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Coming to Chrome: a new way to use tabs

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Re: Coming to Chrome: a new way to use tabs

#211

Post by andrewaylett »

padenot wrote: post #137
colordrops wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree with you here. I don't understand why tabs, bookmarks, and history aren't just merged into one feature. History needs to be less ephemeral, but more easily editable. Then you could add some sort of ctrl-p style fuzzy search that includes both url and content, as well as a knob that dials up or down the number of visible tabs/history items, and they'd fall off with disuse. You could pin some to the top o…

> Then you could add some sort of ctrl-p style fuzzy search that includes both url and content. Try focusing the URL bar in Firefox and prefixing your query with '%'. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/address-bar-autocomplet... shows more prefixes like this. It does not search the content of the page, but is super useful still.

You need a space after the '%', which always confused and annoyed me. But TIL: the special character doesn't need to be a prefix! It only needs to be separated from other characters using a space. Makes much more sense now.

Re: Coming to Chrome: a new way to use tabs

#212

Post by andrewaylett »

akersten wrote: post #23

Neat, and works well for the toy example with 4 tabs open. I don't really think it would work as well for the "tab collectors" as they think. They seem to be aware of this too, since none of the screenshots in the post have anywhere near what I would consider a significant amount of tabs open. I use the tree style tab extension on Firefox[0], which I cannot live without. Horizontal tabs become useless after about 15…

Firefox also has a drop-down at the end of the tab bar that lists all the tabs in the window. I used to use TST, but have fallen away as the native functionality (between the drop-down and the awesome bar) suffices.

Currently on 304 tabs over 4 windows :).

Re: Coming to Chrome: a new way to use tabs

#213

Post by scriptsmith »

bad_user wrote: post #152

I use Tree Style Tabs in Firefox, but I have mixed feelings about it. It should help me visually find tabs, but truth of the matter is that it doesn't. Horizontal tabs become useless after 10 tabs opened, indeed, but vertical tabs become useless after 30 tabs opened. Opened tabs also consume a lot of memory. It's why I now use Auto Tab Discard, which works, but then gets in the way because by Ctrl-Tab-ing you end up…

Your situation sounds similar to my own. The following two extensions have helped me solve the '30 tabs' problem:

TabSearch does the same thing you're doing with the search bar, but with fuzzy searching and more customisability which makes finding tabs a bit easier.

Close Discarded Tabs is a very simple extension I wrote for myself that acts as a sort of garbage collector for Auto Tab Discard. You can customize Auto Tab Discard to discard tabs in a way that purges irrelevant tabs to your liking, and then if you notice the list of tabs looks a bit overwhelming, just click the trashcan and all the discarded tabs are closed. If you want to make sure you don't close a tab you wanted, just quickly scan through the list and click any that you want to keep.

TabSearch: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab_search/

Close Discarded Tabs: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/close-discard...

Re: Coming to Chrome: a new way to use tabs

#214

Post by yoavm »

the8472 wrote: post #193
yoavm wrote: post #140

Shamesless plug: I've built a tiny WebExtension for Firefox that I believe is the fastest way to jump between tabs ever, with the keyboard. It's for those of us who have more than 15 tabs open. You basically click a one key, and then fuzzy search through your tabs until there's only one option left, and the tab opens. Alternatively you enter the tab number and it opens. It's probably one of my most useful weekend pro…

Note that the URL bar already has a similar feature. Ctrl + L, %,

Yeah, but it never worked for me. For some reason it lists only a fraction of my open tabs. Also my extension allows me to jump faster between tabs using their tab number, and easily close tabs by prepending a zero to their number.

Re: Coming to Chrome: a new way to use tabs

#216

Post by yoavm »

databhishek wrote: post #187
yoavm wrote: post #140

Shamesless plug: I've built a tiny WebExtension for Firefox that I believe is the fastest way to jump between tabs ever, with the keyboard. It's for those of us who have more than 15 tabs open. You basically click a one key, and then fuzzy search through your tabs until there's only one option left, and the tab opens. Alternatively you enter the tab number and it opens. It's probably one of my most useful weekend pro…

This is actually really nice! While I don't have a lot of tabs open at once, dragging my mouse over and clicking is really tedious. Even though the Firefox address bar allows you to switch to already open tabs, it's still not seamless. This is great for noticing the name at a glance and switching quickly.

Thank you! Super glad you liked it.

Re: Coming to Chrome: a new way to use tabs

#218

Post by unicornporn »

akersten wrote: post #23

Neat, and works well for the toy example with 4 tabs open. I don't really think it would work as well for the "tab collectors" as they think. They seem to be aware of this too, since none of the screenshots in the post have anywhere near what I would consider a significant amount of tabs open. I use the tree style tab extension on Firefox[0], which I cannot live without. Horizontal tabs become useless after about 15…

My personal Tree Style Tab record is over 600 simultaneous tabs. It ran without a hitch and it was still easy to navigate. I would never use a browser without vertical tabs in trees.

Re: Coming to Chrome: a new way to use tabs

#219

Post by andrewaylett »

jeroenhd wrote: post #154
barryvan wrote: post #6

This seems to be a mixture of the "collections" feature from Firefox Mobile (Beta/Preview) and Firefox's container tabs, but without the security / isolation benefits. From what I can tell, the main benefit seems to be in relation to identifying similar-looking tabs. It's unfortunate that they didn't bake in the same security and isolation benefits of Firefox's container tabs, or the "put aside and come back to it la…

It looks like what Opera was doing over a decade ago. IE8 also introduced coloured tabs based on tabs opened by others. Firefox tried something similar to collections for those "tab collectors" with their Panorama (which is not available anymore these days), which was basically a visual 2d layout of tabs within groups. That's what got me the popup "are you sure you want to close 200 tabs" whenever I accidentally hit…

Panorama lives on here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/panorama-tab-...

Re: Coming to Chrome: a new way to use tabs

#220

Post by fireattack »

bbx wrote: post #129

It seems to me I’m in the minority by being a minimalist here? I have at most 10 tabs open. Same for Sublime Text open files. I regularly close all but one tab/file just to reset my cognitive load. This does force me to rely on the history from time to time, which I must say is a true pain in Chrome. You can’t even search or filter by date. Also, revisiting a page will move it up the top of the list, which is annoyin…

>I wish there was a feature to drag+select a group of tabs and send them to a new window

Not exactly what you want, but you can hold Ctrl and multi-select, and then drag them out to make a new window.

By the way, I use the tab the same way as you. If I have more than 10 tabs (mostly doing some research) I open a new window for them.

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