4 ms·

I'll vouch for Tree Style Tabs. It's a killer extension that changed the way I work and made Firefox into a serious productivity workhorse for me. I can easily

by nilkn 6y ago

I'll vouch for Tree Style Tabs. It's a killer extension that changed the way I work and made Firefox into a serious productivity workhorse for me. I can easily manage 10x as many tabs as I could before without ever feeling like I'm getting lost in them.

mulmen 6y ago
I used to have an older extension that did this but it broke a few years ago. I have moved to a workflow where I open a new Firefox window for each of the branches in the tree. I combine this with multiple spaces in MacOS to group by task. This works very well for me because I can then have the browser grouped with iterm sessions and emails and other suporting documentation. The major drawback is that Firefox does not re-open windows in their previous space. They all open on a random space the next time Firefox launches. This makes Firefox updates and system reboots (frequent of late on MacOS) a pain. I have gotten good at moving the windows back to their correct spaces but if Mozilla fixed this so the windows restored to their previous spaces I would be delighted. e: Looks like Mozilla fixed this in FF 75: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=440895 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=440895 I generally run ESR releases for work but I might risk an upgrade to a later version to get this fixed.
- brigandish 6y ago
  I wish I’d had your success. I tried using Spaces for a while but they can’t be named (or couldn’t when I was trying it) so I’d end up cycling through similar looking spaces trying to recover my place all the time. Being sent back to another space when I go to open, say, a new terminal but it’s already open somewhere else was a pain too. If I’m in a space I want to be able to start apps there without doing a time wasting dance. I never have more than 2 spaces open now, and rarely. Feels like a missed opportunity to me from one more half-finished good idea by Apple.
  - mulmen 6y ago
    I had to fiddle a lot of defaults to make it work. > Being sent back to another space when I go to open, say, a new terminal but it’s already open somewhere else was a pain too. If I’m in a space I want to be able to start apps there without doing a time wasting dance. Take a look at your mission control settings and uncheck "When switching to an application, switch to a Space with open windows for the application". I put a lot of energy in to "getting" spaces a couple years ago and there was a learning curve for a couple weeks but now I have a model that works with the features that exist. The effort definitely paid off. I think spaces are a fairly polished idea from Apple actually. The problem is they create features that work well for a specific use case but then don't clearly explain what that use case is or how their solution works. You very much have to "hold it right" and it's up to you to figure out what "right" is. I figure MacOS is a tool, like a hammer, I should learn how to "swing" it. The lack of named spaces is ok for me, I can tell from context what each space is for and I consider them ephemeral. I do not let MacOS rearrange my spaces based on use (this is another option, "Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use") because I have them sorted by my own mental model of priority. The left most space is always a general desktop space with a browser and mail and IM, etc. The right most space is a "system" space with things like task manager, system preferences and a terminal window with homebrew commands and whatever invocation of jamf commands it takes to get back on the corporate network. Any time something in space #1 requires more than a couple browser tabs or an email I tend to throw it into a new space. I also arrange it somewhere in the existing stack by importance. This means I am almost always doing productive work in space #2. Before a meeting or call I will open up the relevant email thread(s), invite, browser tabs, etc in a new space so I have the full context without distractions.
    - brigandish 6y ago
      This is exactly why I allow myself the odd moan on HN, more than occasionally (and more than I deserve) I get a very helpful response like this. Even just the "When switching to an application…" setting is a gem, it's always easy to miss things like that (that's my excuse:) I'll give it another go! Thanks. Just in case anyone from Apple with the power to implement this happens by, I'd still like the ability to name my Spaces though.
miguelmota 6y ago
Vertical tabs are a game changer. I've been using Vertical Tabs Reloaded [0] which similar but doesn't have nesting and added a userChrome.css in my Firefox profile directory [1] to hide the top bar tabs #TabsToolbar { visibility: collapse !important; } [0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vertical-tabs-reloaded/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vertical-tabs... [1] https://www.userchrome.org/how-create-userchrome-css.html https://www.userchrome.org/how-create-userchrome-css.html
- jamespullar 6y ago
  I was not familiar with userChrome.css before. Thanks for sharing! My browsing experience has improved by removing the top tab bar.
- Flott 6y ago
  That's really cool. Is there a way to keep windows standard window buttons (restore / minimize and close)?
rollinDyno 6y ago
I've been using TST for a while now but this week I have found new improvements. I have started using Simple Tab Groups rather than OneTab and I have customised the CSS in userChrome.css and now have a slimmer sidebar that expands on hover. Gif here: https://postimg.cc/xJ2jfFGx https://postimg.cc/xJ2jfFGx Edit: here's the repo where I got the expand TST on hover style https://github.com/TanzNukeTerror/Compact-FirefoxCSS/ https://github.com/TanzNukeTerror/Compact-FirefoxCSS/
- xrendan 6y ago
  Can you share your userChrome.css? That looks great!
- ohyeshedid 6y ago
  Now that's slick, well done! Make this two requests to share the css.
- lprd 6y ago
  Would also love to see your userChrome.css file :)
- somishere 6y ago
  This is sweet, cheers! I played around off the back of this to get a bit of a hybrid going - pinned / active tabs up top and grouped / standard tabs down the side: https://gist.github.com/theprojectsomething/6813b2c27611be03e67c78d936b0f760 https://gist.github.com/theprojectsomething/6813b2c27611be03...
rovr138 6y ago
I've been using TST for years. It's essential for how I work and the research I sometimes have to do.
mFixman 6y ago
I used TST for some time until I realised that the vast majority of the time I just needed 2 layers of open tabs, which are perfectly represented by tabs and windows. Aggressively closing unused tabs has been much better for my organisation than organising them.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
girzel 6y ago
I'm trying to like it, but I guess I don't really see what so game-changing about it. There are no keyboard shortcuts for navigating the tree, so there doesn't seem to be much you can do with it. While trying to find said keyboard shortcuts, I discovered that Firefox already lets you type "%" in your URL bar and search among your open tabs, and that turned out to be far more useful to me than TST.
- nilkn 6y ago
  I don't need extra keyboard shortcuts and am not sure how they would help. I already have Vimium for keyboard shortcuts. My tabs are just naturally organized into logical groupings, so I can visually scan for what I want very fast. Searching is nice when you can immediately think of the appropriate search terms but it's not a replacement for a clean visual arrangement of my tabs. Another very simple benefit is that I can read the tab title text easily even with lots of tabs, something that breaks down very fast with horizontally arranged tabs. It helps that at this point I have a lot of subconscious habits about how I arrange tabs automatically. For instance, when browsing something like HN from the front page, if a link interests me I'll middle-click the comments link first, opening it in a sub-tab. If I'm interested in the article as well, then from the comments sub-tab I'll middle-click the article link, generating a sub-sub-tab. I don't even think about this; it's just how I've browsed sites like HN for a long time at this point. I end up with a nice little structured recreation of whatever part of the homepage I'm interested in at that moment. Then, if I don't want to worry about HN right now, I just collapse the entire tree and come back to it when I want a break.
  - girzel 6y ago
    Okay, thanks, that was interesting to see your detailed usage. Maybe I just don't have as many tabs open as some (56 right now, and I'm surprised it's that many), or I'm just less interested in knowing their hierarchical structure. Pretty much all I want to do with tabs is to go to them, and I find I almost always remember enough of the title to find them. Interestingly, "%" only offers tabs from the same container you're in right now -- I can't decide if that's a handy feature or not. As far as other keyboard shortcuts, I would probably use TST more if it offered "search and goto tab" within the TST window itself, including tab-key to fold/unfold sub-tabs, and return to select the actual tab. I wonder if I've been trained by Emacs not to need to visualize these things. When I was first using it, I definitely felt a little uneasy without a visual "overview".

by nilkn 6y ago

mulmen 6y ago

I used to have an older extension that did this but it broke a few years ago. I have moved to a workflow where I open a new Firefox window for each of the branches in the tree. I combine this with multiple spaces in MacOS to group by task. This works very well for me because I can then have the browser grouped with iterm sessions and emails and other suporting documentation. The major drawback is that Firefox does not re-open windows in their previous space. They all open on a random space the next time Firefox launches. This makes Firefox updates and system reboots (frequent of late on MacOS) a pain. I have gotten good at moving the windows back to their correct spaces but if Mozilla fixed this so the windows restored to their previous spaces I would be delighted. e: Looks like Mozilla fixed this in FF 75: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=440895 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=440895 I generally run ESR releases for work but I might risk an upgrade to a later version to get this fixed.

brigandish 6y ago
I wish I’d had your success. I tried using Spaces for a while but they can’t be named (or couldn’t when I was trying it) so I’d end up cycling through similar looking spaces trying to recover my place all the time. Being sent back to another space when I go to open, say, a new terminal but it’s already open somewhere else was a pain too. If I’m in a space I want to be able to start apps there without doing a time wasting dance. I never have more than 2 spaces open now, and rarely. Feels like a missed opportunity to me from one more half-finished good idea by Apple.
- mulmen 6y ago
  I had to fiddle a lot of defaults to make it work. > Being sent back to another space when I go to open, say, a new terminal but it’s already open somewhere else was a pain too. If I’m in a space I want to be able to start apps there without doing a time wasting dance. Take a look at your mission control settings and uncheck "When switching to an application, switch to a Space with open windows for the application". I put a lot of energy in to "getting" spaces a couple years ago and there was a learning curve for a couple weeks but now I have a model that works with the features that exist. The effort definitely paid off. I think spaces are a fairly polished idea from Apple actually. The problem is they create features that work well for a specific use case but then don't clearly explain what that use case is or how their solution works. You very much have to "hold it right" and it's up to you to figure out what "right" is. I figure MacOS is a tool, like a hammer, I should learn how to "swing" it. The lack of named spaces is ok for me, I can tell from context what each space is for and I consider them ephemeral. I do not let MacOS rearrange my spaces based on use (this is another option, "Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use") because I have them sorted by my own mental model of priority. The left most space is always a general desktop space with a browser and mail and IM, etc. The right most space is a "system" space with things like task manager, system preferences and a terminal window with homebrew commands and whatever invocation of jamf commands it takes to get back on the corporate network. Any time something in space #1 requires more than a couple browser tabs or an email I tend to throw it into a new space. I also arrange it somewhere in the existing stack by importance. This means I am almost always doing productive work in space #2. Before a meeting or call I will open up the relevant email thread(s), invite, browser tabs, etc in a new space so I have the full context without distractions.
  - brigandish 6y ago
    This is exactly why I allow myself the odd moan on HN, more than occasionally (and more than I deserve) I get a very helpful response like this. Even just the "When switching to an application…" setting is a gem, it's always easy to miss things like that (that's my excuse:) I'll give it another go! Thanks. Just in case anyone from Apple with the power to implement this happens by, I'd still like the ability to name my Spaces though.

miguelmota 6y ago

Vertical tabs are a game changer. I've been using Vertical Tabs Reloaded [0] which similar but doesn't have nesting and added a userChrome.css in my Firefox profile directory [1] to hide the top bar tabs #TabsToolbar { visibility: collapse !important; } [0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vertical-tabs-reloaded/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vertical-tabs... [1] https://www.userchrome.org/how-create-userchrome-css.html https://www.userchrome.org/how-create-userchrome-css.html

jamespullar 6y ago
I was not familiar with userChrome.css before. Thanks for sharing! My browsing experience has improved by removing the top tab bar.
Flott 6y ago
That's really cool. Is there a way to keep windows standard window buttons (restore / minimize and close)?

rollinDyno 6y ago

I've been using TST for a while now but this week I have found new improvements. I have started using Simple Tab Groups rather than OneTab and I have customised the CSS in userChrome.css and now have a slimmer sidebar that expands on hover. Gif here: https://postimg.cc/xJ2jfFGx https://postimg.cc/xJ2jfFGx Edit: here's the repo where I got the expand TST on hover style https://github.com/TanzNukeTerror/Compact-FirefoxCSS/ https://github.com/TanzNukeTerror/Compact-FirefoxCSS/

xrendan 6y ago
Can you share your userChrome.css? That looks great!
ohyeshedid 6y ago
Now that's slick, well done! Make this two requests to share the css.
lprd 6y ago
Would also love to see your userChrome.css file :)
somishere 6y ago
This is sweet, cheers! I played around off the back of this to get a bit of a hybrid going - pinned / active tabs up top and grouped / standard tabs down the side: https://gist.github.com/theprojectsomething/6813b2c27611be03e67c78d936b0f760 https://gist.github.com/theprojectsomething/6813b2c27611be03...

rovr138 6y ago

I've been using TST for years. It's essential for how I work and the research I sometimes have to do.

mFixman 6y ago

I used TST for some time until I realised that the vast majority of the time I just needed 2 layers of open tabs, which are perfectly represented by tabs and windows. Aggressively closing unused tabs has been much better for my organisation than organising them.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

girzel 6y ago

I'm trying to like it, but I guess I don't really see what so game-changing about it. There are no keyboard shortcuts for navigating the tree, so there doesn't seem to be much you can do with it. While trying to find said keyboard shortcuts, I discovered that Firefox already lets you type "%" in your URL bar and search among your open tabs, and that turned out to be far more useful to me than TST.

nilkn 6y ago
I don't need extra keyboard shortcuts and am not sure how they would help. I already have Vimium for keyboard shortcuts. My tabs are just naturally organized into logical groupings, so I can visually scan for what I want very fast. Searching is nice when you can immediately think of the appropriate search terms but it's not a replacement for a clean visual arrangement of my tabs. Another very simple benefit is that I can read the tab title text easily even with lots of tabs, something that breaks down very fast with horizontally arranged tabs. It helps that at this point I have a lot of subconscious habits about how I arrange tabs automatically. For instance, when browsing something like HN from the front page, if a link interests me I'll middle-click the comments link first, opening it in a sub-tab. If I'm interested in the article as well, then from the comments sub-tab I'll middle-click the article link, generating a sub-sub-tab. I don't even think about this; it's just how I've browsed sites like HN for a long time at this point. I end up with a nice little structured recreation of whatever part of the homepage I'm interested in at that moment. Then, if I don't want to worry about HN right now, I just collapse the entire tree and come back to it when I want a break.
- girzel 6y ago
  Okay, thanks, that was interesting to see your detailed usage. Maybe I just don't have as many tabs open as some (56 right now, and I'm surprised it's that many), or I'm just less interested in knowing their hierarchical structure. Pretty much all I want to do with tabs is to go to them, and I find I almost always remember enough of the title to find them. Interestingly, "%" only offers tabs from the same container you're in right now -- I can't decide if that's a handy feature or not. As far as other keyboard shortcuts, I would probably use TST more if it offered "search and goto tab" within the TST window itself, including tab-key to fold/unfold sub-tabs, and return to select the actual tab. I wonder if I've been trained by Emacs not to need to visualize these things. When I was first using it, I definitely felt a little uneasy without a visual "overview".