closing a tab > go to the previous edited one - sublimetext3

Question

When closing a tab in sublimetext3, it always brings me back to the left one, whereas on sublimetext2, I was brought to the previously opened-one(not necessarily the left one).
That behavior was really handy in sublimetext2, because it created a kind of history that was easy to go-back through, just by closing tabs successively.
Is there a setting for that in sublimetext3 ?
Steps to reproduce
I have 3 tabs open, and the 3rd-one is active:
I now go and edit the 2nd-one:
I'm done and decide to close the 2nd-tab:
FAIL: i'm not back to the previously edited one: the 3rd-one

Answer 1

There is no setting to do that. However since it can be done with a plugin, and I like to keep my plugin writing skills up to scratch, I've written it for you.
It's called FocusMostRecentTabCloser and the code is both below and in this GitHub Gist.
To use it save it as FocusMostRecentTabCloser.py somewhere in your Packages directory structure and assign keys to the focus_most_recent_tab_closer command. e.g.
{"keys": ["ctrl+k", "ctrl+w"], "command": "focus_most_recent_tab_closer"},
I have not tested it extensively and it requires Sublime Text 3 build 3024 or later (but that's quite old now).
Reply with a comment if there are any bugs and I'll see what I can do.
# MIT License
import sublime
import sublime_plugin
import time
LAST_FOCUS_TIME_KEY = "focus_most_recent_tab_closer_last_focused_time"
class FocusMostRecentTabCloserCommand(sublime_plugin.TextCommand):
""" Closes the focused view and focuses the next most recent. """
def run(self, edit):
most_recent = []
target_view = None
window = self.view.window()
if not window.views():
return
for view in window.views():
if view.settings().get(LAST_FOCUS_TIME_KEY):
most_recent.append(view)
most_recent.sort(key=lambda x: x.settings().get(LAST_FOCUS_TIME_KEY))
most_recent.reverse()
# Target the most recent but one view - the most recent view
# is the one that is currently focused and about to be closed.
if len(most_recent) > 1:
target_view = most_recent[1]
# Switch focus to the target view, this must be done before
# close() is called or close() will shift focus to the left
# automatically and that buffer will be activated and muck
# up the most recently focused times.
if target_view:
window.focus_view(target_view)
self.view.close()
# If closing a view which requires a save prompt, the close()
# call above will automatically focus the view which requires
# the save prompt. The code below makes sure that the correct
# view gets focused after the save prompt closes.
if target_view and window.active_view().id() != target_view.id():
window.focus_view(target_view)
class FocusMostRecentTabCloserListener(sublime_plugin.EventListener):
def on_activated(self, view):
""" Stores the time the view is focused in the view's settings. """
view.settings().set(LAST_FOCUS_TIME_KEY, time.time())