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On Browser Tabs

abuqader.substack.com

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Re: On Browser Tabs

#21

Post by bntyhntr »

I've settled on vertical tabs, and use an extension that limits it to the number that fit on my screen without scrolling, which is around 30.

I also no longer use bookmarks. I use the browser's autocomplete of sites I've been to before, and failing that either remember the complete url or give up.

I used to do a lot of bookmarking and a lot of tabs but I found neither really added value for me. If I don't remember the site, I probably don't need to be there.

That said, I don't try to really convince others to do the same (except vertical tabs) cuz I recognize not everyone will find the same value I do in it.

Re: On Browser Tabs

#22

Post by bsanr2 »

ssivark wrote: post #3

I... have a problem. I recently had ~1600 tabs open in Firefox. With a lot of painstaking effort I cut it down to ~750. Quite some distance to go still. The default interface sucks once you have more than 50 tabs. I wish there were easy REPL-ish programmatic access to the list/dict of tabs (so I could filter out all GitHub tabs, or close all stackoverflow tabs, etc) and that was a first class citizen in the browser i…

Recently hit 4000, with ~2000 in a single window. One thing that I think helps is remembering that you (ostensibly) have a browser history. Rather than keeping every tab you might want to come back to, close the ones you expect to be unchanged later (or that don't currently hold a particular needed state). You can then reopen ones that float up to your consciousness (i.e., the ones that are important) as necessary. Taking this approach made culling 1000 tabs not too difficult. Of course, this would be made much easier with a robust history search function, but good luck with that.

There is also at least a Chrome extension that lets you filter and close tabs by domain (name escapes me).

Re: On Browser Tabs

#23

Post by jevogel »

userbinator wrote: post #2

I'm probably in the minority because I never use tabs much ---- I prefer multiple separate (overlapping) windows that I can size and arrange as desired, because I often use the information from multiple sites simultaneously. I've seen a lot of others who flip back and forth between two tabs many times, trying to compare them, and have never thought they could open two windows and put them next to each other. Of cours…

Try the Stack browser. Instead of tabs, you have side-by-side, side-scrollable, resizable panes. It makes it so much easier to interact with multiple sites at once.

https://getstack.app/

Re: On Browser Tabs

#24

Post by sevencolors »

I never understood how folks end up with 20+ (100+ !?) tabs just hanging around ALL the time. For me it's so much visual noise.

I can see it happening when you're in the midst of research or troubleshooting. But when I'm done or have solved my issue I'll note in my PR where i found solutions or add the useful pages to my bookmark service (raindrop). Then close all the tabs!

Re: On Browser Tabs

#25

Post by catchmeifyoucan »

I like that the author mentioned “goal-oriented”. Perhaps intent is another way to phrase it. There are few websites we visit with intent, and others are for just “browsing”.

I’ve been working on Amna as a way to help with intent driven work. Instead of opening a frenzy of tabs, it makes you write what you’re working on first, and then provides you a browser or multiple browsers to help you. It’s cool because when you have to get back to something, you just click on a task, and everything comes back. E.g right now I’m working on editing a website and sending out a newsletter, those are two completely separate items, and when looked at individually, they only have like 4 tabs each.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23780781&ref=producthun...

Re: On Browser Tabs

#26

Post by II2II »

bennyp101 wrote: post #16

For some reason once the tab list reaches the other side of the monitor it makes me feel uneasy, so I close down any tabs that I don't need open. I've never found the need to have more than 8 or so tabs open really - and if I want to compare things, then I just open another browser window and pop it next to it, or on a different monitor. I'm sure there are very good reason for people that have 50+ tabs open - everyon…

My uneasiness comes from a realization that too many tabs means that I am not prioritizing tasks. Sure enough, a quick review of the tabs results in most of them being closed since what felt important at the moment was not important in retrospect.

As for people who have 50+ tabs open, I am left wondering if they are going about things in an effective manner. At least in Firefox, it is easy to select a bunch of tabs and bookmark them for future reference. It is also easy to load up all of those bookmarks at once when needed. It is a lot easier to deal with the eight tabs from Project A and the dozen tabs from Project B independently than it is to deal with all twenty at once. (Granted, this could be made easier. The big drawback with bookmarks is that they are a snapshot in time, rather than the reflection of a dynamic project.)

Re: On Browser Tabs

#27

Post by skocznymroczny »

sevencolors wrote: post #24

I never understood how folks end up with 20+ (100+ !?) tabs just hanging around ALL the time. For me it's so much visual noise. I can see it happening when you're in the midst of research or troubleshooting. But when I'm done or have solved my issue I'll note in my PR where i found solutions or add the useful pages to my bookmark service (raindrop). Then close all the tabs!

Me too, I average 6-7 open at a time.

Re: On Browser Tabs

#28

Post by mac01021 »

ezluckyfree wrote: post #18

Briefly I was looking for an addon that completely disabled tabs, and removed the tab bar. Every action that would normally open a new tab would instead open a new window. Since I use a tiling WM, the idea was that this would make it easier to navigate through my tabs, and also keep my attention from branching so often. If I had something that I found useful enough to keep around, I can move it to another virtual des…

I use a Chrome extension called "New Tab, New Window".

It doesn't reclaim the screen real estate occupied by the tab bar, but it has the behavior you want.

Re: On Browser Tabs

#29

Post by iKlsR »

jevogel wrote: post #23
userbinator wrote: post #2

I'm probably in the minority because I never use tabs much ---- I prefer multiple separate (overlapping) windows that I can size and arrange as desired, because I often use the information from multiple sites simultaneously. I've seen a lot of others who flip back and forth between two tabs many times, trying to compare them, and have never thought they could open two windows and put them next to each other. Of cours…

Try the Stack browser. Instead of tabs, you have side-by-side, side-scrollable, resizable panes. It makes it so much easier to interact with multiple sites at once. https://getstack.app/

Windows is saying it's ransomware. Odd.

Re: On Browser Tabs

#30

Post by spurgu »

sevencolors wrote: post #24

I never understood how folks end up with 20+ (100+ !?) tabs just hanging around ALL the time. For me it's so much visual noise. I can see it happening when you're in the midst of research or troubleshooting. But when I'm done or have solved my issue I'll note in my PR where i found solutions or add the useful pages to my bookmark service (raindrop). Then close all the tabs!

It's not visual noise to me. I currently have:

* 7 Brave (personal) windows with ~3-5 tabs each

* 6 Chrome (work) windows with ~3-5 tabs each

All of these windows relate to different things. For example whenever I check HN I fire up a new window. I might not have 2 hours of time to read/research everything interesting I happen to find so I just leave that window open for later.

Whenever troubleshooting I do the same as you, a window can get up to 20 or something tabs, but once the problem is solved those get closed. Or if there are interesting tabs in there that warrant future research, they get grouped in a new window.

On Mac I Cmd+tab through apps and Option+tab through windows of a specific app (don't remember what the default combo is). Or I swipe three fingers down to see all app windows. And I also use Tab Switcher[0], which allows me to Cmd+Shift+K to fuzzy search all open tabs.

This setup is not optimal, but it's not that messy/problematic for me.

[0] http://flowapps.co/tabswitcher/

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