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I am struggling to understand the workflow that uses tab groups instead of just using windows. All of the use cases I am finding while searching for this featur

by saurik 3y ago

I am struggling to understand the workflow that uses tab groups instead of just using windows. All of the use cases I am finding while searching for this feature sound like things I can already do with windows. I've now spent like ten minutes searching around for people using this feature and trying to learn what it is about and I'm still not seeing it :(.

falqun 3y ago
Hello, I use tab groups to be more productive. Why, you ask, use tab groups instead of OS windows? The same reason you use tabs in the first place instead of OS windows, to have another layer in the toolkit. I don't want to have 17 windows kicking around for all 17 different topics I put on hold and treat like temporary bookmark folders till I somewhen use them again or declare finished. At time having like 500+ tabs combined (currently 220 - the plug-in even counts and is compatible with my TreeStyleTabs :). Mostly I use it to keep tabs for tickets sorted, but I if there are topics/contexts not associated with a ticket I use it to track that as well. For example I have a tab group for breaks - I keep all the fun and non productive bits in there and later I can go back to work without loosing the sate of it.
- saurik 3y ago
  So I have a ton of windows open--I just counted, and I have 95 windows open--and I'd certainly agree I'd love to have fewer windows open ;P. But like, each of these windows has a number of tabs in them, and there is only so much space to see tabs. (In fact, I have so many windows open, it breaks something in how Edge is allocating window handles and so when I reboot I have to do a song and a dance involving killing explorer.exe at the right moment to make them all load correctly. I hate how many windows I have open and would love to have fewer.) And like, at least I'm using Edge (and so I have vertical tabs)... most people who talk about this feature use Chrome: I just don't see what the workflow is you are talking about where you are horizontally scrolling through a ton of tab groups at the top of your window without going insane. Like, what actually is a concrete example? You said you have a tab group for breaks... how do you even get to that tab group if you have more than like two total tab groups and maybe like three tabs per group? What are you doing to make that workflow actually happen? When you want to enter your break, are you just remembering that your break's tabs are like three or four screens worth of tabs to the right of the tabs for the issue you are working on, and you start scrolling right? (comment edited a bit later to add this paragraph) I haven't yet found a video of how this looks or works in Chrome but I'm realizing you can maybe shrink them down to the name? I am then wondering what the workflow is for how you choose which tab groups to put into a single window and whether you do keep them all collapsed and are constantly flipping between collapsed tab groups. For my windows workflow, I am on Windows 10 (and refuse to downgrade to Windows 11) so I can see all of my windows--each of which has a short name I assigned it--on one of the task bars on one of my monitors. I can thereby find the window/groups easily and in each window I have the tabs (using Edge, so laid out vertically, but this would work the same and be just as reasonable with Chrome's horizontal layout) for that group. I can flip between windows with key bindings from the desktop and flip between tabs with key bindings from the browser. In your example, you discussed having "17 topics" and "500+ tabs"; that's 30+ tabs per topic... I don't see how you are even going to put TWO tab groups in a single window, much less all 17! The Chrome user with their beloved tab groups... how are they handling this? All of the video examples I can find have like three tab groups and two tabs per group and it is already looking impossible to navigate crammed into the horizontal tab strip as the names of the groups are using up valuable real estate for the tabs themselves. ...That said, you say you are using TreeStyleTabs? That's really not "tab groups". I mean, I definitely understand the use case and workflow for TreeStyleTabs as you have a tree-view tab explorer (or at least did when I last used this kind of thing forever and a half ago). I would love a native version of that in a good browser. But that isn't what all of these people in the linked thread saying Firefox should just implement the thing Chrome has are trying to get, as that isn't what Chrome has ;P. "Firefox should land tree-style tabs (or even vertical tabs, for crying out loud, lol)" I 100% grok.
  - OJFord 3y ago
    > I'd love to have fewer windows open ;P. But like, each of these windows has a number of tabs in them, and there is only so much space to see tabs. So why not use TST or similar (which you're obviously aware of)?
    - saurik 3y ago
      Selling me on Tree Style Tabs -- and thereby an analysis of the downsides I see to the specific browser/extension configuration I need to have to get such a feature in practice today -- seems very unrelated to why anyone uses or wants tab groups ;P. I have access to tab groups and am not using them, because I don't understand the workflow for them, and all the demos feel contrived: users for whom supposedly a mere five or six tabs are so many they need to be organized into groups. (FWIW, it is certainly highly related to why all of these users aren't satisfied by using an existing extension that implements tab groups: most of the reasons people describe also apply to why I am happier figuring out how to live without an extension for this. I personally believe it would behoove Firefox to lean heavily into being the one truly hackable customizable browser--steering towards things Chrome would balk at--but they have been running in the other direction now for many years and I am sad.) As I said: I would definitely support any of these browsers implementing native "tree style tabs", but I don't (at least, yet) understand the workflow people are using for "tab groups" a la Chrome (the feature in question on this post that people want Firefox to integrate). I do want to understand, though! I legitimately am curious how people are concretely using tab groups, as the feature doesn't make sense to me currently but apparently a lot of people want it...
      - skeledrew 3y ago
        In my case, I have a single window for Firefox (except for when I have another opened in privacy mode). I then have a - wide - variety of more or less topic-based tab groups. So when I'm doing something re AI, I switch to that group, or Emacs, or work, or Python, etc. Sometimes things get crossed, but eventually I send tabs I want to preserve/defer to their proper groups. If I open a new tab and start typing something that's very similar to an existing tab, I get the option to switch to it, even if it's in another group. And whenever I want to access and iterate on some particular topic, whether for 5 seconds or 5 hours, all the context is just a group switch away.
wildrhythms 3y ago
Unfortunately on Mac OS the window management model doesn't make this a good solution. Switching back and forth between apps on Mac OS (from Photoshop to Firefox) brings all non-minimized Firefox windows to the foreground; contrast to Windows or most Linux WMs where it only brings the most recent window the foreground.
ksec 3y ago
>I am struggling to understand the workflow that uses tab groups instead of just using windows. Windows workflow across different OS is very different and Firefox has little control of it. For example I run three browser on my Mac, Chrome for specific group of Tabs and Firefox for some topic. While Safari for others. They each have an icon on the Dock and is easily accessible. If I had three Windows I would have to click on Windows menu, not to mention this complicate Pin Tabs, Restore Sessions etc.
sorenjan 3y ago
Is there a good way of keeping track of tabs in different windows across reboots? I recently tried having all tabs related to a specific project in their own window on a different workspace, and everytime Firefox wanted to restart because of an update I had to close both windows and then go to History - recently closed windows to get back my tabs. I'd love something like tab groups that included windows, so I can seamlessly move tabs between windows, recover them after restarts, etc.
- wisenull 3y ago
  I am not sure if I understand your issue but if you close Firefox with CTRL+Q you get the same windows back when you launch it again.
  - iszomer 3y ago
    Unless Firefox crashes or you restarted after an update on Linux.
    - wisenull 3y ago
      I can't remember the last time Firefox crashed for me. I also use it on Linux and after an update it reopens all the windows just fine (I get the message that I need to restart and just quit all windows).
    - mozarella 3y ago
      Use tab session manager. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-session-manager/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-session-m...
    - brokenmachine 3y ago
      Firefox crashes every now and then, and I don't lose my session.
- afiori 3y ago
  If you never close a window but instead close the entire firefox (ctrl+shift+q or exit from the menu) then it reopens all the windows. It would be nice a feature that closes all the windows when you close one so to not lose a window by mistake.
StockHuman 3y ago
Tab groups work better with OS functions than multiple windows past a certain number, which is generally dependent on the physical size of one’s screen(s). Exposé on MacOS can get very, very cluttered with more than ten windows open from various apps, and distinguishing between them can be rather cumbersome if the content between the last opened tab of any given window isn’t visually distinct from another. The same is true in Window’s implementation and in their taskbar preview feature. The same is also true with tiling window managers, as every new window becomes something else to manage, where perhaps a “browser” slot should really occupy just one consistent tile. Full-screen workflows (common on small laptops) also benefit from a singular “browser” screen, flanked by other applications instead of numerous windows whose minimization needs to be managed. That, and managing tabs between windows is annoying, especially with rules to open a particular link within a given window, since that might break a setup as above. (Imagine a HN link summoning an entire separate window, reconfiguring your desktop setup, when the errant click could’ve just switched tab groups.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

by saurik 3y ago

falqun 3y ago

Hello, I use tab groups to be more productive. Why, you ask, use tab groups instead of OS windows? The same reason you use tabs in the first place instead of OS windows, to have another layer in the toolkit. I don't want to have 17 windows kicking around for all 17 different topics I put on hold and treat like temporary bookmark folders till I somewhen use them again or declare finished. At time having like 500+ tabs combined (currently 220 - the plug-in even counts and is compatible with my TreeStyleTabs :). Mostly I use it to keep tabs for tickets sorted, but I if there are topics/contexts not associated with a ticket I use it to track that as well. For example I have a tab group for breaks - I keep all the fun and non productive bits in there and later I can go back to work without loosing the sate of it.

saurik 3y ago
So I have a ton of windows open--I just counted, and I have 95 windows open--and I'd certainly agree I'd love to have fewer windows open ;P. But like, each of these windows has a number of tabs in them, and there is only so much space to see tabs. (In fact, I have so many windows open, it breaks something in how Edge is allocating window handles and so when I reboot I have to do a song and a dance involving killing explorer.exe at the right moment to make them all load correctly. I hate how many windows I have open and would love to have fewer.) And like, at least I'm using Edge (and so I have vertical tabs)... most people who talk about this feature use Chrome: I just don't see what the workflow is you are talking about where you are horizontally scrolling through a ton of tab groups at the top of your window without going insane. Like, what actually is a concrete example? You said you have a tab group for breaks... how do you even get to that tab group if you have more than like two total tab groups and maybe like three tabs per group? What are you doing to make that workflow actually happen? When you want to enter your break, are you just remembering that your break's tabs are like three or four screens worth of tabs to the right of the tabs for the issue you are working on, and you start scrolling right? (comment edited a bit later to add this paragraph) I haven't yet found a video of how this looks or works in Chrome but I'm realizing you can maybe shrink them down to the name? I am then wondering what the workflow is for how you choose which tab groups to put into a single window and whether you do keep them all collapsed and are constantly flipping between collapsed tab groups. For my windows workflow, I am on Windows 10 (and refuse to downgrade to Windows 11) so I can see all of my windows--each of which has a short name I assigned it--on one of the task bars on one of my monitors. I can thereby find the window/groups easily and in each window I have the tabs (using Edge, so laid out vertically, but this would work the same and be just as reasonable with Chrome's horizontal layout) for that group. I can flip between windows with key bindings from the desktop and flip between tabs with key bindings from the browser. In your example, you discussed having "17 topics" and "500+ tabs"; that's 30+ tabs per topic... I don't see how you are even going to put TWO tab groups in a single window, much less all 17! The Chrome user with their beloved tab groups... how are they handling this? All of the video examples I can find have like three tab groups and two tabs per group and it is already looking impossible to navigate crammed into the horizontal tab strip as the names of the groups are using up valuable real estate for the tabs themselves. ...That said, you say you are using TreeStyleTabs? That's really not "tab groups". I mean, I definitely understand the use case and workflow for TreeStyleTabs as you have a tree-view tab explorer (or at least did when I last used this kind of thing forever and a half ago). I would love a native version of that in a good browser. But that isn't what all of these people in the linked thread saying Firefox should just implement the thing Chrome has are trying to get, as that isn't what Chrome has ;P. "Firefox should land tree-style tabs (or even vertical tabs, for crying out loud, lol)" I 100% grok.
- OJFord 3y ago
  > I'd love to have fewer windows open ;P. But like, each of these windows has a number of tabs in them, and there is only so much space to see tabs. So why not use TST or similar (which you're obviously aware of)?
  - saurik 3y ago
    Selling me on Tree Style Tabs -- and thereby an analysis of the downsides I see to the specific browser/extension configuration I need to have to get such a feature in practice today -- seems very unrelated to why anyone uses or wants tab groups ;P. I have access to tab groups and am not using them, because I don't understand the workflow for them, and all the demos feel contrived: users for whom supposedly a mere five or six tabs are so many they need to be organized into groups. (FWIW, it is certainly highly related to why all of these users aren't satisfied by using an existing extension that implements tab groups: most of the reasons people describe also apply to why I am happier figuring out how to live without an extension for this. I personally believe it would behoove Firefox to lean heavily into being the one truly hackable customizable browser--steering towards things Chrome would balk at--but they have been running in the other direction now for many years and I am sad.) As I said: I would definitely support any of these browsers implementing native "tree style tabs", but I don't (at least, yet) understand the workflow people are using for "tab groups" a la Chrome (the feature in question on this post that people want Firefox to integrate). I do want to understand, though! I legitimately am curious how people are concretely using tab groups, as the feature doesn't make sense to me currently but apparently a lot of people want it...
    - skeledrew 3y ago
      In my case, I have a single window for Firefox (except for when I have another opened in privacy mode). I then have a - wide - variety of more or less topic-based tab groups. So when I'm doing something re AI, I switch to that group, or Emacs, or work, or Python, etc. Sometimes things get crossed, but eventually I send tabs I want to preserve/defer to their proper groups. If I open a new tab and start typing something that's very similar to an existing tab, I get the option to switch to it, even if it's in another group. And whenever I want to access and iterate on some particular topic, whether for 5 seconds or 5 hours, all the context is just a group switch away.

wildrhythms 3y ago

Unfortunately on Mac OS the window management model doesn't make this a good solution. Switching back and forth between apps on Mac OS (from Photoshop to Firefox) brings all non-minimized Firefox windows to the foreground; contrast to Windows or most Linux WMs where it only brings the most recent window the foreground.

ksec 3y ago

>I am struggling to understand the workflow that uses tab groups instead of just using windows. Windows workflow across different OS is very different and Firefox has little control of it. For example I run three browser on my Mac, Chrome for specific group of Tabs and Firefox for some topic. While Safari for others. They each have an icon on the Dock and is easily accessible. If I had three Windows I would have to click on Windows menu, not to mention this complicate Pin Tabs, Restore Sessions etc.

sorenjan 3y ago

Is there a good way of keeping track of tabs in different windows across reboots? I recently tried having all tabs related to a specific project in their own window on a different workspace, and everytime Firefox wanted to restart because of an update I had to close both windows and then go to History - recently closed windows to get back my tabs. I'd love something like tab groups that included windows, so I can seamlessly move tabs between windows, recover them after restarts, etc.

wisenull 3y ago
I am not sure if I understand your issue but if you close Firefox with CTRL+Q you get the same windows back when you launch it again.
- iszomer 3y ago
  Unless Firefox crashes or you restarted after an update on Linux.
  - wisenull 3y ago
    I can't remember the last time Firefox crashed for me. I also use it on Linux and after an update it reopens all the windows just fine (I get the message that I need to restart and just quit all windows).
  - mozarella 3y ago
    Use tab session manager. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-session-manager/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-session-m...
  - brokenmachine 3y ago
    Firefox crashes every now and then, and I don't lose my session.
afiori 3y ago
If you never close a window but instead close the entire firefox (ctrl+shift+q or exit from the menu) then it reopens all the windows. It would be nice a feature that closes all the windows when you close one so to not lose a window by mistake.

StockHuman 3y ago

Tab groups work better with OS functions than multiple windows past a certain number, which is generally dependent on the physical size of one’s screen(s). Exposé on MacOS can get very, very cluttered with more than ten windows open from various apps, and distinguishing between them can be rather cumbersome if the content between the last opened tab of any given window isn’t visually distinct from another. The same is true in Window’s implementation and in their taskbar preview feature. The same is also true with tiling window managers, as every new window becomes something else to manage, where perhaps a “browser” slot should really occupy just one consistent tile. Full-screen workflows (common on small laptops) also benefit from a singular “browser” screen, flanked by other applications instead of numerous windows whose minimization needs to be managed. That, and managing tabs between windows is annoying, especially with rules to open a particular link within a given window, since that might break a setup as above. (Imagine a HN link summoning an entire separate window, reconfiguring your desktop setup, when the errant click could’ve just switched tab groups.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]