Anyway to enable middle click to close a tab in Safari 5?

Question

The start up speed of the new Safari 5 has convinced me to switch to it from Chrome. The only annoyance I have is that I am unable to close a tab by simply middle-clicking on it (which works in pretty much every other browser).

Is there anyway to enable it? Even via extensions?

Solution 1

I got what you're looking for If it's Safari 5.0 and later, then it definitely supports extensions:

The extension is called: Safari 5 Mouse Gestures:

http://extensions.cbot-gsm.de/

just download and double click, will install automatically. Now you need to map the middle mouse button. You can even map the right or left clicks, but it's not recommended as it might conflicts with Safari's regular functions.

Now set the middle button to execute gestures with, then combine it with: a down gesture for example (by Down Gesture I mean just moving the mouse downward). Now whenever you're in an active tab, just click anywhere on the screen and hold with middle mouse button, and drag down, it will close the tab. Much cooler than the regular middle mouse click.

You can also map the MMB + upper mouse movement (or upper gesture), and set it to Open New TAB!

Solution 2

For an actual working solution, there is a SIMBL bundle which does this. I have tested with Safari 5.1 (Lion) and it still works. See MiddleClickClose, a SIMBL plugin that allows you to close tabs in Safari in OSX by middle clicking anywhere on them

Solution 3

I missed this feature too, but if you have a trackpad or Magic Mouse, I found that an even better solution is jitouch. You can define a large number of gestures, and I can close tabs (and other windows throughout the OS) by putting the mouse anywhere within the tab and swiping a particular way. I think it's much easier than trying to target a tiny tab to middle-click on it.

Comments

[Josh Hunt]

jitouch is fantastic. I don't know how i ever lived without it.

[gardenofwine]

The tabs are actually quite large and easy to target.

[Stephen Jennings]

@AngryHacker Compared with the size of the whole window, they're miniscule =)