Preference(s) for ctrl-click, middle-click, target="_blank" new tabs placement

[lalomartins]

This is spinning off from the discussion in #1040; I thought it would be a good idea to have a separate ticket in case someone searches for it.

TST opens tabs created by ctrl-click, middle-click, and target="_blank" as children. I for one would prefer siblings.

@piroor -san, feel free to tag this one need contribution if you think it belongs in the addon, I'm more likely to work on this than #1040 in terms of priority to my workflow 😸

[piroor]

Hmm, I really think this is out of purpose of TST, because new tabs opened from links in webpages are definitely (subjectively 99%) related to the current tab. Adding too many new options for very rare cases will make the configuration dialog chaotic, like Seamonkey's one

Why I decided to add options for bookmarks, the "new tab" button, and some other cases, is: TST cannot detect the context. The new tab is possibly related to the current tab, but possibly don't. On the other hand, arguably tabs from links are related to the contents of the current tab. Note, I believe that TST should create and manage tree of tabs based on the context in the user's private mind, not based on objective reasons - URLs or others. I also believe that tabs sorted by URLs are seemingly nice, but actually not useful.

[lalomartins]

The question is, is “related” a child or a sibling? As far as my workflow, “related” should be sibling.

[lalomartins]

We could hide this whole story in a single pref, to avoid confusion — “Open related tabs as: [ ] child of current tab [ ] sibling of current tab”

[SlugFiller]

I actually like SeaMonkey's low-level option. As a counter-example, I direct you to Chrome, which offers practically no configurations, even for simple things like which key combination is used for searching text in a page. Its "My way or the highway" attitude is one of the reasons I use Firefox instead.

IMO, I think something shouldn't be tagged "out of purpose" if it can't be done with a separate add-on or workaround. The possibility should at least be there, in case this is something some user really needs.

On the topic of "user's private mind", options in the right-click menu would be helpful. By default, in Firefox, there are options for opening in a new tab, window, and private window. Perhaps opening in tab should be split to sibling, child, or orphan?

[piroor]

Please don't forget, this is my private project. The prime user is me, not "everyone". I'll accept and merge changes from others when its purpose adopts to my vision, but if it doesn't I'll reject it. For example, too complex configuration dialog like Seamonkey.

In old days I developed an all-in-one addon named "Tabbrowser Extensions", aka "TBE", for Firefox 1.5 and older versions. It was very similar to current Tab Mix Plus - actually TMP was designed as an "better TBE". TBE had very complex configuration dialog like Seamonkey's. As the result, TBE became too large, too complex, and I had to give up to update it for Firefox 2.

So I know that the future of adding many optional features infinitely - that must kill TST.

If you have different vision about tree of tabs and it doesn't match to my one, I'm very sorry but I recommend you to fork the project completely. I believe that it is the only way which make us happy.

[lalomartins]

Oh, I knew your name sounded familiar. I was a happy TBE user. When it could no longer be maintained, I switched to Chrome… only returned to Firefox a few years later (for similar reasons as @SlugFiller).

I understand both your points, but we can still try to convince you for individual points, right? ;-)

What's happening now is, Mozilla is killing tab groups, and yours is one of the add-ons recommended in the blog post as a replacement. So, that's probably why you're seeing an influx of new users.

There could be an argument for forking it into a “community project”, but on the other hand your experience would be valuable as a “project BDFL”. It depends on whether you have any interest (and time) for maintaining a project “for everyone”.

[mausalimi]

@piroor

fair enough. i remember TBE, and it became buggier and buggier, it was probably simply too big to maintain, with all the changes mozilla is going all the time.

speaking about mozilla, i think they're gonna kill firefox anyway. myself i'm sticking to v42, as this works nice here with all installed extensions. i got sick after all with all those updates, and every time at least one extension stopped working properly.
and after reading https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2015/08/21/the-future-of-developing-firefox-add-ons it seems lots of extensions won't work any more in future.

seriously, i admire the extension devs for adapting their projects all the time, it must be frustrating sometimes.

and mozilla doesn't care about opinions of extension devs or end users, they just keep going...

i'm using firefox since v0.8, but i have a feeling, i will have to look for something else sooner or later.

[piroor]

I completely forgot that TST has a secret preferences implemented at #452.

/**
 * How to treat new tabs from Ctrl-T.
 *  0 = Open as an independent tab.
 *  1 = Open as a child tab of the current tab.
 *  2 = Open as a sibling tab of the current tab.
 *  3 = Open as a next sibling tab of the current tab.
 */
...
/**
 * How to treat new tabs from the current tab (links, frames, media, etc.).
 *  Options are same to extensions.treestyletab.autoAttach.newTabCommand.
 */
pref("extensions.treestyletab.autoAttach.fromCurrent", 1);

[lalomartins]

👍 wonderful, it works!

[piroor]

One more information: if you want to open the link in new sibling tab, then you can do it by dragging a link and drop it onto a tab or between tabs.

[piroor]

TST 0.19.x is already obsolete, so I close this.