Feedback - what's missing (Tabs group)

Firefox Containers
#1

Hi all,
I just quickly want to give a feedback about containers feature. I understand the isolation concept and I think it’s great but honestly I wanted to test this feature because I thought it may have similar features than the add-on tab groups. I think containers are now missing two important points:

  • the ability to open all the tab “contained” in a container;
  • the ability to save container’s content between two sessions without having to restore tabs.

In example, at work I want to be able to quickly switch between different subjects without having too many tabs open and/or having to create a new window and open all tabs of a group of bookmark. I may want to have group of tabs for all my orders, a group of tabs for my researches themes, a group of tabs for when I am looking for lunch, etc… Same envy apply for my home browsing - thematic tabs group accessible within a single click.

This is my 2 cents and I hope it can belong in here.

1 Like
The window is the container – the user groups things within a container – those things are tabs
Can't customize my tab appearance anymore
#2

Thanks for the feedback. You may be interested adding a :thumbsup: and/or comments to this issue:

https://github.com/mozilla/testpilot-containers/issues/336

2 Likes
#3

@groovecoder thanks, just did it !

#4

@kesselborn @smichel17 and all – spun off from GitHub (for broader discussion) …

From New Tab always misinterpreted as New Container Tab … · Issue #56 · kesselborn/conex

… only one container will be visible at a time, …

Consider Mozilla bug 1323873 - Allow tabs to change user contexts when navigating in particular, from comment 10 by @jonathanKingston:

… about allowing a Tab to transition from one context to another on navigation. … isn’t about converting the current URL from one context to another. …

If that enhancement request will be implemented in Firefox, or in an extension – and if Conex will show no more than one container at a time – then what will happen when one tab in the midst of (say) a dozen, all of which relate to each other, undergoes a transition? Will that one tab disappear, leaving its eleven relations in the single visible container? Or will the window automatically transition to suit the one tab, and cause the user to lose sight of the eleven that were related?

What if the transitioning tab – with e.g. four transitions or more – is one of fifty tabs or more?

1323873 is partly what drove my question under Can we do something about the context menu entry? · Issue #711 · mozilla/multi-account-containers:

… Please, have I misunderstood the mock-ups? Or is the intention to encourage no more than one window per container?

Back to kesselborn/conex issue #56:

… the goal is to be a tab-group replacement …

A fine goal but re: https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers/issues/336#issuecomment-305962454 (2017-06-03) etc. my use case is among those where it’s simply not possible to embrace the use of containers for tab management.

Folks, please note, that’s not a lack of appreciation of the qualities of Firefox containers.

Rather, it’s a recognition of what I see as the feature’s natural emphasis on containment without movement. More technically:

My workflows embrace rich, seamless movement – as is possible with combinations of extensions such as these:

https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/tab-groups-panorama/

#5

My workflows embrace rich, seamless movement – as is possible with combinations of extensions such as these:

We wrote a whole wiki response on why primary container UI doesn’t want to support this: https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers/wiki/Moving-between-containers

I think we should concentrate on providing UI flows that are useful for promoting users into making themselves more private. I don’t fully think we are there yet and we want to keep iterating on this. However this seamless movement you speak of simply isn’t possible in privacy conscious world.

However this doesn’t prevent other add-ons from implementing this on top of containers however I don’t think this will ever become core UI.

What if the transitioning tab – with e.g. four transitions3 or more – is one of fifty tabs or more?

I don’t think switching tabs is really switching contexts, we are merely talking improving the tab UI itself in that bug. For example container assignment changes a tab from one container to another on redirection. Sure Conex can decide to use that for tab switching URLs but they already can do this by swapping a tab out to a new one, it just looks a little uglier than desired.

I disagree that tab management isn’t possible especially as there are already lots of extensions out there solving these issues.

1 Like
Feature Request: A way to change the container of the current tab
#6

:100: I’m entirely supportive of that.

It is possible, but not possible solely within the boundaries of Firefox containers (and extensions that are bound by that technology) – and that’s not a criticism of containers.

There remains a need for complementary extensions such as Tab Groups.

#7

boundaries of Firefox containers

It’s not even a boundary of the technology, we could put tab switching into core Firefox tomorrow. The side effect would be that we would also remove the privacy benefits we provide.

We would end up with… a different interface for tab groups.

This is why, the majority of those extensions can be implemented with an add-on that implements this.

1 Like
#8

Sure … I’m neither discouraging use of containers-based extensions, nor suggesting any change to core that might remove or reduce the benefits of privacy.

Some of what’s in this containers topic overlaps with a topic that’s focused on the Tab Groups extension. Maybe most relevant at this time: