(You probably want to see Background Tabs instead...)

Search4Later is a Firefox extension that enables searches from the search bar to open in background tabs.

("I want to search for something and check it out later").

Note how the opened tab is not the dominant tab...

Normally, when you enter something in the search bar and hit [ENTER], it replaces the current tab's contents.

If you hold down [ALT] when you hit [ENTER], it will open the contents in a new tab, and it will switch to that tab.

I wanted the additional option of holding [CTRL] when I hit [ENTER] to cause the new tab to be opened but not switched to. This extension accomplishes that.

Note that there is a hidden browser preference called "browser.search.openintab". It defaults to false. If you set it to true, then the behavior of this extension stays the same, but the normal [ALT] modification reverses with respect to [ALT]

(The setting available at Preferences->Tabs->"When I open a new tab, switch to it immediately", a.k.a. "brower.tabs.loadInBackground", which affects the behavior of [CTRL]-clicking URLs in pages, may also play into things, but I don't think so...)

Rather related Mozilla bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=237027

My first extension!

Possible future features:

• enable the same thing from the Location/URL bar - Update: implemented; see Background Tabs extension
• the ability to change which key combinations do what
• the ability to have the default (no key) action be changed as well

Comments/suggestions/bug reports welcome!