Firefox Tab Candy Alpha

Nunavut writes in with a note from TechCrunch on Aza Raskin's latest Mozilla goodie, Tab Candy. "Be sure to watch the video for a full overview — from the looks of it, it seems as if Tab Candy is sort of like Apple's Expose feature mixed with their Spaces feature, both of which are baked into OS X. For those who don't use a Mac, basically these features allow you to zoom out and get a bird's-eye-view of all your windows (or tabs, in this case) that are open — and you can also arrange open windows (or again, tabs, in this case) in certain spaces so they're clumped together. This allows you to more easily find what you're looking for with so many tabs open." Here's Raskin's blog post, the download link, and the FAQ.

Comments

Open?

[Fusen]

Am I the only one that opens up tabs to read the content and then closes the tab after doing so? I don't really see why someone would have like 20+ tabs constantly just sitting open.

Re:Open?

[Knoeki]

I keep tabs open for certain sites. A bunch of sites (forums, etc) that I want to check regularly, and some other things I'll want to have a look at now and then.

Re:Open?

[Joce640k]

Yes.

(If that's all we wanted to do we'd have stuck with the 'back' button).

Re:Open?

[Anonymous Coward]

I keep tabs open for certain sites. A bunch of sites (forums, etc) that I want to check regularly, and some other things I'll want to have a look at now and then.

..that is what bookmarks are for.

Re:Open?

[DarkKnightRadick]

that's what I thought. I use tabs to keep multiple sites open while I'm at the computer. Otherwise, bookmarks and history.

Re:Open?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've currently got 5 tabs open in firefox, I think I get to 8 or so before I open a new window. I only ever read, close and forget worthless stuff. For anything worthwhile, I leave tabs open until I get to review / bookmark (these act simply as reminders) or just reread an article.

While this method of working is how I personally process information, I assumed it was accepted that humans make better make value judgements in this way? For the people who simply read and close, I'm wondering if you also buy the first item a salesman tries to sell you?

Re:Open?

[Joe Jay Bee]

Thus speaks a man who has never experienced the addictive tab-craziness of TV Tropes ;)

Re:Open?

[Anonymous Coward]

You might want to open up 20 background tabs at once so you don't need to wait 20 times for a page to load. (And then forget to

Re:Open?

[vlm]

Am I the only one that opens up tabs to read the content and then closes the tab after doing so? I don't really see why someone would have like 20+ tabs constantly just sitting open.

You're just lacking good examples of things to keep "permanently open".

"tabs" that I never close on my ipod touch, my ipad, or firefox:

Local NWS weather radar direct link (radar.weather.gov/Thumbs/???.png where ??? is your local three letter code that has nothing to do with IACO airport codes)

Local NWS 7 day forecast for my home, a rather complicated (bookmarked) URL.

A vhfdx.net ham radio "activity map" for the 6 meter band on my continent, at least during Es season (which probably makes zero sense to non-amateur radio operators, but trust me its quite handy to see at a glance if anythings going on).

A "club news/club announcement" blog that is updated roughly daily.

My personal "feed on feeds" web based RSS aggregator.

At work on firefox for half a decade or so, I have always had a tab open on RT, and a couple internal apps.

Could I just use bookmarks? Yeah, but thats clicky clicky clicky hell and since I scan all those pages every time I do "anything" why not leave them open? Its sort of a "cache" between me and my bookmarks.

As far as having 20 open tabs, I use LRU expiration, if there is a tab I don't look at "all the time" then I stop leaving it open... Some people are the digital equivalent of hoarders.

Re:Open?

[Fusen]

I probably should have clarified what I meant in my original post, but I didn't mean that I don't use tabs, I use tabs all the time. At the moment I've had 4 open for the last 2 hours. I use google reader and queue up all the feed items I want to read and then go through and read them, I also do the same on forums so I do have moments when I have 20+ tabs open at one time. The point I was making was why would you leave those 20 tabs open AFTER you've read the contents of them? Leaving enough open to justify the expose/grouping offered by this new feature. I suppose it all comes down to your point about leaving them open instead of simply making a bookmark, your example of 'Local NWS 7 day forecast for my home, a rather complicated (bookmarked) URL.' I don't really see the point in leaving the page open using any resources for something that changes once a day :P

Re:Open?

[S.O.B.]

That would be true if the back button restored the state of all pages properly.

Sites that make use of collapsible sections do not always maintain their previous state when you back up to them. For example, I do this with Wikipedia and the collapsible section after the external links. As I check out the various links it saves me having to reopen the collapsible section every time which can quickly become rather tedious.

Also, a search results page is often problematic backing up to.

Re:Open?

[danwesnor]

If you close it, eventually you have to open it again. It takes like 0.08375 seconds to open a web page these days. Some people just aren't as patient as you are.

Re:Open?

[Anonymous Coward]

So not even the back button works anymore? But hey he have tab candy now so it's all good? These Slashdot discussions go a long way towards explaining why my web browser has more lines of code than my operating system.

Re:Open?

[hvm2hvm]

i usually have like 30 tabs open at work. they are for documentation, information on certain APIs, etc. when i'm done with the task i'm working on i just close them all. i use TreeStyleTabs for this, it's an awesome way of managing tabs.

Re:Open?

[vlm]

The point I was making was why would you leave those 20 tabs open AFTER you've read the contents of them?

They change. I agree, useless for a static or semi-static page, but my local radar updates every few minutes.

I don't really see the point in leaving the page open using any resources for something that changes once a day

The resources used round down to zero. The cost of my time is not so cheap.

Re:Open?

[bruce_the_loon]

There's a collapsible section at the end of a Wikipedia page. Hmm, new thing learned for today. Check.

Re:Open?

[MacGyver2210]

AMEN to that. I watched this guy wantonly open tabs to things he probably would only glance at, and then complain there's too many tabs.

Hey, instead of Tab Candy(which seems like a hell of a lot of work to organize tabs while browsing) how about you just learn to properly use a tabbed browser?

Most people can manage information well enough in their head that they don't need 15-25 tabs open at once.

On top of that, it's actually faster to just open a second copy of the browser with a different group of tabs than it is to organize with Tab Candy.

Re:Open?

[BrokenHalo]

Otherwise, bookmarks and history.

Same here. In fact, I have long ago given up on organising my bookmarks. There was a time when I used to spend some time categorising them into a hierarchy that made sense to me, but it was quite a big job. But now that Firefox automatically searches bookmarks by whatever keywords I set, there's no longer any point.

Truth is, I could probably ditch my bookmarks file with little pain - there's a big chunk of it that dates back to the mid '90s (when I was using Nutscrape and/or Mozilla), and I've never got around to verifying how many of those URLs actually exist any more. I just leave it there as a little piece of history.

Re:Open?

[Anonymous Coward]

I typically read the page I'm reading to the end, opening interesting links in background tabs. Reading documentation and doing this recursively can easily lead to having 50-100 tabs open.
That's about tolerable in Opera, using the Ctrl-tab menu to find tabs, but the ability to jump to a tab with a url+title search would be very convenient.

Re:Open?

[someonestolecc]

Maybe... I routinely have over 50 on 3 computers. I often find I get into a topic and don't have the time to finish it before I'm distracted or move onto the next. On my work PC for example it's easier to open new tabs up if I'm on the phone with a customer and I need to do something for them, we use so many internal systems also that having a few open on the CRM, the helpdesk ticketing, the core system, a few supplementary pages and on the support section isn't uncommon. I find it's easier to keep a window open on the search screen in the core app and remembering by position is easier than having to re-open it (though I do that too as I'm a bit muddled up which hence means more tabs :P) At home I'm at uni so I might be browsing some things like slashdot and get sucked into a topic and end up on wikipedia 3 hours later looking at something entirely different that's caught my eye. Soon it's time to go out, clean the house, take a dump or floss my bear's teeth whatever and so I leave them open so I can return to it. Of course, I tend to think "on the spot" so I'm the type of person who rather than have folders in their emails constantly relies on searching (i.e. i start from scratch as it's easier for my brain to think on the spot than refer to memory). Each to their own .. let's just say the SSD made a huge difference to the time it took for my firefox windows to open .. (I will usually have another browser or two open too, and at work I run 2 actual computers on 3 monitors with a virtual on one .. won't mention remote sessions). Every person I've rented with or worked with always says I'm crazy 'cos of the windows - yet I know where everything is... :P .. What can I say I envy you people with memory :)

Re:Open?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. I open 20 or more tabs when I first open up the browser and go through my various news aggregators and individual sites that I view daily. I don't actually read the content until I've gotten most of them open and figured out what I want to read. Then as I have small pieces of time throughout the day I'll go through the tabs one by one and when I'm done close them. The value to me is not in rereading but in holding a bunch of stuff open that I will read at my leisure later. This is primarily helpful in reducing the overhead of culling through everything multiple times throughout the day.

Re:Open?

[BrokenHalo]

I've currently got 5 tabs open in firefox, I think I get to 8 or so before I open a new window.

I operate on a principle of what is actually visible in the tab header bar. Generally speaking, I get to about 10 tabs before the text becomes meaningless. While my wife will keep what looks like hundreds open. (She also has so many windows in her dock, they are represented by a scary little icon of about 2 pixels in size, but I've learned not to interfere...)

But the bigger my screen, the more my brain can physically cope with. I'm used to having 6 comparatively sparsely populated workspaces on my desktop Linux box, but on my MacBook I don't use Spaces at all, just Exposé.

Re:Open?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignorance is bliss eh, I constantly have upto 30 tabs open, although not in firefox because it slows to a crawl just opening a large enough page, not to mention having a handful of tabs open over longer time.

Re:Open?

[masmullin]

You aren't the only one. But you are in a dwindling minority.

Re:Open?

[not flu]

You are off by two orders of magnitude in your time estimate - and that's assuming no WiFi/phone data crapouts or whatever leaving pages unloaded anyways.

Opening tabs in the background is a way to avoid having to watch pages load - particularly if you're browsing for images that are multiple megabytes in size, or sites that are too popular for their bandwidth, or sites Japan, or just when your connection is busy with torrents.

Compared to the time used viewing such pages or files the loading time can be very significant. Even youtube videos frequently fail to load in real time.

Re:Open?

[johnlcallaway]

I do the same thing. Same with programs on the desktop. But I grew up in a time when resource management was important, so I'm aware of the memory that each unused program or tab is taking up. I suppose I could spend a few bucks and buy more memory, but it works for me.

I've built my Firefox tab bar with the sites I use the most, so most of them are only two clicks away (one for the folder, one for the site). Those I use more are the easiest to get to, those that I rarely use take a little more effort. Same with my task bar and menu bar.

But I see some people, even tech people, that run EVERY window at full screen, and have 20 programs all opened at the same time. I suppose they could use something like that because they seem to have an issue with closing things, or having more than one program visible at a time.

Re:Open?

[slack_justyb]

Well, I have quite a few tabs open every day on my system. Around 100 - 120 or so. Our help desk ticket system is RSS based. Using live bookmarks I can open all the tickets when I get in into each of their own tabs, that's about 20 to 40 tabs (depends on the day we're having.)

Next I open up all my Google tools, gmail/wave/docs/newsgroups/etc... That's about 10 tabs. Then I pop all the unread stories of Slashdot into slashdot (that's about 10 to 15 tabs, depends on what kind of news day it is). Do the same thing with BBC (That's usually about 20 to 25 tabs.) Then it's a couple of tabs for odd and end stuff. (usually around 20 to 30 tabs.)

Ctrl+W, Ctrl+Tab, Ctrl+K, F6, Ctrl+T, Ctrl+Shift+T all become my friends as I go through my tabs. After I'm done with the page it's a quick Ctrl+W or Ctrl+D/Ctrl+W. I know I'm getting towards the end of the day when most of my tabs are gone. A little Alt+Tab to switch between IDE, help tickets, VNC viewer, our TN-5250 terminal, and Firefox makes up my whole day. It's not often that I use the mouse but I do when simple Page Down/Page Up doesn't satisfy me on a page (Slashdot I'm looking at you most of the time) and when I'm using VNC viewer to show somebody where some function is in MS Office 2007's ribbon.

That's not to say I could go another route about how I organize myself and not open like 110 tabs in the morning and then spend the next nine (yes we work ten hour days) hours fluxing between 40 and 60 tabs, and then towards my tenth hour start reaching only ten to twenty tabs. I could open tabs as I need them but there are two cons to that.

1. I like thinking as my browser as my web inbox. I don't like having to go out and get each item one at a time and with our help desk ticket system, that would be the equal (in pain) of watching Richard Simmons working out to the oldies, not incredibly deadly at first, but at some paint you'll want to kill yourself for some reason you just can fully grasp.

2. I use the five minutes that it takes for the tabs to load to head over to the coffee machine and get my first couple cups of coffee in. (That's right a couple [2] cups of coffee in five minutes, my stomach as it stands has aged three time faster than the rest of me because of this regime.)

Hope that answers your question about people with butt loads of tabs. I know it might not be the best way but it's the way that seems best to work for me. Of course this coming from a person who is absolutely horrible to themselves health-wise. Trust me coffee is the lightest damage I do to myself.

Re:Open?

[houghi]

I also open a lot with 'Open All Tabs' as that is how I sorted them. Then look at them and close again. Although the idea is nice, for the way I use it. I will have more work.

Re:Open?

[NetNed]

Obviously you do not play fantasy sports sir!!!

Re:Open?

[Huge_UID]

No. I open many tabs on news sites, Slashdot, etc, then close them as I read them. Much faster than back to the source page.

Re:Open?

[hb253]

Nope, I do the same. Clean desktop, clean browser, I hate screen clutter.

I have a hunch that many of those who open tons of tabs are resource intensive in other parts of their lives.

Re:Open?

[hey]

That's my style too. (I also make sure my C++ objects are always free-ed up too.)

Re:Open?

[Matt Perry]

Am I the only one that opens up tabs to read the content and then closes the tab after doing so?

No, you're not. I do that too.

I don't really see why someone would have like 20+ tabs constantly just sitting open.

I feel the same way, not only about tabs but about programs on the computer. When I am done with a program, I close it. For example, once I finish reading Slashdot today, I'll close my browser and not open it again until I need to go to another web page later, even if "later" is only five or ten minutes from now. It's easier for me to get things out of the way if I'm not using them so there's less visual noise to sort through, be they tabs or entire programs.

Re:Open?

[Cylix]

While I work I actually do have several pages of things open. In fact, I could easily group several things and still have a section for screwing around.

I liked the ability to save groups of those tabs and then re-pop them back open later. I do that now with the "save and quit," but this would ultimately be a more fine grained approach.

Thinking back now... I actually close out a lot of things constantly to simply get back to a clean slate. If I could close one group and re-open it later that wouldn't be too bad.

Now they had a fairly good idea and they completely whacked it out. The damn thing analyzes what you are reading and finds advertisements for you. Which also means the capability to track what you are doing is inherit.

I shit you not... this is a feature... watch the video.

Re:Open?

[danwesnor]

OK, so it takes 8s to open a web page. How many tabs can you open in 8s? This thing is cool, no doubt, but for me it seems like more work than it saves.

Re:Open?

[Anonymous Coward]

Normally true, however often times i have 5-6 datasheets open at work along with a schematic or probably 2 and an actual browsing window. That usually puts me up around 10 tabs, not the 20+ you are talking but still a fair bit to be consistently using as opposed to opening and closing.

Re:Open?

[ArsonSmith]

somewhere between 6 and 12.

Re:Open?

[Chibi Merrow]

Well, just as an example... I often have something like the documentation to three to five Qt objects open at once, as well as some Qt forum or code example, as well as the OpenSceneGraph and Boost documentation for 1-N libraries, Gmail, our internal e-mail, Google Docs, 1-3 of our internal ticket tracking pages (depending on which projects I'm working on/using at the time), probably a few scattered tabs to mailing list archives to try and understand how a specific piece of code I'm using is SUPPOSED to work, one or two tabs for Slashdot, one or two tabs for Wikipedia... I can keep going.

Some of us don't just use our web browsers "to read content," some of us are doing actual work. :)

Re:Open?

[Omestes]

Hey, instead of Tab Candy(which seems like a hell of a lot of work to organize tabs while browsing) how about you just learn to properly use a tabbed browser?

So the only proper way of doing things is your way? When I'm trying to research something (currently Windows 7 terrible wireless transfer rates to samba), I will open a TON of links in new tabs, then browse through them, quickly deleting the ones that don't work, or look dumb, moving the ones that might need more time over to the far left, and reading through the ones that may or may not be helpful. I find this much more efficient than just opening a link, reading it, going back and reading the next. Sometimes I use my browser for more than one (gasp) task, like reading /. while troubleshooting something, while doing a random Wikipedia crawl, Oh dear. I know, I'm doing it wrong.

I generally only have around 5 tabs open when I'm doing normal browsing, but at times I can have well over 15 (currently reading 3 wikipedia pages, two /. stories, something on Lifehacker, something on CNN.com, a future dinner at Cooks.com, and I have my RSS reader open, which is 9 tabs... I have no problem keeping track.).

On top of that, it's actually faster to just open a second copy of the browser with a different group of tabs than it is to organize with Tab Candy.

Faster, yes. But does it work as well with some people? I generally only have one browser window open, having more than one annoys me, and I often completely forget about the bottom one. Having 2+ windows open remind of using IE6. I don't mind adding functionality, as long as its optional or has low overhead. I will even try it out, just to see if it might make my work flow better. It might. I realize the way I do things is completely arbitrary, as is the way EVERYONE does things, so something might work a bit better.

Re:Open?

[Anonymous Coward]

I do the same thing, but I also think that Tab Candy is worthless for another reason. Why not just open up a new browser window for each "category" of tabs that you want? All this does is move the organisation of tab groups into the browser, which actually looks much more cumbersome to manage than using multiple windows.

I use Opera and when I want to do something like this, I simply grab the tab and drag it out to my desktop and it automatically becomes its own window. I wouldn't be surprised if other browsers support doing this too.

Re:Open?

[Captain Splendid]

Same here, first with Session Saver then with FF's built-in tab restorer.

Mix it in with the awesome bar, and bookmarks are almost useless.

Re:Open?

[DarkKnightRadick]

I have probably around 7k bookmarks.

Re:Open?

[antdude]

I can sometimes go crazy like 30 tabs or even more. I like a big Internet addict and love to explore the Internet so I open a bunch of links at once.

Re:Open?

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd be far better off using something like Evernote or OneNote. Trying to keep documentation and references organized via multiple pages is a bit silly.

Re:Open?

[LBt1st]

I don't use tabs at all. I've got a taskbar already and see no reason to have two places to look when locating a window. All of these examples just go to show how differently people use their computers. So although I won't personally have any use for this feature I'm sure many people will. The more interface options the better.

Re:Open?

[R.Mo_Robert]

I'd say "maybe." Tabs are great for opening things, reading them, then closing them in ways that the "Back" button can't match. Back in the day, I loved Opera and then Mozilla for allowing me to silently load pages in the background as I read the current one; then they'd be ready for me when I was ready for them. This was especially important on my dial-up connection (hey, I did say "back in the day").

Basically, it was faster and more convenient. Of course, I could have always done the same in new windows--which, until tabs came along, I did. But this behavior--particularly, selective background loading--certainly could not have been done with just "Back." However, even on broadband, I'm finding ways to move beyond this, just as you mention (e.g., keeping Pandora or some reference material open in the background).

Re:Open?

[not flu]

Assuming the links are closely spaced, dozens.

Re:Open?

[Vash21]

never had 7k, but i used to have a hundreds, then i found out how useless they become after a period of time. When you have that many it becomes too much to sift through, even if you have it very well organized (i can't imagine 7k, i wouldn't be surprised if you are exaggerating even a bit) After i switch from FF to chrome i now have around 50, and they are only the ones in my Bookmarks Bar, and ones that i save for reference later. i.e. i just made a bookmark yesterday of a page that i happened upon that has the extended ASCII codes for a quick future reference instead a possibly irritating google search trying to find a visually pleasing one as it is.

My point is, you guys seem to have the "it if its not broken why improve argument, which coming from slashdot is actually kinda surprising. I can't wait for this to come officially to FF, if chrome doesn't have something similar soon after its released, you may see a re-convert in the future.

Re:Open?

[DarkKnightRadick]

well ok, not quite 7k (not even 2k, actually). But it's still a lot (1830, not including live bookmarks and folders). I just counted them. Gah. Too many.

Re:Open?

[Calinous]

I use tabs to maintain a "history" of sites/pages/threads that I will read in the near future (like I do a google search, open five tabs, from the first tab open another three tabs, and I keep web mail open in another tab and so on).
      Otherwise, the magic in the address bar (quick finder or whatever) - I just type some words and let Firefox suggest the page (or let Google suggest the page)

Re:Open?

[DarkKnightRadick]

That's too many tabs. I have my IM client alert me to my web mail, keep open at most three tabs (unless I'm searching and then it can get up to 12-15 tabs).

I do love the magic url bar. It's history recommendations are spot on (:

Re:Open?

[Chibi Merrow]

From a cursory glance I fail to see how Evernote will help me in keeping track of other people's documentation, which is hosted/updated on their websites... Evernote also lacks a Linux client (and OneNote is a Microsoft product, so fat chance on ever getting Linux support there...)

Maybe I don't understand, but I don't see how my use-case fits their purpose, or how using them would be better than what I'm currently using.

Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, give me a feature which autosizes the thumbnails on the thumbnail view automatically, weighted by how often I go to the site.

Re:Interesting

[WrongSizeGlass]

I think Safari's "Top Sites" allows you to pick how many sites you want listed, auto-sizes the page previews and arranges them by most visited (you can also 'pin' a specific site to a specific spot). I'm sure this stuff is available in other browsers too.

Re:Interesting

[pushing-robot]

I think he means that the pages he visits most should appear larger than other thumbnails, like in a tag cloud. Safari (and other browsers) currently just show a grid of equally sized, equally spaced thumbnails.

Reinventing the window?

[kangsterizer]

When I want to group tabs, I make new windows. In fact i rarely have more than 5 tabs per window, then 2-3 windows open. It's easy to navigate and organized, and also happens to be the way it's supposed to be done in current operating systems.

Maybe I"m just old school.

Re:Reinventing the window?

[sakdoctor]

Let's see, I've got multiple workspaces, with multiple instances of firefox running, and each has one or more tab.

But something is missing. It's just not fine grained enough.
If only tabs could have tabs!

Re:Reinventing the window?

[Biogenesis]

That method works to some degree. The problem is that it requires a good memory of what's open and where it is. This feature seems to give you a graphical snapshot of everything which, for some people, would make finding an open tab faster given that a) they don't have to remember where is is and b) it allows their brain to process graphical rather than textual information.

Re:Reinventing the window?

[hdparm]

You can name workspaces and chose to have their names displayed.

Re:Reinventing the window?

[je ne sais quoi]

That's what I thought at first when I watched the video also. However, there's one big difference -- tab candy seems to remember your groups of tabs, but is still flexible about creating and destroying them, and it will be searchable. If you're using virtual desktops and sets of windows, you can group those, but I always found the groupings to be clumsy and my workflow changes often enough that just calling one desktop "e-mail" and other "ssh session to X server" just doesn't work. Similarly, with a browser, you have to go through a lot of trouble organizing the windows and tabs and unless you've got your browser doing the same things all the time, it isn't worth a lot of organization.

After thinking about what they were doing for a bit, I realized that what they just came up with is essentially a spacial manager for the bookmark menu that makes adding and removing bookmarks and groups of bookmarks easy and rapid. Let's say you have three folders in your bookmark menu, the tab candy seems to give you a way to see and manage the contents of all those folders rapidly. I think it'll be cool, but it's hard to say how useful it will be. The only other thing like it that I know of for browsers is Safari's "Top Sites" feature. I find that fairly useful, often if it's a site I use often I don't even bother looking for the site in my menubar, I just open a new tab (which shows the top site window) and click on the thumbnail. It requires less thinking than finding something in a bookmark menu.

Re:Reinventing the window?

[jginspace]

Tab Kit? https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5447/

Re:Reinventing the window?

[grumbel]

Tab itself are already a reinvention of the window, what this add-on does looks closer to reinventing the bookmark. As the way one can organize the tabs into categories and stuff is much closer to what you get today with bookmarks, then what you can do with tabs. Which raises the question how that is going to work in practice, as in practice I don't consider tabs to be permanent 'links' to webpages, but temporary containers, i.e. does your whole carefully created layout go down the toiled if you decide to use your "research" window for searching for the newest video game or whatever? Do you have to remember to always use a new window for a new webpage? Or is there magic working that makes webpages 'stick' to a tab? I think for this to work properly one might need to not only reinvent the tab, but also the way the forward/back buttons work, as their use doesn't really make much sense if you lay all tabs flat on a 2D plane.

Anyway, overall it looks like an interesting add-on and like an implementation of a zoomable interface that actually might work very well for some use cases and for those looking for a simpler enhancement for tabs there is always Tree Style Tabs.

Re:Reinventing the window?

[CharlyFoxtrot]

I admit I came to this video with the same reservations but there was some stuff in there that got me exited: sharing tabs with other users by drag-n-drop, even better: doing the same with other devices and multiple simultaneous profiles, which for some reason they buried somewhere in the middle.

Re:Reinventing the window?

[Anonymous Coward]

Phe, we have multiple virtual OS running, we are logged as multiple users, each user has multiple virtuall deskto[s running several browser windows, each with multiple tabs.
Our doctor says its no good but me feels giving a chabce to develop each of my multiple personalities.

Re:Reinventing the window?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yo Dawg, I heard you like tabs in your tabs........

Re:Reinventing the window?

[RadioElectric]

In my experience at least, tabs were the death of the bookmark. I hardly know of anybody who still uses the bookmark feature in their browser rather than just keeping the interesting page in a tab as a "I'll go back to that later".

Re:Reinventing the window?

[shellbeach]

Humour aside, this problem of tab groups got solved yonks ago with the TreeStyleTabs extension. Tabs are in a vertical tree, indented to show their relationship to one another, and the position -- and relationships -- between tabs can be adjusted by dragging and dropping tabs.

It basically does all that this Tab Candy thing claims to do, but much more effectively and without needing swanky eye candy. Plus you can see all your tabs all the time; you don't have to zoom out.

Not that Tab Candy doesn't look neat, but I seriously question its practical usefulness over something like treestyletabs.

Re:Reinventing the window?

[clintp]

A quick poll of the users in the house, and ... yeah, we all do the same thing and it works quite well. Slow news day?

Lots of tabs got you down?
1. Drag a Firefox tab of onto the desktop, you get a new window.
2. Drag related tabs onto that new window.

Look! Grouped! The tabs retain their individual histories as well.

Re:Reinventing the window?

[selven]

Yo dawg, I heard you like tabs...

Re:Reinventing the window?

[FiloEleven]

I use TreeStyleTabs and it's better than nothing, but it's far from optimal. I don't like giving up a sixth of my width to keep everything in view, and it doesn't play nicely with all websites--sometimes you have to hide the tabs in order to see a whole video frame, other times text goes off the right side of the screen without a horizontal scroll bar to see it, etc. I recently tried the Top view, more like a conventional tab bar, but then the trees expand horizontally which is confusing and not useful.

I think Tab Candy strikes a nice balance. All tabs in your current tab group are displayed across the top, taking up minimal space. With a button press (there had better be a keyboard shortcut), you can bring up all of your tab groups and pick the one you want. This simplifies navigation and doesn't sacrifice real-estate. It won't work for everyone, but it looks perfect for my browsing habits.

Re:Reinventing the window?

[Anonymous Coward]

You watched Inception. didn't you?

Re:Reinventing the window?

[AP31R0N]

Yo dawg i herd you like tabbed browsing so we but tabs in your tabs so you can browse while you browse.

Re:Reinventing the window?

[StuffMaster]

I absolutely agree, and I can't wait for Mozilla to switch to a multi-process model like Chrome.

Re:Reinventing the window?

[Pollardito]

I have a real problem with multiple window browsing in Firefox. If I ever want to shutdown the browser the only way to kill multiple windows and still have them restored in the next session is to kill Firefox with Task Manager. Exit and Alt-F4 seem to treat the currently active window as an independent application, and so they just kill that one and not the others.

Gnome Desktop

[Nerdfest]

This looks very much like what is coming in out in Gnome Desktop (Gnome 3) as well. As someone who generally has 40 or 50 tabs open, I'm looking forward to it. If it allows me to search tabs quickly with a hotkey and a couple of words like Mozilla Ubiquity did I'll be extra happy.

Re:Gnome Desktop

[Nerdfest]

Sorry, I keep say Gnome Desktop when I mean Gnome Shell. Gnome shell uses a very similar approach with desktop windows.

Tree Style Tabs

[Leynos]

The "Tree Style Tabs" add on is great for managing your browsing. It gives your tabs context, lets you collapse groups of tabs and move tabs from one group to another. That, and having the tabs vertically arranged lets you have far more on screen at once and make better use of a widescreen monitor. Solving many of the problems addressed by Tab Candy.

I'm really surprised more people don't use it. It's the one thing now preventing me from switching to Chrome.

Re:Tree Style Tabs

[Windwraith]

I use this addon as well, and it's as good as it gets. It's simple and intuitive and when you have several tabs open, it's much better (specially when reading API docs that have one separate page per function call).

Re:Tree Style Tabs

[improfane]

I use Tree Style Tabs and combined with Vimperator. Never going back.

This guy made ubiquity which I like too, judging from the video, they have a big sense of direction which is nice.

Re:Tree Style Tabs

[Windwraith]

Unfortunately Ubiquity is...dead? At least I haven't read anything related to it in months (judging from Planet Mozilla and other sources).
I loved it, except for it not being really portable (had strong issues with multi-OS/portable installs because of using absolute paths). But, alas, some commands grew obsolete with time, it wasn't being updated for recent versions, bugs, etc... A real shame, it was a lovable little tool with a lot of potential. Didn't Ubiquity start to fade (except for its fans) around the time Jetpacks started to come around? I remember pretty enthusiastic blog posts until then.

Re:Tree Style Tabs

[moonbender]

In fact, Tree Style Tabs is very similar to this Tab Candy thing: both are (among other things) hierarchical visualizations of tabs. With Tab Candy it's more of a flat hierarchy, though he does introduce meta groups at a later stage. Anyway, the big difference is that Tab Candy uses an expose mode to manage the tabs, while Tree Style Tabs manages them in the boring favicon + title way. The expose thing looks great, but I'm not sure if it's suited all that way to managing tabs -- tab thumbnails never did anything for me, one Slashdot page looks a lot like another, and the same is true for API pages, forum threads, etc. And Tree Style Tabs has the big advantage of being self-organising, since each tab forms an implicit tab group, and new tabs are automatically added to their parent tabs.

Re:Tree Style Tabs

[slaingod]

Unfortunately the name is "Tree Style Tab" not "Tabs" which is probably a BIG reason why more people don't use it.

When you do a search on addons.mozilla.org for "tabs" it isn't anywhere near the top.

Re:Tree Style Tabs

[houghi]

Having the tabs vertically is sometjing I would not like. Now I can have a browser and some other program open on my widescreen. Then I would be able to run only one program.

And what I do is 'open all tabs' from my bookmarks, read them and then close them again.

Re:Tree Style Tabs

[Zerth]

chrome --enable-vertical-tabs

Re:Tree Style Tabs

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? That's the one thing? It's not the fact that ABP for Firefox works much better than Ad Block for Chrome? It even blocks Youtube ads where as Chrome's doesn't. That's the one thing for me, I could care less about tab clutter, that's easily solved by buying more monitors.

Re:Tree Style Tabs

[laddiebuck]

Try Tab Kit too one time -- it's got less fine-grained control for rearranging the tab tree, but it highlights unread tabs in a different colour and this state persists across sessions (for which I use SessionManager).

I prefer tabsbookmarks

[improfane]

I've never used bookmarks properly. I just type in the topmost URL and then navigate to the page I want. Terrible, I know. There are many different ways to use the web, I've personally seen a lot of the following with friends and family:

• Use search engine terms to get to websites
• Put URL in search engine to get to websites
• Use bookmarks to get everywhere: I know people who have a huge bookmark list, organised into folders
• Use only one website and click links in comments/profiles from there (farcebook)
• Use portal pages (Yahoo!, MSN, Google)

One problem I have with bookmarks is that it's so 'open' and available to people to browse. I wouldn't want my bookmarks to be seen by everyone. What I want is a 'super lightweight tab' architecture where a tab actually represents the bookmark and only loads if I click it, which definitely beats loading 100s of tabs on startup...

I switch between browsers and computers so much that keeping my bookmarks sycned would be too hard to be worth it. A few years ago I was more of a explorative surfer, now I tend to limit myself to very few daily websites and go from there.

Re:I prefer tabsbookmarks

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen a friend use the browser's search box (defaulting to google) to search for google, then use the google homepage to search for the name of the site they want.

Re:I prefer tabsbookmarks

[Snarky McButtface]

Have you considered xmarks? Not only can you use it to sync bookmarks among computers, you can sync among supported browsers as well.

Re:I prefer tabsbookmarks

[Lennie]

And have you considered Firefox Sync / Firefox Home for the iPhone. :-)

So you can not only sync bookmarks, but also history and preferences, it's password-protected and encrypted and normally sent over https so you don't have to worry someone taking a look at your bookmarks.

You don't have to use the Mozilla server, but you can also use your own.

Re:I prefer tabsbookmarks

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen a friend use the browser's search box (defaulting to google) to search for google, then use the google homepage to search for the name of the site they want.

I sometimes do that using OSX/Safari because it doesn't take you to the google homepage when you enter an empty search string. I may not (for whatever reason) want a particular search term showing for shoulder surfers in the browsers search history. What I don't want to do is disable or clear the search history because I do make use of the feature.

Re:I prefer tabsbookmarks

[Windwraith]

I read about what you want in a recent ghacks post, try this: https://addons.mozilla.org/z/en-US/firefox/addon/67651/
I just installed it and seems to be what you ask for, and I am liking it a lot so far.

Re:I prefer tabsbookmarks

[BrokenHalo]

My homepage is a fairly simple (but not unattractive) local html file with a table of about 20 (or so) most frequently used URLs represented by gimped-up transparent png icons (one of which leads me straight to Google's advanced search). This, in combination with the childishly simple New Tab Homepage add-on saves me lots of time.

Re:I prefer tabsbookmarks

[Cl1mh4224rd]

One problem I have with bookmarks is that it's so 'open' and available to people to browse. I wouldn't want my bookmarks to be seen by everyone. What I want is a 'super lightweight tab' architecture where a tab actually represents the bookmark and only loads if I click it [...]

Wait, what? Bookmarks lack a certain amount of privacy which makes you uncomfortable using them, but you're OK with a feature that is nothing more than a bookmark-as-a-tab? I can't follow this logic...

Re:I prefer tabsbookmarks

[improfane]

One is there until I close it. (a tab is just like any other tab but only loads when you click it)
One persists until I delete it. (it's in a easy to find file on your hard disk)

At least the thing about tabs is that someone could see that *anyway* if they were behind me. ...so If I'm on a website and I want to browse it later, I just make a tab for it but it only loads if I click it.

I see that the way it was worded isn't very clear, I had a double take myeslf just now. I suppose the same applies to session files on your hard disk and that pretty much destroys my argument unless my tabs are synced online only...

Re:I prefer tabsbookmarks

[Tacvek]

Chrome currently has "phantom tabs". They are pinned tabs that have been closed. They show up in the tab bar just like all other pinned tabs, but they are slightly translucent, to distinguish them from other pinned tabs. They have no attached rendering engine, so the only resources they consume are those needed to display the favicon. But click on it, and a rendering engine is spawned, and the tab acts just like any other.

Thus when made phantom they would qualify as super-lightweight. Granted that currently it is only experimental, and the tabs do not reopen in phantom state but regular pinned-tab state, but that is coming.

Similarly, this tab-candy extension is looking at releasing the resources of tabs that have not been used recently n a similar fashion.

Re:I prefer tabsbookmarks

[Omestes]

How exactly do I take a tab from pinned to "phantom", using the latest dev version?

Damn on the sly upgrades, and the lack of quickly available patch notes!

Re:I prefer tabsbookmarks

[Keeper Of Keys]

This may seem dumb behaviour, but it's actually indicative of bad usability. Many people don't understand why there are two text inputs at the top of their browser. Presumably this is why Chrome merged them.

Oh, great.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now the browser comes with a window manager inside.

Just waiting for them to come with an init, libc, X server, DBUS-daemon, and (ugh!) PulseAudio and other bloaty goodnesses.

Yuck.

No preview for me

[MichaelSmith]

I ran opera for a while and it had this nice preview feature where it would give you a thumbnail of frequently visited sites. I stopped using it because there are some places I go to which I don't want to appear, even as thumbnails, when there are people around who might take an interest. Some of them have really crappy eyesight, which is a godsend, but I don't like relying on things like that.

Re:No preview for me

[Anonymous Coward]

ctrl-shift-p ftw!

What about the Firefox Showcase extension?

[SpzToid]

Saw the video of TFA and it seems Showcase does The Job, and is 'mature' as well; while not requiring so much manual intervention (which others might value as a Good Thing). I've been using it for at least a year and really like Showcase.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1810

Road to unreliability

[improfane]

I agree with you: the desktop environment should be doing this stuff. I like Windows Fences but it only applies to files and folders. I believe the reason is the difficulty to 'render' graphics, text and arbitrary media in desktop level code. With web layout rendering engines and Javascript and DOM, it's quicker to implement a snazzy interface that it would be in low level code.

It's sad to see that 'drag and drop', window algorithms, redraw algorithms are reimplemented again and again ontop of eachother without actually being used.

Browser for work?

[ThePhilips]

I would definitely like to use that at home.

But something tells me that Fx4 would be as dumb and useless as Chrome is - for work. At work I need something reliable and flexible to accommodate all the silly needs of the intranet web apps. Chrome's lacking bookmarks (no bookmarks menu; no bookmark shortcuts; no keyword search), poor/non-existent keyboard shortcuts and silent updates (which constantly screw up the most visited sites tab; silently break extensions) ruined my experience with it on pretty much all occasions I have tried to use it. Way too primitive, way too dumb, way too unmanageable.

Seems I have to start looking for a new browser for office sooner than expected. But that is not an easy task. FireFox at least to me is quite unique: uncluttered plain user interface interface with configurability second only to ... earlier Fx versions. Opera is too cluttered with unorthodox UI. IE is an archetype for Chrome and fails similarly. Should try SeaMonkey next...

My most hated feature of FireFox (borrowed from Opera) is the fast start-up with tab content being pulled from cache. Once I worked on severe regression: debugged for two+ weeks straight. Finally I localized/fixed the problem, checked in the changes and took rest of the week off. Next Monday in office I booted my laptop and started FireFox. As home page in office I have the shared team to do list web app. And it showed me that I *again* have the very same highest-prio issue on to do list, meaning that all the analysis/testing done before is wrong and after all the weeks of work regression still persists. Cold sweat wiped, gulped two cups of coffee, stretched my fingers and came back to the cubicle readying myself for another week+ of shitty work. Only to notice that the FireFox actually pulled the cached view of the to do list from the week before.....

Re:Browser for work?

[Anaerin]

But something tells me that Fx4 would be as dumb and useless as Chrome is - for work. At work I need something reliable and flexible to accommodate all the silly needs of the intranet web apps. Chrome's lacking bookmarks (no bookmarks menu; no bookmark shortcuts; no keyword search), poor/non-existent keyboard shortcuts and silent updates (which constantly screw up the most visited sites tab; silently break extensions) ruined my experience with it on pretty much all occasions I have tried to use it. Way too primitive, way too dumb, way too unmanageable.

Whatchoo talkin' bout, Philips? Chrome has Bookmarks. If you hit the little star in the address bar, it bookmarks the current page (And allows you to customise where that bookmark is saved). When you open a new (empty) tab, the bookmark bar is shown by default as part of the "New tab" page. This behaviour can be overridden by right-clicking the bookmark bar on an empty tab and choosing "Always show bookmarks bar", which them promotes it to it's typical place just under the address bar. And Chrome does have Keyword search, too, but it's not a hacky addition to Bookmarks, instead it's part of the "Search engines", which you can easily edit by right-clicking the address bar and choosing "Edit search engines"

Now, personally I use Firefox (Technically, Minefield), as I find the experience better, and I couldn't live without Firebug.

Re:Browser for work?

[ThePhilips]

Thanks a bunch. Really. Google is even better than Mozilla at hiding functionality. (Though Mozilla definitely has better community and documentation: finding tips and tricks is easy, if needed at all. about:config takes care of 90% of issues.)

That leaves though another major hole: silent auto-updates. Year ago there was no option to be prompted on updates. Neither Chrome has yet a semi-decent release notes: even if it's going to suggest an update to me, it is nearly impossible to know what the update might bring as there are no release notes whatsoever. Here I'd love to be proven wrong again.

Another minor nag: Chrome opens page in a new tab, next to the current tab. Is it possible to make the new tab to be open as last one? I have in office three standard tabs open and for convenience I keep them as first three. From this first three tabs I open other pages/tabs. Now in Chrome the order gets messed up very quickly and one has to rearrange tabs constantly to keep the first three important tabs in the place where I expect to find them. Is there any option to disable that and make tabs behave as in pre-Fx3.5? (Fx has an about:config option for that.)

Re:Browser for work?

[Anaerin]

That leaves though another major hole: silent auto-updates. Year ago there was no option to be prompted on updates. Neither Chrome has yet a semi-decent release notes: even if it's going to suggest an update to me, it is nearly impossible to know what the update might bring as there are no release notes whatsoever. Here I'd love to be proven wrong again.

I found some here, though I'm sure Google would recommend that you use the Stable release branch if you don't want things breaking.

Another minor nag: Chrome opens page in a new tab, next to the current tab. Is it possible to make the new tab to be open as last one? I have in office three standard tabs open and for convenience I keep them as first three. From this first three tabs I open other pages/tabs. Now in Chrome the order gets messed up very quickly and one has to rearrange tabs constantly to keep the first three important tabs in the place where I expect to find them. Is there any option to disable that and make tabs behave as in pre-Fx3.5? (Fx has an about:config option for that.)

Chrome opens tabs the way it does to try and keep a rudimentary history going, grouping related tabs together. You will be pleased to know, however, that there is an extension made just for people who don't like this, to enable "Firefox-like" tab ordering.

Re:Browser for work?

[ThePhilips]

I found some here, though I'm sure Google would recommend that you use the Stable release branch if you don't want things breaking.

I have seen those. Yes, they are mostly useless as official releases pushed silently to users are concerned.

Chrome opens tabs the way it does to try and keep a rudimentary history going, grouping related tabs together. You will be pleased to know, however, that there is an extension made just for people who don't like this, to enable "Firefox-like" tab ordering.

Well... it kind of ... works: tabs jump around as one opens them. I'm not sure whether it is better than nothing. It spares the menial work of bringing the tabs back in order, but the funky animation side-effect is sure confusing.

N.B. FireFox since 3.5 (or 3.6?) adopted the same tab ordering as the Chrome. But they provided an about:config option to manage it.

Anyway, I see that Chrome is getting better. But it is not there yet. Though if FireFox would continue its advances on front of being dumb and dumber, Chrome might get a real chance on my office laptop.

Not only TV Tropes but other wikis as well

[tepples]

Thus speaks a man who has never experienced the addictive tab-craziness of TV Tropes ;)

Or Wikipedia. Or Encyclopedia Dramatica. Or Ward's Wiki and Everything2, which were probably the originators of this densely hyperlinked style that encourages hyperbrowsing.

Sidebars need a wider screen

[tepples]

I'm really surprised more people don't use it.

Vertical tab lists and other sidebars really need a monitor at least 1280px wide. Some people such as myself have an old 1024x768px monitor or a netbook with a 1024x600px monitor, and more and more web sites are designed to run maximized across the entire width of such a monitor.

Re:Sidebars need a wider screen

[bdraschk]

Some people such as myself have an old 1024x768px monitor

Yeah, some people. Other people who buy a modern monitor have few other options that getting 16:9 or 16:10 displays. With one of these, you're more than happy about Tree Style Tabs. In fact, I am even worried no such extension will be available for Firefox 4 when tabs are move to the window bar.

or a netbook with a 1024x600px monitor, and more and more web sites are designed to run maximized across the entire width of such a monitor.

Yes, for the small display of my netbook i do not use Tree Style Tabs, but here i have seldom more than four tabs open at the same time.

Re:Sidebars need a wider screen

[doti]

Tree Style Tab is about more than displaying tabs vertically. The hierarchical arrangement of the tabs is even more useful.

Re:Sidebars need a wider screen

[Anonymous Coward]

Try Fox Tab. Yes, evil Flash add-on, and it is a far cry from Tab Candy. I use Tree Style Tab and Fox Tab. Fox Tab requires you activate it with a right-left button click combo where TST just sits on the right side all the time. TST can make the screen of my 12" laptop crowded, but I have no complaints when browsing on the 19" monitor.

Tab Mix Plus

[veganboyjosh]

Until recently, my internet experience called for no more than 10 tabs to be open, ever. I've started a new job which calls for a lot of browsing on a lot of websites. The other day I got up to 80 tabs open at the same time.

I'm a huge fan of the Tab Mix Plus Firefox add-on. It allows you to have multiple rows of tabs, and even set unread tabs and current tab to a different colors. Very helpful for visually seeing what's been read, where the new tabs are, where the actual tab is for the page you're on, etc. Especially when there's 20+ open tabs on your screeen at once.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1122/

Too much configuration will make you go blind

[wrencherd]

After watching the video, there may be some good things about "tab candy" (it is nice to imagine that you could bunch tabs into little piles that would then form themselves into windows), but a lot of the downside is still there or has merely changed form.

If you pile several tabs into one lump and close that lump w/o thinking, you may realize that you just closed something that you needed--what was it? where is it? how do I get it back?

The problem of absent-minded browsing is always there, no matter how the windows/tabs may be rearranged.

Also--although Aza (at least as edited) was pretty smooth at his version of 3-card monte--amidst the blur of his presentation there seemed to be a lot of time spent doing what the (software) browser wants to do (i.e. configuration) and not what the (human) browser wants to do (like reading horoscopes, nattering away on /., viewing paparazzi produce, etc.).

After configuring speed dial, morning coffee foxtab, and all of the toolbars, and after managing bookmarks, and choosing skins, persona and theme, a person just needs to get up and go to the bathroom now and again.

Re:Too much configuration will make you go blind

[Lennie]

"If you pile several tabs into one lump and close that lump w/o thinking, you may realize that you just closed something that you needed--what was it? where is it? how do I get it back? "

Why do you think Firefox has at the bottom of the history-menu a 'recently closed windows'. It's for this situation, it works really well. :-)

Re:Too much configuration will make you go blind

[wrencherd]

That's my point.

The video made it seem that having/configuring tab candy would move the user forward.

But, as you've pointed out, since the browser already provides this function in another way--one that does not have to be configured--tab candy doesn't really "solve the problem" (of absent-mindedness) but only makes the user work harder for the (human) privilege of being forgetful.

My apologies if that was not clear in the first instance.

Re:Too much configuration will make you go blind

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, ctrl+shift+n does that same thing as fast as possible :)

Re:Too much configuration will make you go blind

[mgblst]

Comments like your feel like Slashdot has been overrun by morons, who are trying to prove to everyone that they can think.

There are a lot ot tab extensions...

[IANAAC]

they all mostly work well for what they're trying to do.

I use Foxtab - somewhat similar, but really pretty useful on a netbook, since you can get rid of the actual tabs and call up the interface as needed.

Trapped geeks

[Anonymous Coward]

How does this improve the world?

Reinventing Opera

[Anonymous Coward]

Opera have had this since I first started to use it in 1996. Except they called it "Multiple document interface" (but it is still a bit more advanced then most other applications with MDI). And yes, you can group windows/tabs together.

Firefox users used to complain about Operas MDI being to complicated (but other applications have become more and more like Opera, so this is perhaps not true any longer), on the other hand, they also used to complain about Operas tabs.

hmmm

[Charliemopps]

now if all the web apps I'm required to use at work would work in firefox...

Re:hmmm

[SpammersAreScum]

Perhaps the ietab2 or ietab plus addon would solve your problem?

Shiira

[Landak]

The OS X-only, Webkit based (japanese) browser, Shiira, has had this "tab-sposé" feature for years. It was written during a period when Safari "showed promise" but was nowhere near properly usable, but doesn't appear to be well maintained at the moment, which is (imo) something of a pity.

Basic tab managment features missing...

[roubles]

Firefox (vanilla) currently lacks _very_ basic tab management features like:
* Multi-row tabs
* Undo Closed tab(s)
* Properly highlighting current tab
* Highlighting of unread tabs
* Tab context menu is missing:
**** Duplicate Tab
**** Close other tabs
* Some sort of smart grouping of tabs like: Tree Style Tabs
* Tab counter
* Auto refresh tabs
* Highlighting of the following kinds of tabs is missing:
**** Current tab
**** Tabs that refreshed and not been read
* Some sort of smart aging of tabs
* Ability to be able to read tab titles that exceeds the tab width (fisheye tab extension)
* Intelligently grouping tabs (by domain for starters)
* Preview open tabs
* Text search through open tabs

All of the above are available via firefox extensions. And I understand the argument to keep them outside the main browser to eliminate bloat and enhance security.

However, it seems like firefox product management has (finally) realized that more and more users have a ton of tabs open, and they finally need to add tab management features inherently in the browser. But why add something like tab candy, when there is so much else they can start by adding that will enhance productivity? Why start with something that is so complex and bug-prone? I would try to get the low hanging fruit first and then learn from those experiences.

If I were managing a competitive browser (like IE or Chrome), then implementing most of the above would, I believe, put a massive dent in firefox's user base (at least the power users would be gone).

For the record: My tab counter tells me I have 95 tabs open right now, some from work, some for online shopping, some for email, some open for info guilt (wikipedia, gizmodo, slashdot, other blogs), some for news and so on...

Re:Basic tab managment features missing...

[clgoh]

Undo closed tab is there: Ctrl-shift-t

Also, in History menu: Recently Closed Tabs submenu.

Re:Basic tab managment features missing...

[Anonymous Coward]

* Multi-row tabs

Unnecessary use of space when you can scroll through them and tabs can be listed through a convenient tab list if needed (with previews in Fx4 - not sure about earlier versions).

Undo Closed tab(s)

Control+Shift+T as well as menu History - Recently closed tabs.

* Properly highlighting current tab

It's styled differently, usually highlighted in a different lighter colour. Seems like "_very_ basic" functionality to me.

* Highlighting of unread tabs

Nothing basic about that. I would wager that your "basic" user opens tabs to later view them as needed. If a tab is open it likely to be "unread". If it is read and no longer needed then it is likely then closed. No need to highlight the fact that it is unread since most users are smart enough to release what they have read or not.

* Tab context menu is missing:
**** Duplicate Tab

Control+drag tab. I'll give you that it is missing from the context menu.
**** Close other tabs

This *is* in the context menu. It is titled "Close Other Tabs" interestingly enough (maybe the capitalization threw you off).

* Some sort of smart grouping of tabs like: Tree Style Tabs

Basic functionality opens related tabs next to the tab that opened it. Anything more is not so basic.

* Tab counter

Why would your basic user need such a thing?

* Auto refresh tabs

What is that and why would a basic user need such a thing? If is such a critical basic function, I'm sure it would exist.

* Highlighting of the following kinds of tabs is missing:
**** Current tab
**** Tabs that refreshed and not been read

You somewhat repeat yourself but current tab is already highlighted. Auto-refreshing of tabs would not be basic functionality. It could be potentially risky to have a page refresh/resubmit data and lose a state or information without the explicit action of the user. Auto-refresh would be better suited as an extension if needed by particular users.

* Some sort of smart aging of tabs

Again, seems like something more than "_very_ basic" functionality to me.

* Ability to be able to read tab titles that exceeds the tab width (fisheye tab extension)

If you hover over the tab title you see a tool tip of the tab title. If you click on the tab you (currently) see the tab title in the title bar. Need isn't any more basic than that.

* Intelligently grouping tabs (by domain for starters)

You repeat yourself.

* Preview open tabs

Exists in Fx4 in the tab list, when cycling through tabs with Control+Tab, and in Win7 Tab previews in the task bar. All basic functionality.

* Text search through open tabs

Now that may be useful. I'll give you that.

For the record: My tab counter tells me I have 95 tabs open right now

That's nice but regular users don't need to go around waving their tab count around as if it means anything to anyone.

So much for "_very_ basic" functionality.

Re:Basic tab managment features missing...

[BZ]

Your list contains at least two inaccuracies:

1) "Undo Closed Tab" is present in at least three places (context menu, keyboard shortcut, main menu).
2) "Close Other Tabs" is right there in the tab context menu.

That's just the obvious things I use every day in a "vanilla Firefox" that were on your list...

This is a good example...

[Coppit]

This is a good example of a solution devised by an engineer. Somehow they think that peering at icons, dragging and dropping them, and organizing them into a hierarchy is really something the average user would want to do. The average user will find this solution worse than the problem. A better solution is to simply do what Chrome does and open new tabs next to the originating tab. It doesn't solve all the world's problems, but it's automatic and solves a couple of them.

Re:This is a good example...

[Anonymous Coward]

A better solution is to simply do what Chrome does and open new tabs next to the originating tab. It doesn't solve all the world's problems, but it's automatic and solves a couple of them.

Firefox already does that.

Re:This is a good example...

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox *does* do that.

Re:This is a good example...

[Anonymous Coward]

firefox already does this

Lean mean version of Firefox

[uofitorn]

This sounds neat and certainly looks like a nice feature but does anyone else think it's about time that Mozilla makes a stripped down lean version of Firefox without all the extra features for someone who's just interested in the core browsing attributes? They can name it something like Phoenix or Firebird to distinguish it from Firefox.

Re:Lean mean version of Firefox

[Anonymous Coward]

... or Epiphany.

Stability?

[the-bobcat]

While I like the idea and can easily imagine the fun/productivity of this on a touch based machine, what happens when a single tab goes haywire and crashes everything? I wish the Firefox devs would take the idea from Chrome and implement individual tab processes. With multi-core machines ever on the rise I can't see why not.

(*(^&^$$^ Flash!!!!

[jvillain]

It would be great if the videos were available in WebM so I could actually see them. It is supposed to be the new Firefox standard after all.

Re:(*(^&^$$^ Flash!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Install Flash then.

OMG

[dvh.tosomja]

Wow. He just reinvented "Open link in a new window". Congrats.

bartab+list all tabs menu

[karlzt]

I'm happy with bartab https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/67651/ and list all tabs menu https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/12380/

Here we go again...

[markdavis]

*BLOAT*!

I do not WANT more complexity and eye candy built into Firefox. It is getting larger, using more memory, harder to control (and lock down), and using more CPU all the time. Can't they add this kind of stuff with extensions??? Or perhaps split Firefox into two versions- one fat and one small?

If this keeps up, I will have to look for another browser that fills Firefox's original mission- small, fast, efficient, simple, multiplatform, open source, and expandable.

Re:Here we go again...

[Anonymous Coward]

Try midori.

porn

[Anonymous Coward]

what i wanna know is how this will help me browse porn...

"I know I use my browser more than I use my OS"

[GreatBunzinni]

Someone should explain to the guy in TFA's video that, as his browser only runs because there's an operating system that makes it possible for it to run, if he is using a browser then he is automatically using a operating system. So no, you don't use your browser more than you use your OS.

Re:"I know I use my browser more than I use my OS"

[uofitorn]

You must be that guy in the classroom or training seminar that everyone rolls their eyes at who feels the need to point out the obvious. I think it's apparent to everyone what he really meant.

Re:"I know I use my browser more than I use my OS"

[Fri13]

I think you just missed the whole point. You (as user) can not use the OS directly. You do not see the OS, you can not control the OS or anything else. You can not tamper the OS at all. All what you do is you need the OS to run all other software in the software system. All software, from system programs to libraries and from command line to graphical user interfaces and application programs, are operated by the operating system. The OS is the monolithic kernel or the microkernel + servers (server-client or layered architecture).

You said that everyone knows what he really meant. But why it is so difficult then to the author to actually say it correct that he can not use any other software more than OS itself what just operates the hardware and all other software.

If it is so obvious, then there should not be a point to correct people by thinking the GUI (or CLI) is the (part of) operating system.

I know lots of very talented coders who even believe that printed manuals belongs to the OS. Or the Adobe Flash is part of the OS if it comes preinstalled. If it does not come preinstalled, then it is not part of the OS.

Fact just is that most people do not even have a clue what the OS is. They just repeat what companies marketing tells to them or the salesman who sold the computer for them.

Hmm, this sounds exactly like IE8 on Windows 7.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, this sounds exactly like IE8 on Windows 7. Except IE8 is actually integrated into the main navigation bar of the OS. You just hover over the icon and a list of tabs pops up where each tab is a thumbail snapshot of the page.

I don't see the point of this

[GreatBunzinni]

The example which is given in the video from TFA to try to demonstrate the need for this tab candy nonsense is how a clumsy user can fill a tab bar with countless unrelated tabs. Yet, from the example which was presented, there is absolutely no need for that sort of crap. Let me explain.

In the example the user starts off with a browser window which already has tons of tabs, which is already in itself a sign that the user doesn't know what he is doing. From there, a case is presented where the user suddenly feels the need to start a new search, which happens to be completely unrelated to anything that he was already doing. Well, in that scenario, the user could very well do the very same thing that any semi-rational user does when he finds himself on that very same situation: open a new browser window dedicated to that search and go crazy with the search results. There, fixed. There is no need for this tab candy crap, searches/online tasks are perfectly compartmentalized, the tab bar is clean and cluttered, the navigation to/from opened pages becomes simpler... Everyone wins.

Now, let's look at what this tab candy crap brings to the table. So a clueless user who is perfectly incapable of organizing his workflow finds himself with a single browser window with dozens of opened tabs. He suddenly feels the need to open another dozen tabs to perform a completely independent task. According to TFA, the solution to his problems comes in the form of this tab candy crap. Yet, the only thing that it is capable of doing is offering yet another needlessly cumbersome step to do nothing more than provide a different, resource-expensive way to present to the user the tabs which he has opened.

So, in other words, this tab candy crap is nothing more than a window manager built into a browser. I mean, manually group tabs? List the tab groups which are currently opened? Put some tabs on the foreground while putting others on the background? Present the user with small icons representing the opened tab? If you replace "tabs" with "windows" you are describing pretty much any window manager out there. So why exactly is it a good idea to build a window manager into a browser?

Re:I don't see the point of this

[ArsonSmith]

So why exactly is it a good idea to build a window manager into a browser?

Because, like it or not, the OS of the future is the browser.

Re:I don't see the point of this

[Anonymous Coward]

In the example the user starts off with a browser window which already has tons of tabs, which is already in itself a sign that the user doesn't know what he is doing.

Hi! This is reality speaking. You know what? There are users who know what they're doing but do things in a way that makes you think they don't. Another thing you might not be aware of is that you don't have monopoly on deciding what's right or not.

Twit.

(Sorry for that, but people like you are simply annoying to me.)

Re:I don't see the point of this

[Cl1mh4224rd]

I don't see the point of this, either.

If I have temporary research that requires dozens of tabs, it seems a waste of time to manually arrange them into a tab group that you're going close anyway. A few clicks? You can already create a new "tab group" with a quick Ctrl+N. Drag-n-drop? You can already drag tabs between Firefox windows and even drag a tab off and create a new window.

Hell, you can even have Firefox open your previously open windows and tabs when you start it up.

The demo was flashy, but the justifications for Tab Candy aren't that compelling. We already have solutions for the problems that Tab Candy supposedly solves. Most of them are easier, too.

Re:I don't see the point of this

[theurge14]

Perhaps the time has come to realize that what's on the web has become the desktop apps and redesign the window manager accordingly.

I know, keep the web in the browser, etc.

Right?

Re:I don't see the point of this

[Anonymous Coward]

There are some good and bad points. in general, I don't have enough tabs open at a time for it to really matter. But there are times when I have several open at once. An example might be looking at piecing together a computer at newegg, or across multiple websites. in a simple case, you might have 2 tabs for CPUs, 4 tabs for mobos, 2 more for RAM, 4 for hard drives, ect... so for one task, you can easily get a lot of tabs.

From my experience, having multiple windows open is often a pain if you have more than 2-4 open at a time. And this example makes it a bit difficult -- there are a lot of small groups.

The reason to build a window manager into a browser is so the browser has control over its content. I generally disagree with moving part of this control into the browser (tabs) and part out of the browser (groups of tabs as windows).

at the same time, I don't think tabcandy gets it right for most users. The author is more likely a corner case -- a person who is willing to put the effort into using it. I think it has some good ideas, but it is a bit more micromanagement than i'd like.

Re:I don't see the point of this

[Anonymous Coward]

if you are saying this, you don't really under how different work. some likes to mono-task, some like to multi-task. there can be reason why someone has many tabs opened. they use it like a quick temporary bookmark, only to read it and close it. some likes to keep things there for pre-loading due to slow computer or internet.

personally, i do no not like using tab, it is hard to navigate, organize and visualize. i would rather have a very large monitor and have zoom ui interface, so i can visually place and organize window and have quick expose-like thumbnail to have a quick overview.

Re:I don't see the point of this

[Anonymous Coward]

There's also no point to streamlining OS UI's for "clumsy users." Just ask Apple.

Re:I don't see the point of this

[Anonymous Coward]

From a "semi-competent" user's perspective, a tab and a window are almost the same thing, but with tabs you lose the benefit of a window manager. Thus the benefit of a "tab manager" exists, at least academically.

Here's a realistic scenario: you've done a deep google search through several iterations of keyword refinement, but don't remember how you got there. You switch to do something else and now you want to get back to the search. Tab manager to the rescue.

Does it crash with flash like the current 3.6.7+?

[Fallen Kell]

That is my question. I had to downgrade to the 3.5 line after the 3.6.7 update the other day. I tried the latest 3.6.8 as well, and it too crashes the moment it hits a page with flash. 3.5 works just fine.

Great

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone repackaged MDI. It's like Windows 3.1 all over again.

My only use of tabs...

[Anonymous Coward]

...is to compensate for the nigh-intolerable sluggishness of the "Web Experience (TM)". Open several links in tabs while still reading the current page (prefetch, if you want to call it like that).

I like it

[guitar486]

I see some sarcasm and hate for this, but I personally welcome it. This type of thing, once integrated into my workflow, will definitely help me with research projects and the like.

Like Activities in KDE Workspace

[Fri13]

That is like activities in KDE Workspace (Plasma Desktop or Plasma Netbook) what allows you to group the application programs windows to tasks (or tab them with KWin together) and then have them separated and have automatic metadata storing and file linking etc.

I'm willing to wager

[Beelzebud]

I'm willing to bet that the people posting in this thread about always having 20+ tabs open, with things like java weather trackers running in them, are the same ones that complain about Firefox's "bloated" use of memory.

Re:I'm willing to wager

[guitar486]

That may be true for some people here, but I highly doubt for the majority. This tool could also be purposed for a "Daily Tabs" kind of thing where one click opens several tabs you view every morning.

Hmm...

[romania]

What about performance? What about stability? What about less bloat and some more functionality? Is this really a browser for the monkeys? Flash (still, quite used as surprising as it might be to the developers) can crash it and take all the tabs with it. The addons (which they never fail to mention) can do a lot of things including memory leaks. How about that before going for the candy? Ooops, for that they need to get some programmers.

How I would use it

[mixuone]

To me, tabs are a part of my reading workflow - somewhere between bookmarks and speed dial. Tab Candy, if implemented, would be somewhere between bookmarks and normal tabs: permanent storage, but for task-specific purposes.

The reason why I use piles of tabs (50+ per window if necessary) is that I prefer not to do mental task switching between searching for something and looking for a solution/an idea/reading.

So I will do a search on something, open new tabs until I am satisfied that I have opened all the promising links, then close the search and start reading the tabs I have open. I will first glance at the content, and will just close the tabs that don't look like they are worth reading. Then I just read, leave the best tabs open for reference and start doing whatever the search was for (coding, writing etc.).

I currently use different windows to keep separate tab groups for each different task (e.g. email, coding, search for best widget). Whatever I use a lot or whatever I think I should look at again soon gets added to Speed Dial (e.g. Slashdot, interesting articles), and less frequent stuff that I want to keep for reference goes to the bookmarks pile. The only problem is that closing a browser window means I either lose all the stuff I haven't read in that window or I have to bookmark them.

Tab Candy would seem perfect for temporarily storing a window (e.g. reference material for project X) for later without the hassle of bookmark management.

I know it's "just a different kind of bookmark management system" from some perspective, but so is Speed Dial - which I consider essential.

Re:How I would use it

[socz]

I assume you have great security system and browser-wise. The reason I don't do what you do is because I am worried that 1 site that loads without my attention can go nuts and do lots of bad things.

So when I search for something, I open up one or two tabs at a time. Then go from there and browse through the results until I find what I'm looking for. Of course, some searches are safer than others, but still it pays off to be safe than sorry!

Re:How I would use it

[AnonGCB]

I know of no way sites can do any damage with a good browser (opera personally, but chrome and I guess firefox), at least not as far as installing malware. Gone are the days of ActiveX bullshittery (for most technical people)

Re:Tab Mix Plus PLUS Tab Groups Manager

[theNAM666]

I use Tab Mix Plus in combination with TabGroups Manager. Typically I am running with 3000+ active tabs in 50ish group tabs, 6 windows (all I can keep track of in my head)-- but only 6 or 7 of those group tabs open and taking memory/processor-- TabGroups Manager suspends the rest.

TabGroups Manager is a "hidden gem." In comparison, Tab Candy seems simply purposeless to me!

Re:Tab Mix Plus PLUS Tab Groups Manager

[veganboyjosh]

I'll check that out. It sounds like it could be useful.

What, pray tell, do you do which you need 3000+ tabs for? If you're working an 8 hour day, that's about 8 seconds per tab for the entire day. That's once you have them up and running. The startup/load time should you accidentally hit "refresh all tabs" must be insane.

Re:Tab Mix Plus PLUS Tab Groups Manager

[Anonymous Coward]

Something that starts with "T" and ends with "ropes" is one thing you'll need a browser to support 3000+ tabs for.

Condescending towards users much?

[manastungare]

"clumsy user", "clueless user", "semi-rational user", "a sign that the user doesn't know what he is doing", ...

If you have ever conducted user studies of browsing behavior, you would see that the tasks that Aza describes are exactly the ones users perform in the real world. Why do you think it's unexpected for a user to pause a current browsing session and look for something unrelated, and wish to keep that search session separate from the previous one?

No, simply a new window would not be sufficient, because pretty soon, you end up with several different windows, and not all of us have the luxury of 30" displays to arrange them on. Yes, this is a window manager built into the browser, because default window managers have been inadequate in coping with the number of browser windows and applications users have open. If they were adequate, tabs would never have been needed in the first place.

From initial design sketches, this does seem like it will contribute its fair share to helping with the information overload problem. The only way to confirm that this is indeed a usable solution is to run it by users in real-world studies. You'd be surprised how much the average user or the power user differs from engineers and developers.

Re:Condescending towards users much?

[GreatBunzinni]

"clumsy user", "clueless user", "semi-rational user", "a sign that the user doesn't know what he is doing", ...

If you have ever conducted user studies of browsing behavior, you would see that the tasks that Aza describes are exactly the ones users perform in the real world. Why do you think it's unexpected for a user to pause a current browsing session and look for something unrelated, and wish to keep that search session separate from the previous one?

I don't know if you are purposely trying to put words in my mouth or if you simply failed to understand what has been written. Either way, if you take the time to both read what I've posted and make an effort to understand it, you will realize that nowhere it was said that "it's unexpected for a user to pause a current browsing session and look for something unrelated", nor did I said anything in that sense. In fact, once you've read and understood what I've said you will notice that I've said that "the user could very well do the very same thing that any semi-rational user does when he finds himself on that very same situation: open a new browser window dedicated to that search and go crazy with the search results."

So, how come you quoted portions of my text but then you demonstrate that you completely missed the point?

No, simply a new window would not be sufficient, because pretty soon, you end up with several different windows, and not all of us have the luxury of 30" displays to arrange them on.

Your argument doesn't make any sense, specially when it's being used to try to convince that spawning several browser windows in a window manager is somehow bad while spawning several tab groups on a browser-based window manager is suddenly a great thing to have. Nonetheless, to you, how many windows constitute "several" windows? Two? Four? Sixteen? Thirty two? If you dedicate each browser window to store dozens of tabs like in the silly tab candy example, how many opened pages does that make? 24? 48? 96? If you are handling so many opened tabs at once, what makes you believe that a window manager is incapable of handling them but somehow a half-baked attempt at a window manager will handle them well?

And by the way, I have a 19'' monitor and I regularly have from 8 to 14 windows opened, including browser windows with around a half a dozen tabs each. And you know the craziest thing? I never felt the need for a bigger monitor, not a 22'', not a 24'', not a 26''... not even a 30''. I also have a netbook and I also tend to use multiple browser windows, each one with multiple tabs. And guess what? It works great, without ever needing anything more than the basic tab functionality and a basic window manager (lxde). How do you explain that?

Yes, this is a window manager built into the browser, because default window managers have been inadequate in coping with the number of browser windows and applications users have open. If they were adequate, tabs would never have been needed in the first place.

In that case you should probably upgrade from Win98, then. I'm running KDE and LXDE and both perform this job extremely well. In fact, KDE excels at this sort of stuff through great features such as taskbar grouping, merging window tabs, options to place specific windows always on top, storing window manager options per application, etc... So, why not upgrade your window manager for something which has been released in the last decade or so?

From initial design sketches, this does seem like it will contribute its fair share to helping with the information overload problem.

Your argument makes as much sense as claiming that embedding a email client on a browser will "contribute its fair share to helping with the information overload problem". You don't make a problem like this go away by bloating the browser by implementing features which are already impleme

Pimped tabs, same old LAME bookmark management?

[Johann Lau]

What about bookmarks? Bleh to tabs, I don't wanna have a hundred of them open anyway... I DO wanna have thousands of bookmarks, and Firefox is just no use in that regard, never has been, and judging from the stuff they get excited about, never will be.

What a joke. It's a browser for the masses alright.... the drooling excitement in the second half made me cringe haha.

Re:Pimped tabs, same old LAME bookmark management?

[IANAAC]

I DO wanna have thousands of bookmarks, and Firefox is just no use in that regard, never has been

Don't know what your set up is, but mine can and does easily handle thousands of bookmarks.

I have XMarks installed and make heavy use of tagging. What really makes it useful though is Gnome-do. Searches are really quite quick.

In fact, Gnome-do has become indispensable to me for many programs, not just Firefox.

Did you get the memo?

[nloop]

http://apple.slashdot.org/story/10/07/20/0421257/Google-Chrome-Now-Has-Resource-Blocking-Adblock?from=rss

It better not stop Tab Kit from working

[cstec]

What we see here is not even a shadow of the beauty that is the TabKit add on. Or being less nice, this UI bites.

I can only hope Mozilla doesn't use their position to force this second-rate solution down everyone's throats. Seriously, TabKit is the single most important add-on I have, being key to keep everything managable. If I have to pick between TabKit and FF, I'd rather have Tabkit and fork FF.

Re:Does it crash with flash like the current 3.6.7

[t0y]

Your firewall is probably blocking the plugins process.
Look here for a solution:http://kb.mozillazine.org/Plugin-container_and_out-of-process_plugins#Plugin-container

multi-row

[distantbody]

I avoid the tab scrolling by using the tabmixplus extension and enabling multi-row so when the tab-bar is full a new tab bar starts below the first, and no tabs scrolling out of view.

twitter + tab = twabber?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me or does this project looks like what twitter could do to tabs with a bit of patience?

Oh well.

The Humane Interface

[lyinhart]

Judging by the responses, I take it that not many people here have thought of The Humane Interface, which was written by Aza's father Jef. Tab Candy looks like it is influenced by the Zoomworld idea Jef had in mind in the book and was starting to develop with the Archy interface. The last few minutes of the video, particularly zooming out ad infinitum and syncing with physical devices and other external resources illustrate this. It even operates on the same concepts - spatial thinking and incremental find.

I know there's lots of skepticism about this, but I hope it takes off because I'd like to see this be an interface for an OS.

Re:The Humane Interface

[Anonymous Coward]

Me too. Me too.

Vimperator

[Anonymous Coward]

Vimperator+buffers. Nuff said.

Modern? No, they are "movie monitors"

[Ilgaz]

4:3 monitor is widely used in business environments and having 4:3 1024x768 monitor doesn't automatically entitle you to "old monitor using dinosaur".

Why 4:3? If you have a book or as you are super modern, a "Kindle", check its W/H ratio. It took centuries.

16:9 or, the horrible 16:10 (which has something to do with scaling 4:3 evenly) are good for... movie/video watching. 4:3 is good for reading/editing text/ business graphics. Sad thing is, some professional webmasters knowing this fact and insisted on using 4:3 on main text (e.g. story) area started to give it up because of 16:9 owners keep whining about "wasted space".

Oh, if human eye evaluates in matter of millions of years, 16:9 can become optimal reading format :)

Re:Modern? No, they are "movie monitors"

[bdraschk]

When i said "modern" i ment it in the sense of "not used". So maybe "new" or "recent" would have been a better choice. I never said i liked that trend of trading vertical screen estate for horizontal, i'd rather have 4:3 monitors myself (don't even get me started on 16:9 notebook displays).

But _if_ you buy a _newly_built_ display today, chances are high it's 16:9. And Tree Style Tab lets me use that space more efficiently.

What about Foxtab

[joesucks]

Pretty cool stuff https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8879/ It is very neat ... plus you can arrange your tabs in so many different ways

Also how iPad tabs work

[gig]

I don't use tabs except for the rare times I use Windows. I always thought they were a hack to make up for Windows' fucking lousy window management. This seems to confirm that, since you can get these Tab Candy tabs by turning tabs off in Safari on a Mac and just using Exposé. These are also how iPad tabs work: you only see them as an overview.

Let the OS manage windows

[snowwrestler]

Looks to me like Tab Candy is basically a windowing manager built as a Firefox extension. This means it is a windowing manager written in HTML, CSS, and Javascript. That's not exactly a high-performance stack, especially given Firefox's penchant to leak memory over time.

Why not let the OS manage your windows? It's much better equipped to do so. On OS X I can open every link in a new window, and use Expose to sort them out. Or I can be smart about grouping tabs per window....work tabs in one window, search in another, etc. And Firefox lets me drag tabs on and off windows so I can rearrange them pretty easily.

Put it in the window manager!!!

[Killer Eye]

The thing that continues to infuriate me about tabs, is that we're expecting applications to provide them. This is a waste of time for application developers! The lack of tab support is a deficiency in the majority of window managers, that should be addressed (only) at the window manager level.

The proof is in how poorly tabs continue to integrate with OSes. Suddenly you need 5 or 6 commands to deal specifically with tabs, e.g. it seems there has to be a "Close Tab", "Open in New Tab", etc. in addition to "Close Window", all because there is no easy way for the application to distinguish one from the other. Minimization doesn't seem to do exactly what you want. And sheets on Mac OS X, originally awesome for their ability to not block access to more than one window, now end up blocking 20 tabs at once.

But even if this wasn't the case, who is to say that all my tabs should be web browsers? It is completely reasonable to want one of those tabs to be my mail client, a couple to be terminals, etc. with web browsers mixed in. The only sane way to achieve that is with window manager support.

Yes, some window managers have this, but only obscure ones. Until you have Windows and Mac doing this, Firefox won't stop doing it.

Hooray for bloat

[tywjohn]

Firefox will lose to chromium with extra baggage like this.