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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

#281

Post by otakucode »

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…

Years ago, Chrome included an experimental vertical side tabs feature. It was great. Worked perfectly. But, it disappeared one day. People created a bug on the tracker to get it restored. It got thousands of stars. It kept getting closed and re-opened and kept accumulating more and more stars. Eventually, someone at Google stepped in and said "we don't like how it looks. We have no other solution. But, we don't like how vertical side tabs look, so we will never permit them in Chrome." and ever since, if you want to open more than half a dozen tabs in Chrome you either need a monitor that's 9 feet wide or you use Firefox with the magnificent TabTree extension which is the correct solution to the problem.

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

#282

Post by Timpy »

idm wrote: post #255
Timpy wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this because it organizes my tabs in the same way I do mentally... however it doesn't actually reorder my tabs. What I mean is, Ctrl+Tab surfing through my tabs doesn't iterate the list as it is displayed sequentially.

I recommend the Multi-Account Containers extension by Mozilla, which has a "sort tabs" button that accomplishes what you want. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account... I am not sure why this functionality is a separate extension - this is a bit confusing - but it's working for me.

I'm using Multi-Account Containers, I never paid attention to the Sort Tabs button. This is great! I'm looking for a keyboard shortcut for it now.

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

#283

Post by basch »

rb808 wrote: post #258
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…

Agreed, isn't this what bookmarks are for? BTW I always use bookmark toolbar, maybe this is similar to keeping tabs.

Tabs are also a replacement for history. Going to hn, google, reddit, techmeme and opening 10 sites at once, instead of click, scroll, back, find next, click, scroll, back, find next.

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

#284

Post by jerrygoyal »

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…

wish if there's anything similar to TreeTabs in chrome. I'm currently using OneTab

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

#285

Post by crazygringo »

I'm always very happy to see UX innovation, so kudos to Chrome for that.

However, I just don't quite see the point of this particular feature.

If you only have a handful of tabs open (like the 4 in the example), you hardly need to bother to categorize them.

While if you have a ton of tabs, you can already use different windows (one for personal, one generally for work, one for a specific project, etc.). Shift-selecting and dragging multiple tabs at once makes it pretty easy.

What "tab collectors" seem to universally like truly is tree-style tabs, so you can see the titles of your 40 tabs and see which one opened which. I suppose I can just hope that maybe they're taking baby steps toward that?

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

#286

Post by jpswade »

This is fixing the wrong problem. Tabs aren't broken, browser history is.

When I tried to find a web page from a certain date a few months ago, it was almost impossible to find.

I actually think Internet Explorer used to have quite a good history. That's what we need, not better tabs management.

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

#287

Post by kovek »

jpswade wrote: post #286

This is fixing the wrong problem. Tabs aren't broken, browser history is. When I tried to find a web page from a certain date a few months ago, it was almost impossible to find. I actually think Internet Explorer used to have quite a good history. That's what we need, not better tabs management.

It would be great if the browser history showed a tree of what URL I opened from what other URL. It would make it easier to backtrack my work at times.

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

#288

Post by Kaze404 »

maciekmm wrote: post #90
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…

Shameless plug. I made the ContainerTabsSidebar firefox addon[0], which is inspired by the TST. It groups tabs based on firefox privacy containers, which means every container has an isolated cookie store. I'm a tab hoarder and developed it to work for such "use-case". It's very similar to the groups presented, but displays tabs vertically. [0]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/container-tab...

I just downloaded this extension and it's fantastic. Thank you :)

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

#290

Post by Someone1234 »

jpswade wrote: post #286

This is fixing the wrong problem. Tabs aren't broken, browser history is. When I tried to find a web page from a certain date a few months ago, it was almost impossible to find. I actually think Internet Explorer used to have quite a good history. That's what we need, not better tabs management.

It is even worse in Firefox, half my history is just outright missing. It is like it only saves the final page each tab was open to instead of anything I browsed using that tab in the interim.

Not to mention the UI for Firefox's history is pure garbage of the worst kind. The fact I have to go three menus deep just to open the history screen is bad, the fact that it isn't a screen and some kind of dumb pop-out /thing/ that cuts off content is terrible. No time-stamps either, or way to organize the flow of browsing (e.g. under what tab/window it was open in).

If it worked correctly it would still be bad. But it doesn't work correctly making it the worst part of Firefox right now, it has been broken for over a year.

PS - The history-missing bug is still active as of right now. Half of the pages I visited this morning just outright aren't listed at all. I was searching on google using a site: modifier and middle clicking open dozens of tabs, almost none are listed only the root searches.

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