XYplorer Beta Club

After closing a tab, the right-most tab is always selected. is there a way to get XYplorer to default to the previously selected tab instead? "Cycle tabs in recently used order" sounds like it should do it, but it doesn't.

From relevant reference (press Help button or F1 on that config page).

Note that with "Activate left tab on closing current" and "Cycle tabs in recently used order" both enabled, the *previously used tab* is auto-selected on closing the current tab.

You know what to do...

This cycling, recently selected tab, activating last tab on closing current has never been working right (at all). If cycling in most recently used order is checked, the tabs cycle on Ctrl+Tab in chaotic and illogical (wrong, not by the last used tabs) order (as we got used to in other programs). So it is aways disabled here.
Also, with Ctrl+Tab we should be able to toggle between the last two tabs if we release Ctrl after the first Tab press, and continue with the order if we repeatedly press Tab while holding down Ctrl. This bug is present for years.
Is there a way to accomplish what is de-facto standard today?

In a browser I can have linear cycling with Ctrl+Tab (actually automated with AHK to do it with the mouse) and at the same time when I close a tab, the last selected tab is activated. There shouldn't be a hard link between the two behaviors and there isn't in browsers (like Firefox eventually with an add-on).
In XY I've never been able to accomplish this. No matter the options, when I close a tab, the left one is always activated. XY should remember the usage order and this order should be able to be operated separately if we want linear cycling of tabs with Ctrl+Tab.
I thought it would have been fixed years after I remember to have complained about that in another thread.

I can't replicate that. With that option on cycling through tabs works exactly as expected. It doesn't matter if I close the current or any other tab, the tab cycle order is still correct...

If I enable Cycle tabs in most recent order checkbox, then I select with the mouse the first (leftmost) tab, then select the third tab, then select the first tab again, then press Ctrl+Tab, the result is XY activates something like the 7th tab or so and if I keep pressing Ctrl+Tab, the order is random. It has always been like that, for maybe a decade worth of versions. And never been able to make it select the last tab after I close a tab. Closing a tab selects its left neighbour.
This bug was always present, tens of versions last decade. I don't know why you can't replicate, I've been using Win2008 back 7 years ago, now Win7 x64. Always.

A script closes all tabs apart from the first one (this one is locked) and then opens 5 background tabs
so the current tab is still the first.

Now I click with the mouse on the third, then the fifth one. When I now close the fifth (current one)
XY switches to the last selected (the third).

When I now use ctrl-tab, the tab selection order is:
1, 5, 4, 2, 3

In my case this is the expected order...

This has never worked for me.
Also, you had 6 tabs (one and 5 new backgrounded).
If when you started pressing ctrl+tab you were on 3rd tab, switching to 1 is Ok, but why then switching to 5? and then 4 etc. when you had never switched to them after they were created..
Anyway, the order for me has nothing in common with the recent order. And I clicked the tabs in a given order just to be able to monitor the order afterwards when I use ctrl+tab.
I would conduct more experiments, but this is awkward. I have many other programs that use tabs and I've never had problems with expected results of switching.

when you had never switched to them after they were created..

Interesting logic. So all tabs that you didn't click with a mouse should not be cycled at all?

Unfortunately neither FF nor Chrome behave that way, right? Click on the "+" sign on the right of the last visible tab
and create a few tabs. Did you ever click any of them with the mouse? Nope. Are they cycled through ctrl+tab?
They are...

No. Tabs not being switched to yet should be cycled linearly, otherwise it would mean "random" .
Other than that, I never open my tabs in background (even don't know how to do it, maybe with Shift or combination with Shift..).

As for FF, I use an add-on since day one (yes, the default tab behaviors in most browsers are awful to say the least). I use FF from version 0.9 or so. I think I don't know anyone using vanilla FF without some sort of tab addon. Anyway.
If I open a tab, FF switches to it, and not opened in background. Even if I open it in background (ctrl+shift+click somewhere), it (they) is/are cycled linearly (yes, they were not yet clicked so far). Any other behavior I'd consider illogical.

There is no randomness at all in my example. Tabs that weren't activated by mouse are switched according to their creation time. Everything else than this is what I would call: not logical

Even if we consider XY uses 'unread' tabs' creation time as a base for their cycling order, this suits more to a browser than a file manager .
If I open more than 1-2 background tabs, their creation time doesn't matter at all (this is a file manager, not a browser where it would have been a bit more appropriate).
Anyway, the main issue for me is it won't activate last selected tab when I close a tab. It activates the closed tab's left neighbour always, no matter the dedicated options state.

And as you've already seen it does exactly this on my system: Selecting the last active ("used") tab (5th was closed, 3rd was select -> The last mouse activated tab).