Page grouping roadmap

Page grouping roadmap

This forum does not allow late edits. This is why I started a blog post on the same topic that I will try to keep up to date if necessary. Nevertheless, I still encourage to have the discussion here in the wishlist thread.

Page grouping has appeared as one of the most requested features in the past. Unfortunately, every new thread on this topic basically starts from scratch. This is why I thought about a comprehensive thread to talk about realistic steps towards implementing this long-desired feature. Some of these first steps are surprisingly simple imo.

A more detailed description can be found in the related blog post. Here I will keep it short.


I imagine the following steps to be implemented in Opera one-by-one. Each of them is useful enough for itself to bring a benefit in browsing. Of course, some of the proposed features may better be turned off by default.

1. Open only Links next to active page to reflect the parent-child relation of one web page opened "in new tab" from a link in another.
2. Spacers and color-coding in the page bar as in Window Management - A Proposal, based on the same parent-child relation.
3. Icons for background browser windows (not tabs) in page bar, to support the use of multiple windows as page groups.
4. A two-layer page bar
5. .. with mouseover-sensitive group tabs
6. ... with dropdowns
7. ... with small-size clickable icons for each tab inside the group tab
8. Film strip on mouseover: Instead of tooltips, I want a horizontal "film strip" faded in when hovering a squeezed-size tab - kind of a temporary toolbar that shows a "zoomed-in", readable version of the page bar in vicinity of the mouseover tab (with or without thumbnail images). The film strip will scroll left and right following the mouse pointer (but at higher speed, because of the zoom), and disappear when the mouse leaves the page bar. This should be better than any fish-eye interfaces, because it doesn't screw up your mental model of the mouse.
9. Highlight related pages: A "relatedness measure" is defined that tells how much one page is related to another one, depending on different criteria. Opera would then highlight the tabs that are considered related to the active page and/or to the mouseover tab.

I would love to see this implemented in Opera. I have upwards of 40 tabs open at any given time, which makes searching for the right tabs a good memory exercise.

How about spring loading stacked tabs (similar to <a href="http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/features/desktop.html">OS X, v10.5/Leopard</a>?)

Originally posted by :: gogo :::

How about spring loading stacked tabs (similar to OS X, v10.5/Leopard?)

Hmm, looks like a dropdown list, but more appealing to the eye..

Originally posted by Schneemann:

Hmm, looks like a dropdown list, but more appealing to the eye..

Darn -- caught with my pants down! Yes, I guess it is just a fancy dropdown list.

Initially I was thinking that a limit of two levels would be rather tight and that "stacks containing stacks" would be useful, but came to the conclusion that it would be no good. After all, we are talking about active tabs (and there's only so many you can have of those, considering you actually need to "process" them at some stage). And for the sake of usability it would certainly help to keep things simple.

+1

Not to forget process / memory / bandwidth management giving highest priority to the active group..

In my perfect world, I'd love to see Tab folders implemented in an 'expanding' sort of view... a la:


File | Edit | View | Bookmarks | Widgets | Feeds | Chat | Tools | Help
[ Folder 1 ] [ Folder 2 ] [ Folder 2, Child 1 ] [ Folder 2, Child 2 ] [ Folder 2, Child 3 ] [ Folder 3 ] ... [Trash]

Then, when you click on a different folder, you see:

File | Edit | View | Bookmarks | Widgets | Feeds | Chat | Tools | Help
[ Folder 1 ] [ Folder 1, Child 1] [ Folder 1, Child 2] [ Folder 2 ] [ Folder 3 ] ... [Trash]


That way the child tabs sort of appear and disappear when needed. Seems easy enough to implement but then again I'm not a computer programmer Giving each folder tab a new color, and all child tabs a shade of the same color would also be a really cool feature.

Yes, I understand!
The tricky thing is that the tabs will jump around if you switch folders. This can be confusing, but maybe it doesn't hurt that much.. not sure.

Any news about the intention of implementing Tabs Group in an official release?

And would you think it could be possible to develop it with the actual tools available for Opera? (JS, Widgets and the use of Javascript)

I'd like to get it from the Opera Dev Team... they certainly do a good job.
But it seems they are not interested of it.

Someone can tell something more?

+1

+1

+1

+1

I would very much like this implented in Opera, but I don't find having two lines of tabs very.. pretty. I like to have it this way:

[titlebar]
[toolbar]
[tabs]
[navigation and addressbar]

I like having tabs between the toolbar and the navigation, and having another set of tabs there would IMHO be a little too much.

That's why I suggest having a button on the right side of either the toolbar, or the tabs. Let's call the button "Tabset" or "tabgroups" or something like that.

Pressing this button would result in this context-menu:

[Create new group]
[Edit groups]
----------------
[[B]My pages[/B] ([I]default[/I])]
[Computer research]
[Work related] 

"My pages" is just a name I've specified here for the tabs I use the most, i.e. newssites, blogs I read (but don't want to subscribe to) and other stuff.
Then I have my two other tabs with other stuff, which I want separated.

These three groups could be called by for instance clicking in the menu or by using a hotkey.

Creating a new group could be done by shift-clicking several tabs and drag them into the group-button or maybe the "new tab" button?
A new tabset could also be created by shift-clicking the tabset button itself, opening up a new clean line with only a new tab with speed dial.

The new tabset dialogue could be something like this:

[Name of the set] (selected as default)
[keep tabs open] [remove when empty]
[OK]

"Keep tabs open", would result in having the tabs open in the background, meaning storing the session. If the checkbox hadn't been marked, the tabs would open everytime you selected this set, thus saving resources.
"Remove when empty", unchecked by default. If you close all tabs in a set, then the set will be removed also. Nice when you just want to check something out quick, and it requires lots of tabs.

But this only have to be an alternative to a two-line-system as well. I just think I would prefer this style, rather then (I must admit) a more easier to understand-system with to lines of tabs, like that Fx-plugin.

came back to check after half a year or so to see if anything has been done about grouping tabs...

+1 - this would be a really useful feature!

Pictor13, Llama Thumper: you can achieve some useful pagegroup capabilities with existing tools. See my sig for buttons which toggle tab bar to vertical & generate dummy pages (using data URLs) whose tabs serve as editable category headings and folders; follow link to blog item about system with those plus windows panel view, all on one button via a dropdown menu.

+1

Nice! this would mean I don't have to open new windows.

While we were just discussing IE 8 implemented similar feature... I mean tabs grouping with colors.

I've started a thread with a different subject but similar concerns, just thought maybe it would be somewhat interesting.
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=259132