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Tab Mix Plus

Mar/20 in Add-ons Reviews, Tabbed Browsing

Tab Mix Plus It has been a long time since I have taken a look at Tab Mix Plus.  I know a lot of people who use it, and it continues to be one of the most popular Firefox add-ons out there.  So the first question to ask is, what makes it so darn special?

Well, the main goal of Tab Mix Plus is to give Firefox’s tabs more capabilities.  You can quickly duplicate tabs, control the tab focus, you get all kinds of tab clicking options, undo tabs and windows, and that is just scratching the surface. 

It also includes a full-featured session manager with crash recovery that can save and restore combinations of opened tabs and windows.

Tab Mix Plus Options

Need help using one Tab Mix Plus’s features?  They have a handy set of user forums here:

All in all, Tab Mix Plus is still a great addition to the Firefox browser if you need to do “more” with your tabs than the default Firefox install or any other add-ons give you. 

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Store 50 Tabs in Multiple Extra Rows

Jan/08 in Add-ons Reviews, Tabbed Browsing

1230289252 Are you running short on room for your multiple tabs?  TooManyTabs is an add-on for Firefox that will give you the ability to store up to 50 tabs in multiple extra rows with a simple click.

In turn, with this extra organization, you have better visualization and prioritizing for the pages you are navigating through.  Here are a few more details from the TooManyTabs developer:

Instead of allowing idle tabs to waste your PC’s memory, you can now put your tabs on the extra rows, remove them from the memory, and restore* them in your browser when you need them again. The extra rows also allow you to better prioritize and visualize your tabs. Finding the right tab have never been easier! It is now guilt-free to be a tab-aholic!

Better Tab Management

Some more features of this extension include:

  • Restore up to 20 recently closed tabs
  • Marking tabs in different colors
  • Options to customize number of rows
  • Option to open tabs adjacent to your selected tab
  • Open all tabs of the same row in TooManyTabs

As an extra bonus, you can also pin your most visited tabs onto the TooManyTabs and access them anytime.  Also, pinned tabs will stay on the TooManyTabs row until you unpin them.  To learn more about the development of this Firefox extension be sure to check out their official web site, and if you are ready to give it a shot – you can pick it up on the Firefox Add-ons site.

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Better Tab Switching with FoxTab

Sep/16 in Add-ons Reviews, Tabbed Browsing

foxtab3 Want a new way to quickly and elegantly switch between tabs in Firefox?  FoxTab is a new experimental add-on for Firefox, and it makes switching between tabs a very unique experience. 

You can view your tabs in a number of different ways:

  • Wall – like a TV store. select the desired tab (“TV screen”) from a wall.
  • Grid – the tabs are aligned on a grid.
  • Row – the tabs arranged in a row.
  • Cycle – rotate between tabs.

Activating it is easy.  Either hit the toolbar button for it, or hold the Ctrl key down and then hit the Tab key.  If you want to keep it front and center, just hit Ctrl + Q.  From the options, you can also set the size of the tab switcher (just in case you don’t like it being full screen). 

foxtab foxtab2

All in all it provides a new visual method for quick tab switching that is both useful and beautiful at the same time.  Currently FoxTab is only for Windows users, and is an experimental add-on.  If you wish to download it, and try it out – you can do so at the Firefox Add-ons site.

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Badges for Favicons

Sep/01 in Add-ons Reviews, Tabbed Browsing

Think of that wasted space in your tab bar.  You know, where the favicon for the web site your visiting rests.  Isn’t there enough room there to fit in a little more information about the web site you are visiting?

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The new Firefox add-on Badges on Favicon takes advantage of that idea very well.  It allows you to put a rounded badge over the tab favicon of some pages.  Where does this come in handy?  Well what if you could see in your tab the number of unread Gmail messages you had?  Or how about if it told you how many new posts were in Google Reader?

Nuggets of Information for Your Tabs

The extension uses little scripts, called badgets. The badgets define both the appearance of the badge (color, position, size of the text, etc.) and how to get the data from the current page. The extension comes with three sample badgets that work with Gmail, iGoogle Reader Gadget and Zenbe. But you can install your own badgets and even create your own for your preferred site.

This add-on was also a runner up in the Extend Firefox 3 contest.  It is still listed as “experimental” so you might need to visit BugMeNot for a user name and password (or sign up on Mozilla.org) to use before trying to download.

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Add Tab Clicking Options

Aug/18 in Add-ons Reviews, Tabbed Browsing

Need a few more options for your Firefox tabs?  Twanno’s Tab Clicking Options extension for Firefox should do the trick.  With the Tab Clicking Options extension it is possible to set various actions to different clicking events on the tab bar or a tab in the Firefox browser.

duplicatetab The events you can assign an action to are:

  • Double clicking
  • Clicking with middle mouse button
  • Left clicking with control-key (or meta-key on Mac) pressed
  • Left clicking with alt-key pressed
  • Left clicking with shift-key pressed

    • And the actions which you can choose from are:

  • Open a new tab
  • Reload the tab
  • Reload all tabs
  • Close tab
  • Close other tabs
  • Close all tabs
  • Duplicate Tab
  • Duplicate Tab in New Window
  • Undo Close Tab (only in Firefox 2.0 beta or with extensions)
  • Bookmark Tab
  • Bookmark All Tabs (not in Firefox 1.0)
  • No Action

    • This is no doubt that Tab Clicking Options makes it easier to work with your tabs in a number of different ways.  Also, because I know somebody will bring it up – Tab Mix Plus will also do a lot of these same things too. So if you want an alternative – there you go.  (via Download Squad)

    Bonus: Via Twanno’s Firefox extensions page you can also pick up his Duplicate Tab add-on for the browser.  It allows you to clone a tab along with its history.
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Save Your Lost Tabs

Aug/05 in Add-ons Reviews, Tabbed Browsing

save-that-lost-tab What was that tab you closed about three tabs back again? Could it have been the fourth tab back, before you got your coffee? If you find yourself using the Ctrl + Shift + T keyboard combination to bring up lost tabs a lot, there is a better way to get the job done.  The Undo Closed Tabs Button add-on for Firefox gives you a few ways to save your lost tabs.

This extension allows you to undo closed tabs via a toolbar and/or tab bar button or the right-click context menu. Also it comes with a much easier keyboard combination of its own to remember, Ctrl + Shift + Z.   You must add the toolbar button by going to View -> Toolbars -> Customize, then drag and drop the icon where you want it on the toolbar.

Save your lost tabs, and save yourself a lot of wear and tear on your Ctrl and Shift keys while you are at it.  Your keyboard will thank you!

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Move Tabs to the Sidebar

Jul/15 in Tabbed Browsing

thumbnails-in-sidebar The Tab Sidebar add-on for Firefox does a simple change, but after I can promise you you’ll get a whole new perspective for the way Firefox works.  It acts more like a replacement for the tab bar and includes an always visible thumbnail preview of all the tabs you may have loaded up.

Here are some of the other Tab Sidebar features:

  • Provides navigation options for each tab including history, stop and reload
  • Allows you to move tabs around with drag and drop
  • You can drop links, local files and bookmarks anywhere you like
  • Displays the security status of tabs
  • Automatically refreshes the tab preview whenever the page changes

To activate the extension, just go to View and then Tab Sidebar to see it.  On the down side, some have complained that CPU usage goes way up when using this addition.  On the good side though, hey – you get pretty thumbnails for all of your tabs!  In the “what would I like to see” I would like to see if work flawlessly with the scroll wheel on your mouse. 

There is a lot of promise and a lot to already love, so give Tab Sidebar a download either via the Firefox Add-ons site or the official web page for the extension.

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Add Flags to Firefox Tabs

May/06 in Add-ons Reviews, Tabbed Browsing

firefox-flag-tab We have colored them, moved them, shrunk them – so why not add little colored flags to your tabs?  The FlagTab add-on for Firefox gives a little more control when it comes to organizing your open tabs in Firefox.  For each tab open you can add a different colored flag, or give several the same colored flag.  The organizational options here are endless.

This extension for Firefox would come particularly handy when it comes to working on a project, where you need to keep track of which tabs are with which set of sites.  For example, if I was writing something about Firefox, I might flag the Mozilla sites I was getting information from green and the non-Mozilla sites red.  That way I can quickly see the difference between the two.

So if you are in need of another way to organize your open tabs – FlagTab might just do the job.

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Open Links in the Next Tab Over

Apr/30 in Add-ons Reviews, Tabbed Browsing

Open in the Next Tab Over... The Next Tab add-on for Firefox solves an issues I deal with everyday. We have all run into the situation where we are opening up a link and we have many tabs open already. Now to see that new link would you rather scroll sideways all the way to the end of the list of have it open up beside your current tab? Most people would say, “Hey Mitch, open that link up beside of course!”.

According to the developer, Next Tab is…

An add-on that improves the tabbed browsing. Naturally, we want all related tabs grouped together. So when you are a opening a new tab, you might want to open it right next to the current tab. This is a small, light weight extension that does the same. Usage: When you right click on a link, you will get an option to “open the link next to current tab” in the context menu. Click on it and the tab will be opened right next to the current tab.

So for those of use who spend our time browsing back and forth through multiple tabs, there is now an easier way to open the next link in a tab right next to your first one.

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Firefox Tab-a-mania!

Apr/21 in Tabbed Browsing, Usability

There is no doubt in anybody’s mind that tabs are a big part of the success of Firefox. So to pay homage to that trait that we all know and love I pulled out some of the most popular tab tips to date that I have posted here on Firefox Facts. Some of them you remember, and some you may have missed.

Here we have 40 A+ tips though that will make your tabs even more terrific!

Continue Reading →

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