5 ms·

Firefox releases tab groups for nightly

107 points by jack-bodine 2y ago

AAAAaccountAAAA 2y ago
Hopefully they won't make it mandatorily enabled like on Android Chrome.
- danpalmer 2y ago
  What does it mean for tab groups to be enforced? Is it popping up messages to shame you into sorting your tabs better? Assuming not, what’s the harm?
  - sunaookami 2y ago
    Have you used Chrome for Android? It's absolutely awful and forced me to switch to another browser. All tabs are opened in a tab group, sometimes they will open a new tab group. Very confusing behaviour. The desktop implementation is good though.
    - kgeist 2y ago
      >All tabs are opened in a tab group, sometimes they will open a new tab group. Very confusing behaviour. So I'm not the only one. I never figured out why sometimes tabs open in an existing group, and sometimes in a new group. Curious to find the spec which explains the behavior...
    - coffeeling 2y ago
      Brave has a setting to enable/disable the feature, idk if standard Chrome has it.
    - KTibow 2y ago
      When clicking or using "open in new tab" from the long press menu (not "open in new tab in group")?
    - Joker_vD 2y ago
      Yeah, it completely ruins the ability to switch to another tab: instead of the tab-switching screen having 6 tab previews, there are now 6 tab group previews with a single tab in each, and those previews are tiny, they are a quarter of the tab preview size. And closing a tab group is, again, more difficult than closing a tab because it has a ... instead of x at the top right corner.
    - danpalmer 2y ago
      I use Chrome on Android and have never noticed a tab group. Admittedly I don't use the browser extensively, but still. On iOS, which seems to be very similar, I've seen the "open in new tab group" button, but never used it.
sunaookami 2y ago
It can also be enabled in Firefox Beta with "browser.tabs.groups.enabled" but it's still a bit buggy there. Ironically, Firefox was the first browser to have tab groups with Firefox 4 until they removed it because "nobody used it".
- Paianni 2y ago
  Opera 11 (Dec 2010) had 'tab stacking'.
  - sunaookami 2y ago
    Didn't knew that, interesting! Really miss the old Opera.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- ksec 2y ago
  >with Firefox 4 until they removed it because "nobody used it". Tab Groups remains a good idea on paper but no one has done a useful implementation of it. I remember during the Firefox 4 Tab Group era I purposed that Tabs from site ( Say HN ) and any Tabs opened from that site, for example I have another tab from this submitted links bugzilla.mozilla.org. All To be moved together into a tab group instead of just moving site to a tab group. It was rejected for whatever reason.
  - Cpoll 2y ago
    This sounds a bit like an extension that nests tabs in a tree structure (I can't remember the name).
    - alasarmas 2y ago
      Tree Style Tabs? https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...
wlesieutre 2y ago
Exciting! Firefox used to support tab groups and removed them in 2016 because they weren’t used enough. Now that Safari has them, I guess there’s pressure to have feature parity?
- infensus 2y ago
  They took the most upvoted ideas from the community forum and started implementing them. Maybe to win some users over, but I think it might be too late for this to have any impact on market share. I'm also kinda disappointed they just copied the UI from Chrome instead of releasing a refreshed version of the previous implementation. Old Firefox tab groups were like Safari tab groups (or "workspaces" in Edge, Vivaldi, Zen and maybe others), and I think they are way better for organisation. Yeah, STG extension still exists, but having it built-in would be nice.
  - siva7 2y ago
    The chrome implementation is way better than of Safari. I don't use the Safari tab groups because they lack features like pinned groups which i need to find it useful.
    - Tagbert 2y ago
      The Chrome tab groups are less useful as they don't really present a single workspace with only the tabs from that group, they are just literally a grouping of tabs all within a single workspace. I use tab groups to switch tabs based on projects and I want full separation of those tab groups. The Chrome and new Firefox groups don't do that.
imcritic 2y ago
I want tab groups in Chromium :-(
- coffeeling 2y ago
  Chromium has had tab groups for ages, both on desktop and mobile.
e40 2y ago
How long does it take to get from nightly to release?
- throwaway74354 2y ago
  Firefox 135 is expected to be released on February 4.
- glandium 2y ago
  This specific change will not automatically make progress from nightly to release. Specifically, this is enabling tab groups by default in nightly only, for however long it will take for the feature to be stabilized.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
johnea 2y ago
A word was left out of the title: Again... Firefox releases tab groups Tabs (including all kinds of groupings and UIs) were the best when they were dealt with in NPAPI plugins. Mozilla foundation has been screwing them up ever since. Of course, always for the betterment of humanity, totally not just because goggle told them to...
- wtallis 2y ago
  Were there ever NPAPI plugins to manage tabs, or are you getting that confused with XUL extensions?
AbuAssar 2y ago
I use tab groups all the time in safari, and I used an extension to have them in firefox as well. This feature is a must for me
maxvisser 2y ago
I rather have something like arc does where you can anchor tabs on the sidebar as bookmarks. It feels a lot less chaotic.
- jay_kyburz 2y ago
  Or, you know, just use bookmarks.
AzzyHN 2y ago
I could've sworn Firefox already had tab groups, though I may be thinking of container tabs...
DanitaBaires 2y ago
Oh god. I hope that doesn't break the plugin I use (can't remember because I'm away from the computer), the one I had to install when they phased out the "panorama" feature.

107 points by jack-bodine 2y ago

AAAAaccountAAAA 2y ago

Hopefully they won't make it mandatorily enabled like on Android Chrome.

danpalmer 2y ago
What does it mean for tab groups to be enforced? Is it popping up messages to shame you into sorting your tabs better? Assuming not, what’s the harm?
- sunaookami 2y ago
  Have you used Chrome for Android? It's absolutely awful and forced me to switch to another browser. All tabs are opened in a tab group, sometimes they will open a new tab group. Very confusing behaviour. The desktop implementation is good though.
  - kgeist 2y ago
    >All tabs are opened in a tab group, sometimes they will open a new tab group. Very confusing behaviour. So I'm not the only one. I never figured out why sometimes tabs open in an existing group, and sometimes in a new group. Curious to find the spec which explains the behavior...
  - coffeeling 2y ago
    Brave has a setting to enable/disable the feature, idk if standard Chrome has it.
  - KTibow 2y ago
    When clicking or using "open in new tab" from the long press menu (not "open in new tab in group")?
  - Joker_vD 2y ago
    Yeah, it completely ruins the ability to switch to another tab: instead of the tab-switching screen having 6 tab previews, there are now 6 tab group previews with a single tab in each, and those previews are tiny, they are a quarter of the tab preview size. And closing a tab group is, again, more difficult than closing a tab because it has a ... instead of x at the top right corner.
  - danpalmer 2y ago
    I use Chrome on Android and have never noticed a tab group. Admittedly I don't use the browser extensively, but still. On iOS, which seems to be very similar, I've seen the "open in new tab group" button, but never used it.

sunaookami 2y ago

It can also be enabled in Firefox Beta with "browser.tabs.groups.enabled" but it's still a bit buggy there. Ironically, Firefox was the first browser to have tab groups with Firefox 4 until they removed it because "nobody used it".

Paianni 2y ago
Opera 11 (Dec 2010) had 'tab stacking'.
- sunaookami 2y ago
  Didn't knew that, interesting! Really miss the old Opera.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ksec 2y ago
>with Firefox 4 until they removed it because "nobody used it". Tab Groups remains a good idea on paper but no one has done a useful implementation of it. I remember during the Firefox 4 Tab Group era I purposed that Tabs from site ( Say HN ) and any Tabs opened from that site, for example I have another tab from this submitted links bugzilla.mozilla.org. All To be moved together into a tab group instead of just moving site to a tab group. It was rejected for whatever reason.
- Cpoll 2y ago
  This sounds a bit like an extension that nests tabs in a tree structure (I can't remember the name).
  - alasarmas 2y ago
    Tree Style Tabs? https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...

wlesieutre 2y ago

Exciting! Firefox used to support tab groups and removed them in 2016 because they weren’t used enough. Now that Safari has them, I guess there’s pressure to have feature parity?

infensus 2y ago
They took the most upvoted ideas from the community forum and started implementing them. Maybe to win some users over, but I think it might be too late for this to have any impact on market share. I'm also kinda disappointed they just copied the UI from Chrome instead of releasing a refreshed version of the previous implementation. Old Firefox tab groups were like Safari tab groups (or "workspaces" in Edge, Vivaldi, Zen and maybe others), and I think they are way better for organisation. Yeah, STG extension still exists, but having it built-in would be nice.
- siva7 2y ago
  The chrome implementation is way better than of Safari. I don't use the Safari tab groups because they lack features like pinned groups which i need to find it useful.
  - Tagbert 2y ago
    The Chrome tab groups are less useful as they don't really present a single workspace with only the tabs from that group, they are just literally a grouping of tabs all within a single workspace. I use tab groups to switch tabs based on projects and I want full separation of those tab groups. The Chrome and new Firefox groups don't do that.

imcritic 2y ago

I want tab groups in Chromium :-(

coffeeling 2y ago
Chromium has had tab groups for ages, both on desktop and mobile.

e40 2y ago

How long does it take to get from nightly to release?

throwaway74354 2y ago
Firefox 135 is expected to be released on February 4.
glandium 2y ago
This specific change will not automatically make progress from nightly to release. Specifically, this is enabling tab groups by default in nightly only, for however long it will take for the feature to be stabilized.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

johnea 2y ago

A word was left out of the title: Again... Firefox releases tab groups Tabs (including all kinds of groupings and UIs) were the best when they were dealt with in NPAPI plugins. Mozilla foundation has been screwing them up ever since. Of course, always for the betterment of humanity, totally not just because goggle told them to...

wtallis 2y ago
Were there ever NPAPI plugins to manage tabs, or are you getting that confused with XUL extensions?

AbuAssar 2y ago

I use tab groups all the time in safari, and I used an extension to have them in firefox as well. This feature is a must for me

maxvisser 2y ago

I rather have something like arc does where you can anchor tabs on the sidebar as bookmarks. It feels a lot less chaotic.

jay_kyburz 2y ago
Or, you know, just use bookmarks.

AzzyHN 2y ago

I could've sworn Firefox already had tab groups, though I may be thinking of container tabs...

DanitaBaires 2y ago

Oh god. I hope that doesn't break the plugin I use (can't remember because I'm away from the computer), the one I had to install when they phased out the "panorama" feature.