Author Topic: IDEA: "Load a new browser instance with X tabs from previously located sites" (Read 17331 times)

TaoPhoenix · « **on:** August 27, 2012, 10:20 AM »

This feels similar to some of the ideas I have already seen, so if it's been done someone can point me. (MilesAhead, your stuff is ringing a bell but this feels just a hair different.)

I Do "multi-batching" of my web pages with X topical tabs on an instance, and then Y more topical tabs on a new instance, producing two items on my task bar consisting of two copies of (currently Firefox but later someone can expand this) with batched tabs according to whatever project I am working on at the moment.

I would like to be able to save something like a Firefox Icon (named as needed) that would then produce one new instance with those tabs loaded. Important: *Not* to call up any existing instance and "smash the new tabs onto it". (That tends to happen on some sites I visit.) So for example when I click the raw Firefox Icon, I get a new instance, so just have the utility have previously analyzed what sites were loaded, then just reload them.

jgpaiva · « **Reply #1 on:** August 27, 2012, 10:27 AM »

Isn't this similar to the concept of "sessions"? Loading a session on demand?
I know Opera has this (even though I think there's no way to start opera from a specific session, you have to launch it and then switch sessions. also, you'd have to save the session in the end). Not sure if there's something similar for firefox.
If there isn't an extension that does this, there sure should be, I also would find it useful.

I've dome something similar to this using tab stacking in opera. However, this implies that all tabs from all sessions are loaded in memory at the same time. (actually, not true, since no Opera only loads tabs when you select them).

tomos · « **Reply #2 on:** August 27, 2012, 10:37 AM »

I use "Session Manager" (FF addon) a lot - comix, research for printer, last daily set of tabs, etc. etc. I havent used it like this before but it works:

open a session manager file using FF. Set FF as the default opener and add to desktop (or create a shortcut).

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #3 on:** August 27, 2012, 10:54 AM »

Hmm, good start guys, when I am not quite so giddy I will try your ideas and see what I get.

I was hoping to go to the extra step and have (whatever is in my browser) and do some kind of Save-As, name it, and create a new icon I can name. Does that clarify anything?

jgpaiva · « **Reply #4 on:** August 27, 2012, 11:50 AM »

Also, another way of doing this: keeping multiple profile folders. I know in previous versions of Opera you could pass the profile as a command line argument, I suppose you can do something similar in ff.

tomos · « **Reply #5 on:** August 27, 2012, 03:21 PM »

Hmm, good start guys, when I am not quite so giddy I will try your ideas and see what I get.

I was hoping to go to the extra step and have (whatever is in my browser) and do some kind of Save-As, name it, and create a new icon I can name. Does that clarify anything?
-TaoPhoenix (August 27, 2012, 10:54 AM)

With Session manager, you save [the current window] as [whatever you want]. You can designate in preferences where sessions get saved. The rest you get the pleasure of doing yourself ;-)
Can you set icons universally for a particular filetype (? -maybe depends on your file manager?).

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #6 on:** August 27, 2012, 07:24 PM »

With Session manager, you save [the current window] as [whatever you want]. You can designate in preferences where sessions get saved. The rest you get the pleasure of doing yourself ;-)
Can you set icons universally for a particular filetype (? -maybe depends on your file manager?).
-tomos (August 27, 2012, 03:21 PM)

Hi Tomos (and friends), I will try this approach. I installed Session Manager. So with my existing session full of my nice little tabs, exactly how do I "save [the current window] as [whatever you want]" ? The standard FileMenu/ SavePageAs options don't look different. How do I save it as a session and not just a static page of that tab?

tomos · « **Reply #7 on:** August 28, 2012, 03:15 AM »

I'm not sure where exactly it is under the traditional menu (it's under tools). Here's mine:

IDEA: "Load a new browser instance with X tabs from previously located sites"

and here the settings I use:
the window autosaves on closing with these settings.

Screenshot - 2012-08-28 , 10_11_37.png

[edit] best go through the options/preferences as well to see what's possible. I have Firefox set up to ask on opening which session to load. [/edit]

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #8 on:** August 28, 2012, 07:59 AM »

There we go. That's pretty close to what I need. I'll fiddle with it. Thanks!

tomos · « **Reply #9 on:** August 28, 2012, 08:49 AM »

There we go. That's pretty close to what I need.
-TaoPhoenix (August 28, 2012, 07:59 AM)

that's what I thought

I'll fiddle with it. Thanks!
-TaoPhoenix (August 28, 2012, 07:59 AM)

have fun ;-)
I see you can also make shortcuts for various actions

IDEA: "Load a new browser instance with X tabs from previously located sites"

I also use that FF tweak where you can stop the tabs actually loading - i.e. if you open a window with 50 tabs, only the active tab will load. Damned if I can remember how that is done though...
If you're interested and dont know about it, I can search here, I usually post about stuff here so as I have some chance of finding it again lol.

(I also use session manager for keeping track of closed tabs.)

Renegade · « **Reply #10 on:** August 28, 2012, 09:07 AM »

I wanted to respond to this much earlier, but was simply too busy. Anyways... Finally have time... (Searched for a better version that I did before, but couldn't find it -- probably on an old drive sitting around somewhere.)

I don't know if this is exactly what you're looking for, but this can do the job VERY easily, and has a lot of flexibility to boot.

OpenMultipleSitesFromTextList.zip (787.89 kB - downloaded 266 times.)

This is a *slightly* modified project from the Code Project that I absolutely love... It's basically the WebBrowser control but done better. I've used this many times for custom browsers to do tasks that I couldn't otherwise do reasonably.

Anyways, I've modified it (very slightly) with a text field to input URLs (1 per line - no blank lines - no empty line at the end). You then click a button, and open all the URLs at once. Very simple. I've included the full source code there and my 3 lines of code to do the job.

It's C#, and very simple. You could modify the project very easily to do just about whatever you want.

Screenshot - 2012-08-29 , 12_03_13 AM.png

Screenshot - 2012-08-29 , 12_04_13 AM.png

However, it is based on the System.Windows.Forms.WebBrowser control. But still, if you've got your system up to date, it's pretty darn good.

BTW - don't leave an empty line at the bottom as I didn't do any error checking. 1 line per URL.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #11 on:** August 28, 2012, 10:40 AM »

Hi Renegade. In a way it's like the second half. The trick is that a session would accumulate tabs kinda randomly, so your version needs a "tab url exporter" so I wouldn't have to copy and paste the urls into a text file.

But for different uses, it looks pretty good.

Renegade · « **Reply #12 on:** August 28, 2012, 11:19 AM »

Hi Renegade. In a way it's like the second half. The trick is that a session would accumulate tabs kinda randomly, so your version needs a "tab url exporter" so I wouldn't have to copy and paste the urls into a text file.

But for different uses, it looks pretty good.
-TaoPhoenix (August 28, 2012, 10:40 AM)

Sorry. I can't do that at the moment. Maybe someone else can pick it up. (Time at the moment.)

Basically, iterate over the tabs, get the control, then get the URL, then export it.

Wish I had the time to do it for you now. Sorry.

Stoic Joker · « **Reply #13 on:** August 28, 2012, 11:30 AM »

I just know I'll get shot for bringing this up but IE already does (basically) that natively.

Add current tabs to favorites puts a link to each tabs page in a folder of your choosing in favorites.

(manually start new session - I know ick - Then...) Right click a favorites folder and select open in tab group to open all links in said folder in the current session.

Then links can be added/subtracted from their "Session folder" via drag-n-drop in the favorites menu.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #14 on:** August 28, 2012, 06:25 PM »

A stop-gap work-around for Firefox until you get something that saves/loads sessions for multiple browser instances.

If you have EditPadLite7 open and drag the icon from the start of the address bar, and drop it on EditPadLite7, it will enter the link. Press End Key then Enter to start a new line. Repeat for each Tab you want in the set.

Set up your sessions to 2 different text files. Open the first text file using Browser Bunch selecting firefox in the Gui with firefox not running. The URLs will open in new tabs(if you have FF set to open links in new tabs.) Now with FF window active press Control-n. You get a new window with no site open. Open the 2nd text file of URLs using Browser Bunch. Those URLs will open in FF in new tabs in a new window. The blank window you got from Control-n is superfluous. It just makes FF avoid tacking the new URLs onto the first browser instance.

From what I read getting the urls from individual tabs in various browsers is non-trivial. And I don't know if there's really much demand for it. This method may get the job done until you can find something fully automated.

edit: perhaps if you have one set of tabs that changes often, you can use a Tab Manager AddOn for that one, and just use the txt file approach for a tab set that doesn't change much to put through Browser Bunch. The first FF comes up to the tab set using the AddOn. Then hit Control-n as described above, before using bb.exe to open the other tab set etc..

MilesAhead · « **Reply #15 on:** August 29, 2012, 05:02 PM »

I have a first implementation of FFSS.exe which is Firefox Session Save. For now the hotkey is hard wired as Control-Shift F10. The idea is you have FF open with multiple tabs. Make it the active window and hit the hotkey. It uses macros to change tabs and copy the addressbar url to the clipboard, then save the list to a text file. You can then open that text file as a set using Browser Bunch.

For now the text file name is hard wired.

The zip attachment has FFSS.au3 AutoIt3 3.3.8.0 source code. Compiled .exe and custom icon.

edit: Clipboard text content before the hotkey hit is saved, then copied back to clipboard after URL collection.

edit2: updated to 1.01 contents of the text file are overwritten. Rename the file to use with Browser Bunch. I'll probably add an option to open a SaveFile Dialog and change the hotkey in the future.

edit3: now that this seems to work I think I'll add it to the Browser Bunch download package. To create a text file of URLs the user will be able to hit the hotkey on Firefox and save it to a text file with FileSaveDialog. Then it can be opened with Browser Bunch either using SendTo menu or in Windows Seven, pin the file to the taskbar Browser Bunch icon. Once the set it created it can be opened in any browser supported by Browser Bunch.

edit4: Browser Bunch download now includes the latest version of FFSS in the zip file.
http://www.favessoft.com/downloads.html

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #16 on:** August 29, 2012, 09:12 PM »

Hi Miles, glad you decided to work on this. I think for reloading tabs, I like the session manager better.

But sparked by this whole thing, I have found a much more valuable use of FFSS. I am building a spreadsheet of job postings in my unemployment, and it was painful to have to copy urls and paste them. Here, I can just blast down "RightClick Open in New Tab" and open a ton of tabs. Then one shot of the hot key smashes them all into a text file. From there I'm pretty good at text imports to spreadsheets. In monster I don't need to open them all back again, I can see for example I am no CEO. So they just sit there in the spreadsheet.

Go Miles!

MilesAhead · « **Reply #17 on:** August 29, 2012, 10:04 PM »

Glad you found a use for it. Doing the FF session save macro thing was good for me anyway. Saves draggng each url from location bar. Also I can open a set I already have with Browser Bunch in FF and change a tab or add a couple and save to a new file. Better than editing by hand esp. with all the illegible whatever in url search strings. Worked out all around.

Renegade · « **Reply #18 on:** August 29, 2012, 11:32 PM »

Well, I finally had a few minutes, and despite this basically already being solved, I like this kind of stuff. So...

Screenshot - 2012-08-30 , 2_25_31 PM.png

OpenMultipleSitesFromTextList.zip (741.39 kB - downloaded 282 times.)

You can import/export lists of URLs there now. Full source is included, and the EXE's are in the bin/Release folder. Exporting automatically names the file like this:

YYYY-MM-DD-HH-MM-SS.SSS.txt

tomos · « **Reply #19 on:** August 30, 2012, 05:24 AM »

I have a first implementation of FFSS.exe which is Firefox Session Save. For now the hotkey is hard wired as Control-Shift F10. The idea is you have FF open with multiple tabs. Make it the active window and hit the hotkey. It uses macros to change tabs and copy the addressbar url to the clipboard, then save the list to a text file.
-MilesAhead (August 29, 2012, 05:02 PM)

would it be possible to save the tab title as well as the url?

MilesAhead · « **Reply #20 on:** August 30, 2012, 04:54 PM »

I have a first implementation of FFSS.exe which is Firefox Session Save. For now the hotkey is hard wired as Control-Shift F10. The idea is you have FF open with multiple tabs. Make it the active window and hit the hotkey. It uses macros to change tabs and copy the addressbar url to the clipboard, then save the list to a text file.
-MilesAhead (August 29, 2012, 05:02 PM)

would it be possible to save the tab title as well as the url?
-tomos (August 30, 2012, 05:24 AM)

I should be able to knock off a special.

I found the same macro works in chromium. So I'm including BBSS.exe in the BrowserBunch zip.
(changing the name from FFSS since it also works in chromium. Hotkey is the same.)

How do you want to do it. Alternate url/title/url/title or urlFile.txt titleFile.txt? If the latter than I could add it to my utility without messing it up. I could just add an .ini option to save the titles to a separate file or not. If you want to do it another way I should be able to knock off a custom if it's not complicated.

In FF and chrome the active tab title is copied to the caption bar. FF might add - Mozilla Firefox but I can chop that off.
So it should only require cycling through the tabs and getting the window title at each position.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #21 on:** August 30, 2012, 08:02 PM »

Latest BrowserBunch upload has BBSS.exe with title set feature added. The titles are saved to a separate file. Run the program and quit once to add new option to .ini file. Title save is off by default. Set it to True or 1 in .ini file to enable. The UseFileSaveDlg option applies to both if title save is enabled. Otherwise it will take the filename from the .ini file.

The titles have " - Mozilla Firefox" or " - Chromium" removed from the end. The titles are saved one per line to the selected txt file.

tomos · « **Reply #22 on:** August 31, 2012, 03:42 AM »

I have a first implementation of FFSS.exe which is Firefox Session Save. For now the hotkey is hard wired as Control-Shift F10. The idea is you have FF open with multiple tabs. Make it the active window and hit the hotkey. It uses macros to change tabs and copy the addressbar url to the clipboard, then save the list to a text file.
-MilesAhead (August 29, 2012, 05:02 PM)

would it be possible to save the tab title as well as the url?
-tomos (August 30, 2012, 05:24 AM)

[...]
How do you want to do it. Alternate url/title/url/title or urlFile.txt titleFile.txt? If the latter than I could add it to my utility without messing it up. I could just add an .ini option to save the titles to a separate file or not. If you want to do it another way I should be able to knock off a custom if it's not complicated.
-MilesAhead (August 30, 2012, 04:54 PM)

Sounds great! It was an idea off the top of my head - I hadn't really thought it through. Sometimes I research stuff and save the titles and url to a spreadsheet or outliner. In terms transferring the info, I think I can use it no matter how it's saved.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #23 on:** August 31, 2012, 08:29 AM »

Latest Browser Bunch upload has it. You can download from this page:

http://www.favessoft.com/downloads.html

Run BBFF.exe once, then quit, so the .ini file will have the option to save titles. It's off by default.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #24 on:** September 03, 2012, 01:07 PM »

I have a first implementation of FFSS.exe which is Firefox Session Save. For now the hotkey is hard wired as Control-Shift F10. The idea is you have FF open with multiple tabs. Make it the active window and hit the hotkey. It uses macros to change tabs and copy the addressbar url to the clipboard, then save the list to a text file.
-MilesAhead (August 29, 2012, 05:02 PM)

would it be possible to save the tab title as well as the url?
-tomos (August 30, 2012, 05:24 AM)

I should be able to knock off a special.

I found the same macro works in chromium. So I'm including BBSS.exe in the BrowserBunch zip.
(changing the name from FFSS since it also works in chromium. Hotkey is the same.)

How do you want to do it. Alternate url/title/url/title or urlFile.txt titleFile.txt? If the latter than I could add it to my utility without messing it up. I could just add an .ini option to save the titles to a separate file or not. If you want to do it another way I should be able to knock off a custom if it's not complicated.

In FF and chrome the active tab title is copied to the caption bar. FF might add - Mozilla Firefox but I can chop that off.
So it should only require cycling through the tabs and getting the window title at each position.

-MilesAhead (August 30, 2012, 04:54 PM)

I think I like the alternating approach, because then I think it works well towards my usage of importing into spreadsheets.