Tab-Groups
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Quicksaver
About porting to webExtension
In your farewell post, @Quicksaver said the following :
Its [Tab Groups] core functionality and basic workflow probably can be made into a WebExtension, but only after an almost complete rewrite of the code (with some major work done on Firefox's side as well!), and still stripped down of at least some of its features.
Can you tell us more about this ? I fully understand that you don't want or can't port this addon to work with newer Firefox APIs but since many of us are in love with Tab Groups, some may like to give a try on porting this (at least partially) to WebExtension.
Can you give us a quick overview of what would be impossible in the ported version ? And what would needed on Firefox's side to make it work ?
There's already some things about that in #534, probably a good start for anyone who'd like to give it a shot.
I'm seriously considering about taking up this project or restarting from scratch and using this as a reference. I only use Firefox for two reasons- Tab-Groups and the tabs-scrolling-than-bunching when there are a lot of 'em. You may not use it outside of coding but it's my bread and butter in how I use Firefox. I have over 60ish tabs and they need to be organized. XD I'm going to start looking into how feasible it is to do this.
Don't know where to post this so i'll post it in both bugs: @Quicksaver Are you aware of:
Extend WebExtensions with custom APIs so more legacy add-ons can be ported ?
@Quicksaver @maverick74 @maximstewart @StyMaar
Some Good documentations even a working (but buggy) addon exist for Chrome with Full Documentation:
Original add-on in Alpha stage: https://github.com/arnaud/chrome-tab-sugar
2 Others Fork more advanced and less buggy so they are usable:
- https://github.com/GodLesZ/chrome-tab-sugar Updated in 2015
- https://github.com/dan-corneanu/chrome-tab-sugar Updated in 2014
COMPLETE documentation about the internal of the addon: https://github.com/arnaud/chrome-tab-sugar/wiki/Interactions
Discussion where the original author of the addon and the "forkers" discussed of the development of the addon: https://github.com/arnaud/chrome-tab-sugar/issues/18
I hope it could help to revive the project ! :smiley_cat:
Regards :octocat:
@mikhoul I have to install it on my own, right? The version at the google chrome store is not the current version?
@Chris2011 Yes, the version in the store is the first Alpha Version which is "buggy" a little bit :roll_eyes:
If you want to try those addon in Chrome, you must build a CRX file (addon file) first to be able to install it and use it, but it's easy to do.
1- choose which one you wanna try between the 2 forks:
- https://github.com/GodLesZ/chrome-tab-sugar Updated in 2015
- https://github.com/dan-corneanu/chrome-tab-sugar Updated in 2014
2- Go on the page where is the fork and Download the whole project, it is a zip file: http://i.imgur.com/jDGbNc4.png
3- Once you have the whole project on your computer just rename the Archive from MyAddon.zip to MyAddon.CRX and you have the addon. :smile_cat:
4- To install it in Chrome it's easy too, just follow those instructions: http://chrome-extension-downloader.com/#install
That's it ! :octocat:
Thx, I will try. A release would be good anyway for all others and maybe a version 2 or so, to bring it into the chrome store.
I hope the chrome versions can have some development activity. I switch between firefox and chrome frequently and I'm constantly disappointed at how all of the chrome tab managers are basically glorified bookmark organizers (mainly how if a tab isn't visible, it means the extension closed it and just saved the url).
I don't know if I'm late or off topic (if that's the case, please don't mind) but has anyone seen the firefox container? https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/containers . Seem like the groups will come back.
@Nerothos Not sure what you mean. I've already used Containers and I'm not sure its implementation helps at all with restoring functionality to Tab Groups.
@Nerothos I agree with you that the concepts of Tab Grouping and Containers would fit quite well together at least in my use cases. I actually use Groups to differentiate various roles I have in life and I bear when navigating in a browser session: work stuff, personal regular stuff, personal dev stuff, personal critical stuff like banking, stuffs related to various associations I'm member or accountant of (for instance). Containers will add even better support for that by containing/securing session data but as a side effect, allow to connect on different accounts to same site in different groups (each corresponding to a role of mine). The problem I see with containers today are the ease of use: how to display tabs in a given container and hide the others, how to switch the display to another container... Wait, that's exactly what Tab Groups are meant for. With the same kind of automation: some URLs will be linked to a group/container. Other URLs will be shared accord group/containers (but with different sessions). Some URLs will require their own container and will not share it with any other URL, like banking sites.
@MechaLynx Containers will not help at restoring Tab Groups per se, but they are yet another motivation for Tab Group not to die :)
@klint Perhaps something can be built on top of containers? The only difference between containers and what I need for my use case is having one container "selected", causing all other tabs to be invisible (but still loaded in memory and running). It seems like containers already accomplishes much of the nitty gritty of tab groups by handling container membership and a bonus of isolation.
If it's possible to manipulate containers with an extension, my vote would be to do it that way.
I still have it in muscle memory to press ctrl + shift + e so I'd love to be able to be able to return to that workflow of pressing that shortcut and using arrows and enter to switch groups.
I was just wondering if container could "replace" TabGroups. I didn't had time to test it so I don't know what features are missing. Sorry if my comment was not useful.
@Nerothos Like in my previous comment, the only thing I think containers is missing is the ability to hide other tabs. I haven't tried containers recently, but last time I checked, it still showed all the tabs in the tab bar. I think it's really close though.
@stephen304 I just tried Containers Experiment 2.0.0, and it's possible to show/hide all tabs from a container. But it's not possible to hide other containers, you have to show/hide them one by one, and the UI isn't very convenient : click "Containers" button in the tool bar, click the right arrow next to the container name, click show (or hide).
See https://discourse.mozilla-community.org/c/test-pilot/containers to discuss Containers, especially this post: https://discourse.mozilla-community.org/t/could-panorama-feature-be-brought-back-to-firefox/14672
we're definitely watching the 👍 and comments on those issues to help us decide what enhancements to make to Containers in the future.
Time to send your 👍 and spread the word.
New bug to follow closely https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1333837
Upvote this: https://github.com/mozilla/testpilot-containers/issues/336 An issue to add tab groups into containers, currently a Stretch goal
please if anyone starts a new repo to make tab groups with webextensions, link it here. I am thinking about doing just that but hard to know when :( otherwise I would gladly join the work of someone else :)
In the process of figuring out a different issue, I came across these bugs:
- https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=906076
- https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1333837
There is explicit mention of Tab Groups in the first one. It seems to be a different extension, but the second bug seems explicitly involved with creating tab groups under WebExtensions.
Related comments:
- https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=906076#c234
The irony of this is that, as I see it, the main benefit of this change is that it will make it easier to use large numbers of tabs. But it looks like the fix is not going to be complete until after XUL extensions are dropped, so the main extensions that are also needed for using large numbers of tabs (such as the very useful Tab Groups Helper written by the main person working on this bug) will no longer be available, and it will still not be possible to comfortably use large numbers of tabs in Firefox. Is that right or am I missing something?
- https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=906076#c251
Wasn't the tab groups addon mentioned before in regards of prematurely inserting lazy browsers? Was it determined if it's an issue on FF's side or the addon's (like with BackTrack Tab History)?
I haven't read the full details on each of these - apologies if it's a false positive.
Here.s a WebExt that can be used as replacement of TabsGroups, maybe I will fork it to Firefox and improve it at a later time but it is usable. :octocat:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/divider-tabs/mpbblhoepkmpgalgppdoahgeoknmjgpc/reviews
Not bad. It doesn't look like it quite supports the same workflow, and leaves things cluttered still, but the alternative is far worse.
Also, it would be ideal for any replacement to be able to import existing groups.
Divider Tabs 2.0 (2014-10-07):
- does not work with Firefox 54.0 (64-bit) on FreeBSD, divisions are empty
- is not reliable with Chromium 58.0.3029.110 (64-bit) on FreeBSD.
I can't imagine it as a successor to Tab Groups. Sorry.
I have yet to find a Chrome tab manager that works anything like FF's Pandora/TabGroups functionality - even https://github.com/Quicksaver/Tab-Groups/issues/535#issuecomment-312361904 doesn't really seem to do so. This extension really is the prime differentiator for Firefox. Sad to FF going this way, and enables really good tab management and workflows:
- minimal number of tabs in a window
- management "windows"/"tab" where you can manage all the tabs and even go to a specific tab in a specific tab group.
- restores when session crashed
