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Firefox Sidebar and Vertical tabs: try them out

blog.nightly.mozilla.org

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Re: Firefox Sidebar and Vertical tabs: try them out

#211

Post by the_pwner224 »

waveBidder wrote: post #172
nine_k wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actively use tree style tabs, and have dozens to hundreds. With auto tab discard, it's not taxing. This is because I basically use tabs as bookmarks relevant to a project or subject area. Bookmarks are also tree-structured, but are much more high-ceremony to create. To my mind, tabs and bookmarks should meld into one. If you don't close a tab actively, it stays deactivated, its tree likely gets collapsed until need…

I do this too; have you found effective ways to tell firefox to maybe chill on eating all memory? I find if I don't restart ~1/week, it will end up reserving ~32GB of RAM for itself, which is just absurd.

I tried the auto tab discard extension but it didn't help for me. I occasionally force kill FF and have it recover the previous session when it starts up again. Same thing to not lose state when rebooting my computer.

Re: Firefox Sidebar and Vertical tabs: try them out

#212

Post by throwaway37124 »

waveBidder wrote: post #172
nine_k wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actively use tree style tabs, and have dozens to hundreds. With auto tab discard, it's not taxing. This is because I basically use tabs as bookmarks relevant to a project or subject area. Bookmarks are also tree-structured, but are much more high-ceremony to create. To my mind, tabs and bookmarks should meld into one. If you don't close a tab actively, it stays deactivated, its tree likely gets collapsed until need…

I do this too; have you found effective ways to tell firefox to maybe chill on eating all memory? I find if I don't restart ~1/week, it will end up reserving ~32GB of RAM for itself, which is just absurd.

Try disabling accessibility services. (about:config -> accessibility.force_disabled)

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1726887

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1907929

Re: Firefox Sidebar and Vertical tabs: try them out

#213

Post by godelski »

worble wrote: post #69
KaiMagnus wrote: post #20

Found a recent screenshot of it on Reddit. Looks good, I hope it has similar nesting like Tree Style Tab though. In my opinion that is still the best implementation of this idea across all browsers. Firefox' UI has kinda stagnated. It's not like other browsers are far ahead – Chrome doesn't have vertical tabs either – but it does have groups and profiles. They really need to get out of this stale and boring state and…

> They really need to get out of this stale and boring state and innovate more I'm just as excited as you are for side tabs, but I don't think browsers need to be constantly innovating their UI. In fact, the last time Firefox did that it took a week of tinkering to get it back to a usable state, and I now have the constant "Compact (Unsupported)" layout hovering over me, reminding me that one day I'll probably have t…

I mostly agree, and don't get all the fuss about Chrome (or any other browser's) UI. To me they look all very similar and function very similarly. The differences just don't seem that big of a deal. I think it is mostly people being resistant to change. I had one friend that I convinced to switch to FireFox after a year[0]. A month after he switched over I got him to admit that it was easy to switch and there's no real change.

  >  it took a week of tinkering
I wish this was more obvious, but there is a user.js file that Firefox looks at[1,2,3]. You can edit this and carry it around in a dotfiles or something.

  > They really need to get out of this stale and boring state and innovate more
I'm just as excited as you are for side tabs, but I don't think browsers need to be constantly innovating their UI. In fact, the last time Firefox did that it took a week of tinkering to get it back to a usable state, and I now have the constant "Compact (Unsupported)" layout hovering over me, reminding me that one day I'll probably have to tinker even more.

I use the browser for at least 8 hours a day, I don't need the experience constantly changing, it's a tool. "stale" and "boring" is also "stable" and "dependable".

[0] Argument is about having legitimate browser competition and the privacy boost of containerizing what data Google could (keyword) collect. I'd really only bring it up when he'd be complaining about Chrome or Google, so quite often.

[1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1197798

[2] https://kb.mozillazine.org/User.js_file

[3] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-firefox-...

Re: Firefox Sidebar and Vertical tabs: try them out

#214

Post by akkartik »

persnickety wrote: post #91
worble wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They really need to get out of this stale and boring state and innovate more I'm just as excited as you are for side tabs, but I don't think browsers need to be constantly innovating their UI. In fact, the last time Firefox did that it took a week of tinkering to get it back to a usable state, and I now have the constant "Compact (Unsupported)" layout hovering over me, reminding me that one day I'll probably have t…

On the one hand, I completely agree with you (I can prove it with a pile of tools restoring the layout to something more compact), but on the other hand, I am deeply disappointed with the state of current browser experience. The last innovation that really made a difference for me was the reader mode. I'm sure changing the relationship between tabs and bookmarks would improve things even more, and being able to treat…

> on the other hand, I am deeply disappointed with the state of current browser experience.

Are there specific problems you keep running into? Or is this more a desire they were constantly improving?

My attitude tends to be that every new improvement is just something I risk getting used to and then getting sad when it (inevitably) breaks for me. So these days I just want to use as few features on my computer as possible.

We all have to consume to produce. But there's value in maximizing the yield. Produce a lot while needing to consume as little as possible. Seems more resilient for my own habits.

Re: Firefox Sidebar and Vertical tabs: try them out

#215

Post by nine_k »

Retr0id wrote: post #191
nine_k wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actively use tree style tabs, and have dozens to hundreds. With auto tab discard, it's not taxing. This is because I basically use tabs as bookmarks relevant to a project or subject area. Bookmarks are also tree-structured, but are much more high-ceremony to create. To my mind, tabs and bookmarks should meld into one. If you don't close a tab actively, it stays deactivated, its tree likely gets collapsed until need…

> tabs and bookmarks should meld into one I can see the appeal of this, and more broadly, not having to think about tab management. But for me, I find I actively benefit from the process of deciding what to keep around.

Certainly, you should keep this ability. Close it to not keep around :) Hiding stuff by subtree is not really flexible, I realize, and won't match everyone's tastes equally. Synching tabs and bookmarks could be a configurable option.

I realize that traditional explicit bookmarks are also needed; where else can I easily put arbitrary searches using %s?

Re: Firefox Sidebar and Vertical tabs: try them out

#216

Post by jamwil »

CuriousCosmic wrote: post #134
Retr0id wrote: post #86

I used to be a tree-style-tabs power user but at some point I went back to regular tabs. I find that the amount of horizontal tab space is pretty close to the actual number of things I can usefully have open at once. Seeing the tabs get "squished" is my reminder to close the ones I no longer need. I was using the tab-state as a sort of short-term working memory and I don't think it was doing me any favours, particula…

Have you tried Simple Tab Groups? It's a similar concept but instead of keeping all the tabs organised as a tree (and generally keeping them all open), you can create groups of tabs that are kept unloaded/hidden and you can load them up on a given window with a click of a button or a hotkey. I personally use them so I can context switch between projects. I can keep one group for project a, one for project b, one for…

Safari has this now too. It’s actually a pretty good browser these days.

Re: Firefox Sidebar and Vertical tabs: try them out

#217

Post by user_7832 »

__david__ wrote: post #165
Retr0id wrote: post #86

I used to be a tree-style-tabs power user but at some point I went back to regular tabs. I find that the amount of horizontal tab space is pretty close to the actual number of things I can usefully have open at once. Seeing the tabs get "squished" is my reminder to close the ones I no longer need. I was using the tab-state as a sort of short-term working memory and I don't think it was doing me any favours, particula…

You must not had ADD :-). I currently have 2630 tabs in my main window (I admit I may need to prune that down _just a bit_). But that many tabs can only happen with a vertical tab-bar. I started with tree-style tabs but I'm now using "Sideberry" which seems to be a little nicer.

Hey fellow tab hoarder! I "only" have 744 tabs open right now (in Edge). Though chrome, firefox, brave, arc, and supermium have a few hundred each... (they've been force closed by task manager so my laptop still technically runs haha).

It's funny finding fellow tab hoarders online, people rarely hit the thousands - you're pretty much the first person I've encountered who's got more tabs open than me.

Btw what's your PC specs? I'm using a Framework 13 (7840u, 32gb ram) and am currently at 56% RAM usage. I find a fairly big difference when I'm connected to power and when I'm not, for some reason.

Re: Firefox Sidebar and Vertical tabs: try them out

#218

Post by Izkata »

rimunroe wrote: post #182
__david__ wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must not had ADD :-). I currently have 2630 tabs in my main window (I admit I may need to prune that down _just a bit_). But that many tabs can only happen with a vertical tab-bar. I started with tree-style tabs but I'm now using "Sideberry" which seems to be a little nicer.

> You must not had ADD :-). I currently have 2630 tabs in my main window (I admit I may need to prune that down _just a bit_). People with ADHD ("ADD" is a very outdated term) aren't always disorganized. In fact, they're often organized to an unusually high degree (sometimes to a fault). I've been diagnosed since 1996 and I rarely have more than 10 or 12 tabs open across all windows at a time. Paying close attention…

> People with ADHD ("ADD" is a very outdated term)

The old naming scheme made more sense than the current one. Under the current definition there are three types of ADHD, of which the "inattentive" type used to be called ADD because it doesn't have the "hyperactivity" trademark. So for that type "ADHD" is a misnomer that causes people to not even consider they may have it.

Re: Firefox Sidebar and Vertical tabs: try them out

#220

Post by persnickety »

akkartik wrote: post #214
persnickety wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the one hand, I completely agree with you (I can prove it with a pile of tools restoring the layout to something more compact), but on the other hand, I am deeply disappointed with the state of current browser experience. The last innovation that really made a difference for me was the reader mode. I'm sure changing the relationship between tabs and bookmarks would improve things even more, and being able to treat…

> on the other hand, I am deeply disappointed with the state of current browser experience. Are there specific problems you keep running into? Or is this more a desire they were constantly improving? My attitude tends to be that every new improvement is just something I risk getting used to and then getting sad when it (inevitably) breaks for me. So these days I just want to use as few features on my computer as poss…

I'm using Firefox.

I keep running into the problem of not being able to find the website I visited. If the concept is not in the URL or the page title, it might as well not exist in the history.

I run into the problem of disappearing documents. Neither bookmarks nor tabs provide persistence. There are online services which save documents, but I don't want to rely ona third party to keep my stuff.

I often want to annotate a document before I bookmark it, so that I know why I should come back to it, and what the relevant sections are.

On top of that, I don't know what bookmarks are relative to tabs. Both are kind of bad at organizing knowledge.

I'd love to try out new paradigms for the sake of more power, but have a safe, reliable browser to return to if the new thing turns out a bad idea. Sure, things take effort to maintain and get taken away. But it's a battle of mindshare. If there are no early adopters, no feature will ever become big enough to be resilient.

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