Author Topic: Firefox Tab Candy will change the way I use a browser for good (Read 35311 times)

daddydave · « **Reply #25 on:** July 30, 2010, 01:00 PM »

i didn't realise IE used different shades for read and unread.
-nudone (July 30, 2010, 12:34 PM)

It doesn't, I was saying it used different shade for the current and non-current. I just tried it in IE8 though, it is actually the same shade with a slightly more aggressive gradient.

I am trying to get the best of both worlds.

f0dder · « **Reply #26 on:** July 30, 2010, 01:04 PM »

just looking at this Vista-Aero thing. looks interesting - will install it now.
-nudone (July 30, 2010, 12:58 PM)

~~Wut?~~ - nvm, found it

daddydave · « **Reply #27 on:** July 30, 2010, 01:09 PM »

Your example screenshot doesn't make it easy to locate your tabs of interest visually
-f0dder (July 30, 2010, 12:35 PM)

Speed Dial has its own tab grouping, but it represents tabs set up within Speed Dial itself vs. currently running tabs. Personally, I don't have a lot of need for tabs in standby mode. I would rather either open them all at once if needed or close them when done! But everyone is different, so I am glad there are choices.

I'm not saying Speed Dial does everyone I want either, there's a couple of features I'd like to see but haven't found yet:

- Sync with bookmarks
- Open multiple dials at once. (and the first improvement would actually enable the second one through middle click as mentioned earlier, but it would be good to be able to do it from the Speed Dial group page as well)
- Remember last tab group (and not doing this natively is probably a byproduct of Speed Dial tabs not using real Firefox tabs and therefore unable to take advantage of Firefox session restore, which I prefer to turn off anyway

)

This all definitely gets me thinking though, the video shows the Tab Candy developer is not short on ideas for improvementl, that's a great sign.

nudone · « **Reply #28 on:** July 30, 2010, 01:24 PM »

i'm not sure if i'm liking the coloured grouping tabs that Vista-Aero provides or not. i've disabled everything it enables by default, then i've installed this https://addons.mozil.../firefox/addon/5992/ to disable a few more of the defaults and...

then disabled the colouring that TabMixPlus once did - unread tabs now have underline titles and read have italic titles, current is bold. using red to colour the titles didn't seem to work.

this would seem like the "best of both worlds" but i'm not sure that i like the IE colouring now i've tried it. it doesn't seem entirely unique either. it looks like a fresh newly opened tab takes on the colour of group already opened rather than grabbing it's own unique colour - not sure if IE does that itself.

i don't mind this "persona" so much - maybe there's a way to edit the grey/blue background.

edit:
another mistake then: looks like this Vista-Aero thing is a "theme" not just a "persona". i'll look at "theme" creation to see if it's obvious how to change things.

nudone · « **Reply #29 on:** July 31, 2010, 07:25 AM »

just noticed something that means i think i'll not be wasting any more time with this Vista-Aero theme...

my address bar doesn't display the correct URL for the matching tab. sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. that's not something i'm going to put up with so it's bye-bye Mr. Theme.

(i imagine that the theme may well work perfectly on its own - could just be a conflict with another extension i've got.)

cmpm · « **Reply #30 on:** July 31, 2010, 01:40 PM »

I use FoxTab and SpeedDial as well as my bookmarks bar for navigation.

FoxTab can scroll open tabs and/or show them all,
depending on how you set the options.

https://addons.mozil.../firefox/addon/8879/

daddydave · « **Reply #31 on:** August 10, 2010, 01:24 PM »

Open multiple dials at once. (and the first improvement would actually enable the second one through middle click as mentioned earlier, but it would be good to be able to do it from the Speed Dial group page as well)
-daddydave (July 30, 2010, 01:09 PM)

I was wrong. Speed Dial does in fact do this. If you right click on a speed dial group tab, one of the choices is "Open All In New Tabs"

Still don't understand the necessity (implied by Tab Candy) of keeping a bunch of tabs open if you are not actively using them. Trying to figure out who App Tabs is for, too. I did actually download the Tab Candy build but haven't gotten around to watching the video and was looking for a document on it but then kind of lost interest.

Oh wait, I did watch the video. I guess I need to rewatch it. And there's a walkthrough on that page I didn't see before.

f0dder · « **Reply #32 on:** August 10, 2010, 01:26 PM »

Dunno if Tab Candy necessarily keeps tabs *open* when not using them, but it wouldn't need to do that in order to do some of it's nice features... having the overview and grouping is imho super useful.

daddydave · « **Reply #33 on:** August 10, 2010, 02:39 PM »

Dunno if Tab Candy necessarily keeps tabs *open* when not using them, but it wouldn't need to do that in order to do some of it's nice features... having the overview and grouping is imho super useful.
-f0dder (August 10, 2010, 01:26 PM)

Yeah but you already have overview and grouping. I thought the whole point of Tab Candy was to manage open tabs.

jojo99 · « **Reply #34 on:** August 14, 2010, 11:06 PM »

Looks like they are building a whole new UI for tab management, rather than fixing the mess they originally created.

I typically have around 50 tabs loaded. Using TabMix Plus, I have them on the bottom of the browser in rows of 8. Then I use this auto tab bar hide CSS styple (http://userstyles.org/styles/4435) so that the tab bar is out of the way. I modified the script so that 100 pixels of the tab bar show, which just seems to look better to me. And I recently started using an add-on called Bartab (https://addons.mozil...firefox/addon/67651/) that doesn't load tabs until you use them (which saves memory).

I also make groups manually by copying the tabs I want to group into a new browser window and then doing a "Save all tabs" under Bookmarks menu entry. It would be great if TMP would allow say Ctrl-Select for specific tabs and create a group that way. Group support requests have been made to the author of TMP but he doesn't seem to want to be bothered with coding it.

The way Tabcandy creates groups is nice (drag & drop). But I still question the need for a new UI to manage this. Seems to be over-complex to me.

tomos · « **Reply #35 on:** August 17, 2010, 10:49 AM »

I typically have around 50 tabs loaded. Using TabMix Plus, I have them on the bottom of the browser in rows of 8. Then I use this auto tab bar hide CSS styple (http://userstyles.org/styles/4435) so that the tab bar is out of the way.
-jojo99 (August 14, 2010, 11:06 PM)

well I'm trying this & like it so far (it would drive anyone crazy with the tabs on top so I moved them down as well).
I see you made a request there asking about toggling it - did you have any success with that?

daddydave · « **Reply #36 on:** August 17, 2010, 12:35 PM »

I tried this, if they can make the tab groups persist (which is on the roadmap if I read right), it could replace Speed Dial. I am using Speed Dial pretty inefficiently.. New Tab, click on a Group, click on an app. This would save me some keystrokes / mouse clicks.

Unrelated I think - Right now I have an addon conflict that is preventing any version of Firefox from starting up, so I am using Chrome in the meantime.

Armando · « **Reply #37 on:** August 18, 2010, 04:45 PM »

i use these add-ons to organize my tabs :
- Session Manager
- Tree Style Tab to organize tabs.

It doesn't get in the way, can drag tabs to different firefox windows.... Save windows with different sets of tabs as different sessions etc.
The tree style tab thing allows to have a clearer view of what I'm reading, researching, and I can reorganize subjects by drag & drop. There are many useful options.

Maybe not as intuitive or user friendly but works well nevertheless, and I can control RAM usage better this way (by keeping opened only the tabs I need).

MrCrispy · « **Reply #38 on:** August 22, 2010, 10:37 PM »

I use TabKit which includes TreeStyleTabs as well as a few other things. I think I like this more than TMP so far. I also use BarTab, which keeps the tab but unloads it so that Firefox uses less memory, and loads it when the tab is activated. This lets me keep 50+ tabs open and restart Firefox without everything loading.

One of the things I'd like added to TreeStyleTabs is custom tab grouping so that I can create a group header (say Windows) and put all tabs under it. And then we can have rules that automate this. It would go a long way towards organizing tabs.

Armando · « **Reply #39 on:** August 24, 2010, 08:01 PM »

TabKit & BarTab seem great. Thanks for the tip.

tomos · « **Reply #40 on:** August 26, 2010, 04:28 AM »

BarTab is great if you keep a lot of tabs open

I gave up on this one - Auto-hide taskbar - too jerky for my taste. It did change my habits though - I now keep the tabs on the bottom... Might try this Tabkit next!

I typically have around 50 tabs loaded. Using TabMix Plus, I have them on the bottom of the browser in rows of 8. Then I use this auto tab bar hide CSS styple (http://userstyles.org/styles/4435) so that the tab bar is out of the way.
-jojo99 (August 14, 2010, 11:06 PM)

well I'm trying this & like it so far (it would drive anyone crazy with the tabs on top so I moved them down as well).
I see you made a request there asking about toggling it - did you have any success with that?
-tomos (August 17, 2010, 10:49 AM)

Armando · « **Reply #41 on:** August 26, 2010, 10:52 AM »

In terms of keeping tabs into a tree, TreeStyleTabs is better than TabKit alone but the 2 can be combined IIRC.

f0dder · « **Reply #42 on:** August 26, 2010, 01:07 PM »

Seems like Tab Candy is being renamed to Panorama, and including in Firefox 4.0 Beta 4. I'm almost considering giving the beta a test-run

daddydave · « **Reply #43 on:** August 26, 2010, 03:41 PM »

It looks like the most recent official announcement from the developer is here:

That’s why in Panorama we are careful to never mess with your organization and layout — it is always the same even after you restart the browser.

That's the magic word we were waiting for: persistence.

f0dder · « **Reply #44 on:** August 26, 2010, 04:50 PM »

That’s why in Panorama we are careful to never mess with your organization and layout — it is always the same even after you restart the browser.

That's the magic word we were waiting for: persistence.
-daddydave (August 26, 2010, 03:41 PM)

Nice

I wonder if Panorama will have some smart load/unload of tabs - if not, BarTab could turn out very very handy.

Darwin · « **Reply #45 on:** August 26, 2010, 08:47 PM »

On the other hand, maybe it's just me, but i'd rather stick knives into my ears than listen to Aza Raskin explain one of his ideas as if he has discovered the secrets of the universe. I get that apple vibe from people like this.. i'll pass.
-mouser (July 24, 2010, 12:49 AM)

Yeah... I shut it off when he said that he spends more time in his browser than in his OS. Idiot.

lanux128 · « **Reply #46 on:** August 26, 2010, 10:54 PM »

On the other hand, maybe it's just me, but i'd rather stick knives into my ears than listen to Aza Raskin explain one of his ideas as if he has discovered the secrets of the universe. I get that apple vibe from people like this.. i'll pass.
-mouser (July 24, 2010, 12:49 AM)

Yeah... I shut it off when he said that he spends more time in his browser than in his OS. Idiot.
-Darwin (August 26, 2010, 08:47 PM)

yeah, i raised the same point in the chat-room. it's like one saying that they use their car more than the road..

daddydave · « **Reply #47 on:** August 27, 2010, 01:03 PM »

On the other hand, maybe it's just me, but i'd rather stick knives into my ears than listen to Aza Raskin explain one of his ideas as if he has discovered the secrets of the universe. I get that apple vibe from people like this.. i'll pass.
-mouser (July 24, 2010, 12:49 AM)

Yeah... I shut it off when he said that he spends more time in his browser than in his OS. Idiot.
-Darwin (August 26, 2010, 08:47 PM)

yeah, i raised the same point in the chat-room. it's like one saying that they use their car more than the road..
-lanux128 (August 26, 2010, 10:54 PM)

lol

daddydave · « **Reply #48 on:** August 27, 2010, 06:29 PM »

It looks like the most recent official announcement from the developer is here:

That’s why in Panorama we are careful to never mess with your organization and layout — it is always the same even after you restart the browser.

That's the magic word we were waiting for: persistence.
-daddydave (August 26, 2010, 03:41 PM)

I haven't had much luck getting the persistence to work unless I choose the "Show my windows and tabs from last time" option in Firefox. Which sort of makes sense, but it ices the idea that I can use this as a replacement for Speed Dial (EDIT: By that I mean I was hoping to figure a way to use this as kind of a start page, independent of what tabs are actually open, although that may have been wishful thinking) ; maybe instead I should encourage the Speed Dial developers to hook into this functionality.

By the way, what would be wrong with making the Ctrl-Space screen appear on new tabs? I'd like that option. Maybe I'll suggest it. Along with hotkeys for tab groups.

MrCrispy · « **Reply #49 on:** September 01, 2010, 04:16 PM »

I really don't want to combine SpeedDial and Panorama as you suggest. To me they serve very different purposes. One is like the start menu which lists what all I can launch, the other is a list of active tabs. You can use Session Manager to load up multiple sets of active tabs and then combine with BarTab, this is the setup I use. It lets me have profiles for the kind of browsing I'm interested in and load the sets of tabs relevant to that.