Open/close tab-by-tab

[cxw42]

Edit As of 2019-09-26, the former issue35 branch is now master!

Ability to open or close one tab at a time, rather than having to do the entire window at once. Requested by Blank Makkara via user review 2017/09/07.

Known issues

Bugs

• The tests are hard to read and hard to modify. I need to write a better skeleton so that I can easily write tests expressing the semantics I want.
• Given tabs open 1, closed 2, open 3, open 4, drop 4 before 3. It snaps to after 1 rather than staying where you dropped it.
• When behaviour like that happens, and then you middle-click to open a new tab from a tab that is not the rightmost, the mapping of indices to windows is thrown off.
• Moved to In partially-open window longer than TF window when expanded, deleting closed tab below causes the window to scroll back to the top #280
• Need to finish implementing collapse option from 25752b3 - Edit will not be implemented at this time- see 2deb068
• Moved to URLSubstitute in a partially-open window only affects the open tabs #281
• In a partially-open window, drag an open tab (in the browser window) from after a gap to before, and then back. Sometimes the tab's tree entry will skip a closed tab, then jump to after two open tabs, when moving from left to right back across the gap. Edit We now have well-defined behaviour for this case. The tab will stay on the same side of the gap until it has to jump.

Design questions

• Moved to Should dropping single tab of open window into a closed window close the open window? #282
• Moved to Should closing a tab from within a partially-open Chrome window close (not delete) the tab in the tree? #283

[cxw42]

Also requested by LateNightHacks via user review 2017/10/14.

Also requested by a user via email 2017/10/25.

[cxw42]

Closing individual tabs requested by Garreth Tinsley 2018/04/12 via review.

[cxw42]

@r4j4h @ShervinM @bluikko Anybody who is able to load unpacked and try it out --- This is ready for you to test! 🎉 🎉 As always, backup early and often :) .

[philiprhoades]

Chris,

On 2021-01-19 13:11, Chris White wrote: It's been working for me --- last call for any feedback before I ship it to the Web Store!

It has been working fine for me too - the only (non-critical) issue (which is just an annoyance) I have noticed, and which is probably not related anyway - is that the order of open windows in the TF window occasionally changes. To start I open an initial empty Chrome window which also opens the TF window; then I close the empty Chrome window and open a bunch of regular and current windows from TF. Why the order should change I don't know but it is convenient for me to have the TF window at the bottom and a consistent order for my other windows - see attached screencapture . . Thanks! Phil. -- Philip Rhoades PO Box 896 Cowra NSW 2794 Australia E-mail: [email protected]

[cxw42]

@philiprhoades the screen capture didn't come through --- would you please resend? Thanks!

[philiprhoades]

That is annoying . . I am posting it again from the forum itself instead of replying to the email . .

[grnassar]

Looks like a lot of work has gone into this! Any chance we'll see it in the release soon?

[cxw42]

Hopefully in the next week or two --- I've been slammed recently :( . Please be assured I have not forgotten!

[SamHasler]

I see that What's new page in the settings says that this will be in the next version. (in the settings for Version 0.2.2 - 2021-12-22)

Have you made a decision yet on the 2 Design questions in the initial comment at the top of this page?

Will there be any indication that a window is partially open? (perhaps via #265)

[cxw42]

• Design questions: no, I have not experimented with those. 0.3.0 will have the current behaviour, just so I don't have more to debug before releasing it :) .
• Indication that a window is partially open: currently, there is not. Example: no marker on "Recovered tabs":
  

If you wanted to work on #265, e.g., to show (#open) or (#open/#total), I would be happy to include it in 0.3.0.

Another option would be to add an icon next to the window icon, the way we do for tabs that are playing audio. Maybe a half-full thermometer? Anything from Silk or Font Awesome 4.7 is fair game.

[cxw42]

Branch issue35rc is up to date (0.3.0-pre.4) 10bf616 . I am currently building with node 10.19.0 and npm 6.14.10.

[Luckz]

For the window: italics for a partially loaded window, greyed out for a entirely unloaded window might be an option.
I suppose the semi-loaded icon being on the right of the window icon isn't wrong, but shouldn't there then be three? One for fully loaded, one for partially, and one for nada?

More UI musings below.

--

I think a vertical tab view (like this arguably is) should ideally show (potential) tabs that aren't part of the browser's session (= what we're talking about here) in one way, and in-session tabs that are discarded or unloaded (those two are equivalent for the user) in another way.
The use of font width, font colour, font style might or might be more easy to read at a glance than icons. Depends on how the icons are placed, I suppose – but readability (seeing information at a glance) should be the most important aspect.

Tabs Outliner doesn't show if tabs are discarded/unloaded or fully loaded within a session, which IMO is wasted potential. TO however makes it very easy to see at a glance what is closed.

In a scenario where there are no closed tabs to deal with, only discarded/unloaded, I tend to like something like this:

div.isdiscarded > div > span.title {
  color: grey;
  /*text-decoration: underline;*/
  opacity: 0.7;
}

or

label > img.discarded + span.title {
  color: lightgrey;
}

[cxw42]

@Luckz thanks for the thoughts!

• Window labeling: currently, open vs. closed is indicated by color, so I don't think we need icons for fully-loaded and totally closed. I am open to arguments to the contrary.
• Italics for a partly-open window would work and I think would require fewer changes to the code than Add tab count #265.
• I agree with prioritizing readability.

TF doesn't currently distinguish in-session unloaded tabs from closed tabs. Could you tell me a bit more about that? Is it a Chrome feature I just haven't yet realized exists? :D

[Luckz]

chrome://discards
Tabs with Loading State = loaded (or loading and such) will use resources, as you can see on the task manager (shift-escape)
tabs that are unloaded (either due to not having been activated yet in the context of lazy loading, or having been discarded, which sets Lifecycle State to discarded) will not use resources.
Edge makes extensive use of 'sleeping' tabs, which visually appear discarded but aren't.

https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/reference/tabs/#method-discard

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/tabs/discard

For implementations of this (not saying Tab Fern should actively discard any tabs!), you can see https://github.com/rNeomy/auto-tab-discard https://github.com/hrj/sloth https://github.com/rkodey/the-great-er-discarder-er https://github.com/jman/lazy_tab

[cxw42]

@Luckz TIL! I opened new #279 for showing discarded tabs in some way. Thanks for the idea!

[cxw42]

@SamHasler I have moved all the open tasks from the top comment into their own issues. Thanks again for asking about those!

[cxw42]

#300 => 0.3.0 with this feature is pending review in the Chrome Web Store 🤞

[cxw42]

Live on the Chrome Web Store \o/ :tada: