Wrong tab is shown after tab is closed or deleted

Steps to reproduce

  1. Create three notes in Sandbox vault called Test1, Test2 and Test3, open Test1 and Test2 in two tabs, and switch to Test1
  2. Now Open Test3 in a new tab (Ctrl-O, Ctrl-click on Test3); this switches to Test3
  3. Now close Test3 (Ctrl-W), or delete it
  4. Current tab is now Test2

Did you follow the troubleshooting guide?

Yes

Expected result

Current tab at the end should be Test1. Opening some note to check something while working on a note and then closing it when done is very common. To be landed in another note after closing the checked note is unsatisfactory. I believe it’s a recently introduced behavior.

Actual result

Current tab is Test2

Environment

SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: v1.10.0
Installer version: v1.7.7
Operating system: Windows 11 Home 10.0.26100
Login status: logged in
Language: en
Catalyst license: insider
Insider build toggle: on
Live preview: on
Base theme: adapt to system
Community theme: none
Snippets enabled: 0
Restricted mode: off
Plugins installed: 0
Plugins enabled: 0

RECOMMENDATIONS:
none

Obsidian did recently change the behavior when closing tabs, but it doesn’t sound like it should affect the case you describe (assuming the tabs left to right are 1, 2, 3) or like your expectation is how it behaved before.

When closing a tab, the tab to the right is activated (previously the tab to the left would get activated). (Obsidian 1.10.0 Desktop (Early access) - Obsidian)

Thank you for pointing out the change in the Changelog.

You seem to mean we shouldn’t be getting the behavior I described. But did you try it?

I wonder why that change was made. Thinking more about it, I can see how the current behavior might be helpful when one wants to sequentially process (e.g. close) a series of tabs on the right, leaving alone tabs on the left. Perhaps that’s the reason?

It feels a bit wrong, when opening a note to check something and then closing it, to be stranded on some note that is not the one where I was before doing the check.

No, I meant the change I found seems not relevant. It changes what happens when you close a tab that is between 2 tabs, but in your example the tab being closed only has a note on 1 side of it (unless I’ve misunderstood).

When I saw it I guessed the old behavior must have been out of line with what people expect and/or what most apps do. (But if so, I either never noticed that or got used to it.)

If the change is the cause of your problem, there is a feature request asking for an option for the old behavior:

I think if you try the steps you will see that Test3 that is closed is between Test1 and Test2.

Thanks for showing me that someone else is already asking reversion of the change, as they are confronted to the same issue.

My thoughts so far:

  1. Landing on left is better for the situation I described and @prdlik described (checking a note while working on a note, and be returned where we were)

  2. Landing on right is better for left to right processing of a series of tab. Web browsers likely land on right for that reason. In particular people will often open several search results, and want to look at them one by one from left to right, like flipping the pages of a book, closing them (or some of them) after they have looked at them. In that particular case, landing on left is annoying. Going back to Obsidian however, not only is the “opening all search results in tabs” case much less typical, but it can still be done with landing on left if one just processes tabs right to left.

  3. One way to accomodate my case and @prdlik’s case, and also accomodate left to right sequential processing might be to land on left IF the closed tab is the last created tab and no other tab has been closed since it was created, and land on the right otherwise, but it might be too complicated perhaps, and with unforeseen issues.

I guess the change was made to align with web browsers, however just because both Obsidian and browsers use tabs, that doesn’t mean they are used in the same way. There are applications in which landing on right is really better, but in Obsidian it seems worse, and it seems the original design choice was better.

1 Like

please continue this discussion in the FR thread. Thanks

Ah, yeah, sorry for my confusion.