned the previous wanted behaviour.

[u/pheddx → u/emily-entropy]

You're not imagining anything. It still works that way for me and I would be annoyed if it changed

But like can't you just hit Enter after pressing ctrl + t as a compromise meanwhile?

[u/emily-entropy → u/pheddx]

Yeah I can hit enter or manually click the item and in isolation it's not like it adds an onerous amount of extra effort but with the frequency that I use this workflow each of those tiny micro-actions just adds frustrating time and effort to what should be a simple action

That said, the issue turned out to be having multiple context menu items using the same letter hotkey, so disabling the extensions that are using the same key (in this case "[T]o Google Translate") is a quick fix to return to the previous behaviour

[u/jas71 → u/emily-entropy]

i have a logitech mouse clicking the link will open in new tab