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After reading about it repeatedly here, I finally tried Multi Account Containers and I'm disappointed. I want to press a button and get site X open in containe

by rendaw 4y ago

After reading about it repeatedly here, I finally tried Multi Account Containers and I'm disappointed. I want to press a button and get site X open in container Y. But as it is, after searching for the container, you then have to search for the website you want to open in it separately. It makes having lots of containers hard, plus there's the risk of accidentally opening sites in your "main container", etc. You have to do twice the work for every new site, maintaining bookmarks and containers. There's a function to always open a site in a container, but this obviously falls over if you have multiple accounts (aws, gmail, etc), plus the UI is poorly communicated. There are requests to make it so you can associate a container with a bookmark, for instance, but apparently Moz prevented Moz from doing this via browser apis, and have been powerless to do anything about it for years. It could have been awesome.

anhner 4y ago
have you tried right click > open in container > choose container? or right click on the tab > reopen in container > choose container
rtontic 4y ago
Another thing you can do, hold left click on the new tab button. You will get a drop-down where you can chose which container to open the tab in.
jeroenhd 4y ago
I disagree. I think the current system works great. When the "always open" setting conflicts with a current container, you get a prompt. If you want to open a specific container, long press the create tab button to get a selection of containers so you can browse to the website manually. Using multiple accounts works great for me. Clicking on links will open in the same container, opening the website in a specific container is easy, I don't see the blocker here. I don't know how many containers you intend on using but I don't find the feature problematic at all. Maybe the Tree Style Tabs integration is fixing a problem I don't know about, but it's working great for me.
climb_stealth 4y ago
Agreed, it's just a bit too clunky to be practical. In the end I have two containers I actually use, but only for special purposes. One is when I have to log in to facebook and one is for searching with a different language set. Neither of which happens more than once a month at most. So yeah, everything else happens in the main browser as before.
hysan 4y ago
Felt the same exact way. I’ve tried multiple times to give Firefox containers a try, but the UX is just horribly designed. So much so that I don’t think they even care about it as a feature. It feels more like a publicity stunt. If a browser could deliver a usable container experience, I would instantly switch to it.
- aeturnum 4y ago
  Oh really? I find them excellent. I don't know how you're trying to use them - but I have a "work" window, which opens new containers in the "work" container (which has all my work accounts). It's a great way to keep accounts separate and it's one of my favorite parts of Firefox.
  - hysan 4y ago
    The last time I tried, which was a while back, two things that bothered me: - there was no way to make CMD/CTRL+T open a new tab in the same container context as the one you were currently in. To me, this seems like an obvious UX flaw. If you’re browsing in a container, the actions you’re doing should keep you in that container unless you consciously want to switch. - building on that, there was no option to right click and open a link in a different container. These two features would make container use feel far more natural, and likely make adoption much easier. If those two features have been implemented, I will give Firefox and containers another go. If not, then I’d like to know what your workflow is and why it is a more natural UX. Bonus points: make the first option configurable. Extra bonus points, for the second feature, have a right click option to open in a new container. Edit: since I know I bookmarked it, I went and dug up the bug report for that first feature: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1245262 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1245262 It’s 7 years old and still open. A quick glance shows that discussion is still ongoing today, so I assume it isn’t possible. Given how long it has been actively discussed, I don’t think it would be far fetched to say that my expected use case is not odd.
    - vianneychevalie 4y ago
      I use Alt+F+B+Down arrow to browse my containers when opening a new tab. For the most frequent ones, I use Ctrl+Maj+1/2/3/4, etc., I know which ones they are. Those shortcuts are by default, I haven't had to tweak anything, and although they're not standard browser shortcuts, I prefer that option to a remapping of standards.
aw-engineer 4y ago
Well, if you are able to pre-configure “site X” and “container Y” then this plugin may help: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dashbox/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dashbox/ It implements a batch URL open, rather than ad-hoc link open
nunez 4y ago
Use Containerize for that. You can create rules around which URIs open in what containers, even with regex.
jillesvangurp 4y ago
Just out of curiosity, what do you use instead? Anyway some tips and tricks from a long time user. First, you can use always open this site in container x. Which is useful for some sites. Then, I also used pinned tabs with various gmail accounts in different containers. And you can right click on links, bookmarks, and tabs to (re)open in a particular container. I use containers a lot to test our app with various different users in different containers. I also use this with google drive to manage drives for various accounts. Also if you click on links in a particular container they open in the same container. So, for example if I have an online meeting in my company container, the video call opens in the same container. The UX could be improved and it would indeed be nice to tie individual bookmarks to containers. I've also been looking for this very obvious feature that somehow is the hardest thing ever in Firefox. But it still beats what other browsers offer here, which is mostly nothing. Chrome has account profiles but it is a bit awkward to use and you have to work with different windows. This is much more powerful. You could do the same with Firefox by starting it with different user profiles but it's a bit painful to set that up. Account containers are much easier.

by rendaw 4y ago

anhner 4y ago

have you tried right click > open in container > choose container? or right click on the tab > reopen in container > choose container

rtontic 4y ago

Another thing you can do, hold left click on the new tab button. You will get a drop-down where you can chose which container to open the tab in.

jeroenhd 4y ago

I disagree. I think the current system works great. When the "always open" setting conflicts with a current container, you get a prompt. If you want to open a specific container, long press the create tab button to get a selection of containers so you can browse to the website manually. Using multiple accounts works great for me. Clicking on links will open in the same container, opening the website in a specific container is easy, I don't see the blocker here. I don't know how many containers you intend on using but I don't find the feature problematic at all. Maybe the Tree Style Tabs integration is fixing a problem I don't know about, but it's working great for me.

climb_stealth 4y ago

Agreed, it's just a bit too clunky to be practical. In the end I have two containers I actually use, but only for special purposes. One is when I have to log in to facebook and one is for searching with a different language set. Neither of which happens more than once a month at most. So yeah, everything else happens in the main browser as before.

hysan 4y ago

Felt the same exact way. I’ve tried multiple times to give Firefox containers a try, but the UX is just horribly designed. So much so that I don’t think they even care about it as a feature. It feels more like a publicity stunt. If a browser could deliver a usable container experience, I would instantly switch to it.

aeturnum 4y ago
Oh really? I find them excellent. I don't know how you're trying to use them - but I have a "work" window, which opens new containers in the "work" container (which has all my work accounts). It's a great way to keep accounts separate and it's one of my favorite parts of Firefox.
- hysan 4y ago
  The last time I tried, which was a while back, two things that bothered me: - there was no way to make CMD/CTRL+T open a new tab in the same container context as the one you were currently in. To me, this seems like an obvious UX flaw. If you’re browsing in a container, the actions you’re doing should keep you in that container unless you consciously want to switch. - building on that, there was no option to right click and open a link in a different container. These two features would make container use feel far more natural, and likely make adoption much easier. If those two features have been implemented, I will give Firefox and containers another go. If not, then I’d like to know what your workflow is and why it is a more natural UX. Bonus points: make the first option configurable. Extra bonus points, for the second feature, have a right click option to open in a new container. Edit: since I know I bookmarked it, I went and dug up the bug report for that first feature: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1245262 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1245262 It’s 7 years old and still open. A quick glance shows that discussion is still ongoing today, so I assume it isn’t possible. Given how long it has been actively discussed, I don’t think it would be far fetched to say that my expected use case is not odd.
  - vianneychevalie 4y ago
    I use Alt+F+B+Down arrow to browse my containers when opening a new tab. For the most frequent ones, I use Ctrl+Maj+1/2/3/4, etc., I know which ones they are. Those shortcuts are by default, I haven't had to tweak anything, and although they're not standard browser shortcuts, I prefer that option to a remapping of standards.

aw-engineer 4y ago

Well, if you are able to pre-configure “site X” and “container Y” then this plugin may help: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dashbox/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dashbox/ It implements a batch URL open, rather than ad-hoc link open

nunez 4y ago

Use Containerize for that. You can create rules around which URIs open in what containers, even with regex.

jillesvangurp 4y ago

Just out of curiosity, what do you use instead? Anyway some tips and tricks from a long time user. First, you can use always open this site in container x. Which is useful for some sites. Then, I also used pinned tabs with various gmail accounts in different containers. And you can right click on links, bookmarks, and tabs to (re)open in a particular container. I use containers a lot to test our app with various different users in different containers. I also use this with google drive to manage drives for various accounts. Also if you click on links in a particular container they open in the same container. So, for example if I have an online meeting in my company container, the video call opens in the same container. The UX could be improved and it would indeed be nice to tie individual bookmarks to containers. I've also been looking for this very obvious feature that somehow is the hardest thing ever in Firefox. But it still beats what other browsers offer here, which is mostly nothing. Chrome has account profiles but it is a bit awkward to use and you have to work with different windows. This is much more powerful. You could do the same with Firefox by starting it with different user profiles but it's a bit painful to set that up. Account containers are much easier.