Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Zen, a Arc-like open-source browser based on the Firefox engine

zen-browser.app

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 427 posts

Re: Zen, a Arc-like open-source browser based on the Firefox engine

#341

Post by [deleted] »

mthoms wrote: post #198
1oooqooq wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's just a group of tabs. absolutely nothing else. profiles offer settings (proxy, etc) and state (cookies, etc) isolation. it's the same as opening a new window for me. meh.

Arc spaces have transient and pinned tabs, which in turn can be organized as needed into folders. Some tabs are actually multi-tab (split screen). The folders themselves have a neat feature whereby active tabs can be shown while hiding inactive tabs located in the same folder. I can also switch to a specific space with a user defined hotkey, and customize the color of each workspace. Each workspace can have its own p…

[deleted]

Re: Zen, a Arc-like open-source browser based on the Firefox engine

#342

Post by mthoms »

1oooqooq wrote: post #312
mthoms wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arc spaces have transient and pinned tabs, which in turn can be organized as needed into folders. Some tabs are actually multi-tab (split screen). The folders themselves have a neat feature whereby active tabs can be shown while hiding inactive tabs located in the same folder. I can also switch to a specific space with a user defined hotkey, and customize the color of each workspace. Each workspace can have its own p…

thanks for the excellent description... but the question was how it's different from profiles, which is used for isolation and settings change. what you described is still nothing more than moving windows around.

I don't know what to say to that. I just described 5 or so features that are objectively more than simply "moving windows around".

Maybe it's because I wasn't clear that many of those features work on per workspace basis - transient tabs (unique to each workspace), unique folder organization features (customized for each workspace), built in split screen (again - with custom arrangements per workspace), hotkey switching between workspaces, different color theme per workspace (so it's easy to know which workspace I'm in, or select another window quickly with Mission Control).

Then there's the fact that profiles are a separate thing from workspaces so you can mix and match profiles to workspaces according to your needs. So you can have three workspace and have two share a single profile.

If those features aren't compelling to you that's fine. Just say so. But please comment constructively or not at all. I genuinely have no interest in trying to "sell" anyone on this workflow. I was just answering the question.

>what you described is still nothing more than moving windows around.

Ok, even if that were true (it objectively isn't), I like wrangling less windows. How's that? Good enough for you? Why would I want four windows open, when I can have one or two (did I mention that I have ADHD)?

If it helps, you can think of workspaces like another level of tabs. Tabs are objectively good right? Yet everything you can do with a tab can be done with a window. Right?

Re: Zen, a Arc-like open-source browser based on the Firefox engine

#344

Post by justinclift »

grounder wrote: post #241
justinclift wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen the thing were Mozilla officially bought an advertising company recently then started adding advertising friendly features near silently?

Can you provide more info about this?

Yep:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40842808

Re: Zen, a Arc-like open-source browser based on the Firefox engine

#345

Post by cxr »

dartos wrote: post #316
cxr wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nominally yes, and insofar as the Mozilla Foundation is "Mozilla". Even then, the relationship is ceremonial. And Mozilla Corp is something different altogether.

If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, odds are it’s a duck.

... what?

Re: Zen, a Arc-like open-source browser based on the Firefox engine

#346

Post by cxr »

artificialLimbs wrote: post #324
cxr wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Firefox's existing native support for tab groups that it's had since pre-1.0. They're called windows.

Cool until you restart your machine.

Do you mean "… and then it's not very cool anymore"? And if so, then why not?

Re: Zen, a Arc-like open-source browser based on the Firefox engine

#349

Post by dao- »

Croftengea wrote: post #265
dao- wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I work at Mozilla as an engineer for Firefox, and I'm generally happy to see this. I currently work on tab groups, and I'm curious to see what their implementation will look like or whether they'll try to fast-track our work-in-progress once that's somewhat viable. For the sidebar and vertical tabs, they seem to have implemented their own thing rather than using what our team has been working on. At a first g…

Native vertical tabs in vanilla FF? Whoohoo! Imho, the killer feature is automatic group assignment based on URL patters. Will the vanilla implementation support it?

We'll at some point support the tabGroups webextension API, so it would be fairly straightforward for add-ons to do that. We're also looking at automatic grouping options though.

Re: Zen, a Arc-like open-source browser based on the Firefox engine

#350

Post by dao- »

lloydatkinson wrote: post #338
dao- wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I work at Mozilla as an engineer for Firefox, and I'm generally happy to see this. I currently work on tab groups, and I'm curious to see what their implementation will look like or whether they'll try to fast-track our work-in-progress once that's somewhat viable. For the sidebar and vertical tabs, they seem to have implemented their own thing rather than using what our team has been working on. At a first g…

What is the hold up on adding Chrome like tab groups with colours and ability to collapse them?

We're working on that.
Post reply on HN