Increasing Productivity with Keyboard Shortcuts: Opening Web Links

This last week I needed to make sure dozens of links worked as expected. Normally, I would just click the links, but for some reason the browser would jump to the top of the page after clicking the back button causing me to lose my place. Instead of opening them in the same window, I needed to find an alternative for testing links.

Initially, I tried right-clicking the links and selected the "Open in New Window" option. After repeating the process a few times, it seemed like there should be a better way.

I also tried holding the Ctrl key while clicking to open the link in a new tab. That still took more steps than I liked since the tab loads in the background, making me click the tab before viewing the page. So I started experimenting with the common keys used for keyboard shortcuts.

It turns out that if you hold the Shift key while clicking the link, the resulting page opens in a new window. With a little practice, I was able to quickly open a link in a new window, review the page, and close it by hitting Ctrl + W, which closes the active window.

Bonus Shortcut Tip

There is a way to open a link in a new tab, but loads that tab in the foreground. You just need to hold down Ctrl + Shift and click the link.