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Overcoming Tab Overload

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Re: Overcoming Tab Overload

#191

Post by Vinnl »

bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #173
rconti wrote: post #169

I was a VERY late convert to tabs, and I only use them for browsers now (and not all the time, either). I always felt that the OS X command-tilde functionality, for switching between windows the same way you switch through applications using command-tab, was superior. You're always switching between the most recently used windows, chronologically. You can even remember when something was several keystrokes back, and…

I’ve often wondered if a sort function that could switch between “manual” tab order and recent tab order. So that you could keep things organized in both space and time.

Firefox can have Ctrl+tab run chronologically, and then Ctrl+PageUp/Down still use the 'manual' order.

Re: Overcoming Tab Overload

#192

Post by sakisv »

Personally I found a very simple approach that works great for me.

In the beginning of the pandemic I tried to reduce social media exposure, to maintain some degree of mental health and reduce distractions.

The way I did it was first to remove all the apps from my phone. This had the added benefit of improving the battery life. This meant that if I wanted to go on fb or Twitter, then I had to use the browser versions which are generally slower, not so optimized for phone usage, and overall the UX is much worse.

Even this though was not enough. Firefox would gladly save my session and despite the subpar UX, I still found myself going back to it more often than I would like.

The solution to this was simple:

Incognito.

Coupled together with a 2FA and disabling the password manager autocomplete by removing the URL from the relevant entries, it made such a huge difference.

Then I started using incognito for more things, like HN, where I would open 6-7 tabs "to read them later" and I never did, so they kept piling up.

For me this works great, especially on the phone. If I really want to read something I read it there and then. If for whatever reason I don't, and android decides to terminate my Firefox then so be it. If I really want to I can search for it again, but then I ask myself whether it is worth it.

Re: Overcoming Tab Overload

#193

Post by mrobot »

I am glad this came up. I had just started work on synchronizing my Emacs org-mode clock tasks with tree style tabs and i see there are some other good things to check out in this thread. Also signed up for Skeema waiting list.

Re: Overcoming Tab Overload

#194

Post by 600frogs »

sakisv wrote: post #192

Personally I found a very simple approach that works great for me. In the beginning of the pandemic I tried to reduce social media exposure, to maintain some degree of mental health and reduce distractions. The way I did it was first to remove all the apps from my phone. This had the added benefit of improving the battery life. This meant that if I wanted to go on fb or Twitter, then I had to use the browser versions…

FYI, Firefox focus sounds perfect for you - it doesn't track history or save any state, and wipes itself after use.

Re: Overcoming Tab Overload

#195

Post by isatty »

aidos wrote: post #15

I feel like there are broadly 2 groups of tech literate users; those who like lots of tabs and those who keep things lean. I absolutely cannot relate to the first group, as much as I try to understand the mentality. When I’m digging deep into something new I might end up with 20 tabs, but a) it’s an exception and b) the moment I can see no more value I just close them all down and reset.

There’s nothing to like about it. I don’t. I still have about 200 tabs open.

Someone should develop an actually good Alfred like tab finder for Firefox and I’m golden.

Re: Overcoming Tab Overload

#196

Post by dredmorbius »

warent wrote: post #155
jackewiehose wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And all of that gets lost if I close a tab or even restart my browser to upgrade. Or when you just visit a link and then press the back-button. I remember 20 years ago you would press the back-button and your previous page was IMMEDIATELY restored, no network request involved. It feels like today the browser cache isn't used at all. This is especially disappointing with the new Firefox Mobil where they removed offl…

I think this depends on the website implementation / headers. For example, for any SPA, you hit the back button and get what you had before, often times no network requests made at all because local data caching. As a web developer I see having control over this rather than the web browser as a good thing.

Was a time that the cache pragma / reload interval could be explicitly set by the client.

As much as ensuring current data is sometimes relevant, having a tab show up empty, with a 404 (linkrot), or with some redirect to utterly unrelated content is ... not serenity-inducing.

Mozilla's operating premise is that the browser serves users, not publishers. That promise rings somewhat hollow these days, though I enthusiastically applaud the concept.

Re: Overcoming Tab Overload

#197

Post by dredmorbius »

exikyut wrote: post #180
crazygringo wrote: post #82

I just wish there were a way to save page state along with a bookmark or similar. Sometimes I'd really like to close a ton of tabs, or just close my browser, or a whole window, and reopen tomorrow. But I'm relying on scroll position to know where I am in 20 different documents, or login credentials that only last for 24 hours, or certain comment threads that have been expanded while others have been collapsed, or my…

So did some Chrome developers back in 2015. From https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2015/09/tab-discar... : > Future improvements: the tab serializer > The tab serializer is a future piece of work we think may lead to significant improvements on our current approach to tab discarding. It takes the contents of a Chrome tab and serializes its current state into a binary blob. This binary blob can later be deseri…

Chrome's response to numerous power-user / user-respect features over the past 15 years has absolutely convinced me that it has no interest in supporting either notion.

Audio/video autoplay, adblock, tabs navigation and retrieval, user state generally, and more.

I still use Chrome on Android in two cases:

1. On an old device in which Firefox/Fennec performance is abysmal. (On a newer device, there's no contest, and Fennec wins out for general browsing.)

2. For print-to-PDF on the newer device (Fennec seems to have lost this functionality, along with a number of other highly useful features).

Otherwise, I avoid it like the plague. As well as Android in general.

Re: Overcoming Tab Overload

#198

Post by dgellow »

It’s not a tooling issue IMHO. It’s about accepting that you do not need to hoard every single piece of information. Once you accept to let go and develop the habit to close your tabs regularly (for example at the end of each day), the problem is solved. No more anxiety related to your browser state!

I was a hardcore hoarder, with 300+ tabs all the time, until I realized I was the source of the issue. Now I open as many tabs as I need during the day, then just know I will close everything at the end of the day and start a fresh session. It’s very relaxing. If I really need something I wrote it down in my notes somewhere but that’s really not often.

Re: Overcoming Tab Overload

#199

Post by dredmorbius »

jrcii2 wrote: post #54
zo1 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but Tree Style Tabs is for Firefox.

Thank you so much for sharing! This is a game changer - I'd been using two separate windows and manually dragging things around like a noob.

Window-based task grouping (where that's possible) is ... somewhat tenable.

It's not available on Android / Mobile, of course, but on any windowing desktop OS it's an option.

Firefox + Tree Style Tabs is still worlds ahead of this.

Re: Overcoming Tab Overload

#200

Post by dredmorbius »

jeanchen wrote: post #33
lightfooted wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d like to try this. What browser do you use? I see that it’s a feature for Vivaldi and I also see a Chrome extension.

I highly recommend Tabs Outliner, a Chrome extension

A very pale shadow of TST.
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