Tabs Outliner for Chrome

[tomos]

'Tabs Outliner' is an addon for Chrome:
"The next generation session manager; a really working too many open tabs solution; and your browsing notebook."

App Name	Tabs Outliner
App URL	Chrome Webstore: https://chrome.googl...mamlbiijnphhppkpkmkl
App Version Reviewed	0.4.81
Test System Specs	a very basic win.8.1 x64 laptop with 4GB ram
Supported OSes	Tested on Win.7 & 8 (I presume any OS that can run Chrome)
Support Methods	via Chrome-store link above and there's also a google group
Pricing Scheme	Free/donation-ware
Author Donation Link	cant find...
Screencast Video URL	Overview // How Groups Work
Relationship btwn. Reviewer and Product	None

This is a first look at Tabs Outliner Addon/Extension for Chrome.
I moved recently from Firefox to Chrome and was looking for a replacement for Session Manager addon. Tabs Outliner [TO] is very different, and a lot more powerful, but it also covers Session saving in it's own way, and could be used as a bookmarks manager.
To cut to the chase: I love it so far, it's helped my browsing to become a lot more organised without too much effort
 


OVERVIEW
Tabs Outliner will open a second window showing it's outline of webpages. Sticking with the outline approach, I call this a 'pane'.

Tabs Outliner for Chrome

If you open say three Chrome windows, they will show as an outline in Tabs Outliner: within that pane, you can drag pages from one window to another; close tabs so they will be remembered; close/delete tabs completely.

FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPT: it is important to understand that (initially at any rate) what is closed outside of Tabs Outliner is lost/gone/forgotten - and what is closed from within Tabs Outliner is saved.

Windows can be renamed within the outline (from the default "Window").
Once they are renamed, they will be saved - so closing them via Chrome itself is okay. The caveat above still remains for tabs though: any tabs closed from within the browser window will be deleted from Tabs Outliner.

When you reopen Chrome, and open TO:

• double-click a tab or window will open same
• Ctrl+single-click will open a copy of the tab in the last active Chrome window

To rearrange the outline:

• Drag n drop to move tabs or hierarchies
• Alt+DragnDrop to copy hierarchies

TOOLBAR:
the toolbar is more like a box and is always on top (even though it disappears) in the bottom right of the pane. This can lead to confusion if you are dragging an entry down to a window that is actually behind the toolbox - but the full line is active so you can drag to bottom right.
I havent used the tools that much:

• (new) Window
• Group
• Separator
• (create) Note
• Google Docs
• Clone View (I *think* it just clones selected window)
• Undo scroll (stop it jumping to e.g. newly created window)
• Scroll up to next open window
• Close/Save all open windows
• Expand all (/Collapse all) - e.g. for searching, also for saving all as export/backup

NOTES (within outline):
Notes can be added to the outline, and used hierarchically. The notes in this image start with a '#'



click once on the notes button - a note will appear down at the very bottom of the outline list. I nearly always want it in the active window - to do this click on the note icon in toolbar, and drag it to desired location.

NOTES DIRECTLY FROM WEBTEXT: highlighting text on a webpage, and dragging it to the outline will create a note with the text.

GROUPs:
a group can be created 'within' a window in the outline.
When you open that window - the groups within it will not open. They have to be double clicked in turn to open them, and they will open in a separate window.
Drag Group button from toolbar to location you want to create a group.
Youtube video: How Groups Work

OPTIONs:
I went with recommended settings in options (probably worth reading through it to see possibilities.

PORTABILITY:
works with Chrome portable and SRWare Iron portable.

SYNCING:
I think this not supported yet - but I dont use (login-)syncing in Chrome so dont know if that works.

BACUP:
backup is important (after my first couple of days with Iron portable I upgraded Iron and lost all extensions, so I was straight in the deep end).
According to the author simply saving the contents of the pane (as a html file) will work as a backup. But I dont know how to restore that. There is a much more detailed description from the author of how to restore via profile (my emphasis):

Spoiler

I decide to provide some other algorithm to surely load TO database from other PC.

0) check the chrome://version/ page to find a path to your current Chrome profile (Profile Path field)

then intall the TO (if it's not installed already) and then completely shut down Chrome (on a Windows PC without this
you will not be able to delete some files that you will need to delete on next steps)

then:

1) Delete all next files and folders from the current Chrome profile

"\Local Storage\chrome-extension_eggkanocgddhmamlbiijnphhppkpkmkl_0.localstorage"

"\Local Storage\chrome-extension_eggkanocgddhmamlbiijnphhppkpkmkl_0.localstorage-journal"

"\databases\chrome-extension_eggkanocgddhmamlbiijnphhppkpkmkl_0"

"\IndexedDB\chrome-extension_eggkanocgddhmamlbiijnphhppkpkmkl_0.indexeddb.leveldb"

"\File System"

Please backup the \File System folder before delete, as it might contain data from other Chrome applications, and also it's contain the readable backups of the Tabs Outliner tree - so if you do so on a system that previously have the TO it's a must to backup this folder.

2) Restore your TO database in the
"\IndexedDB\chrome-extension_eggkanocgddhmamlbiijnphhppkpkmkl_0.indexeddb.leveldb"
folder
The content of this folder must not contain any other subfolders.

3) Start Chrome, start TO - it must read the database.

If this not hapen, because the database is corrupted for example, then there is a way to restore tree by backups from \File System folder on source PC.

[tomos]

reserved

[kamiller42]

Do all of those tabs reside in memory like Chrome does by default? I'm using The Great Suspender to try and manage resources. (I usually have a lot of tabs open.) I really miss Firefox's Tab Group feature.

[tomos]

^ I'm not the expert on Chrome having just moved over from Firefox :-)

It *looks* as if Chrome loads all tabs if I open a window (same as if it restores last tabs via it's own settings). Yet if I click on a tab shortly later, it seems to have to load it. So I *think* it dumps the tab if it's not being viewed.

Firefox would just load the page header and nothing else.

Do all of those tabs reside in memory like Chrome does by default?

-kamiller42 (June 17, 2015, 01:20 PM)

all the open tabs work as I describe above
Note: in the 2nd screenshot above, there's only one tab open in the 'Snooker' window) - the window above it (in outline - not visible in shot) has 15 of 28 tabs open - yet if I click on one in the browser, it needs to load (as described).

FWIW:
I used keep a lot more tabs open before using this - now I can close them and know I can acces them again easily - even if they arent sorted/categorised properly.

[tomos]

I really miss Firefox's Tab Group feature.

-kamiller42 (June 17, 2015, 01:20 PM)

There is a group tabs feature here, but I haven't used it (nor have I used Firefox's tab group). I used mainly work with Session Manager - if something was worth saving I would either save an appropriately named session, or bookmark it.

Everything else just got abandoned after a period of time.
Was using Tab Grouping comparable?

[kamiller42]

Tab Groups work like this add-on except the manager was a bird's eye view rather than outline. You could see thumbnails of your pages in the group and drag and drop thumbnails between groups. Opening a group would open all tabs in the group. Works really well.
https://support.mozi...groups-organize-tabs

I will disable my The Great Suspender add-on and see what kind of effect it has on the tabs. It looks like the green X does kind of the equivalent. The difference might be that The Great Suspender suspends tabs automatically after a certain amount of time.

[tomos]

GROUPs:
a group can be created 'within' a window in the outline.
When you open that window - the groups within it will not open. They have to be double clicked in turn to open them, and they will open in a separate window.
Drag Group button from toolbar to location you want to create a group.
Youtube video: How Groups Work

-tomos (June 17, 2015, 09:58 AM)

I added some info about Groups - they do seem like a good way of organising stuff, especially related infos, e.g. researching compact cameras: one window with groupings for 30x, 20x, cameras etc.
Also makes it easy to open a window without opening all it's contents/'children'.

[tomos]

I went back to Firefox in 2015, but now using Vivaldi on one machine. Installed the 'Tabs Outliner' extension again and very happy about that.
I tend to lose track of tabs and consider session saving as a form of bookmarking **


A couple of comments:

There's a paid version of Tabs Outliner where keyboard shortcuts are enabled, but you need a Chrome account in order to purchase. I would like to support and enable shortcuts, but not going to open a chrome account just for that (havent researched it yet / dont particularly like the idea).

I'm still a little unsure if I have multiple windows open -- and close one, will it be lost. Must test that.

** Tabs Outliner is a game changer for me -- gives a good overview and allows me to save and organise and close unnecessary tabs easily.

Tabs Outliner for Chrome