Workspaces à la Opera

[joshg253]

Please implement Workspaces in the way that current Opera browsers have. It's an incredibly slick way to compartmentalize things, which is super helpful for neurodivergents like myself. I'm currently utilizing separate/different browsers to achieve similar.

Basically a vertical list of icons for each Workspace on the side (a button in the toolbar with a dropdown to select Workspaces would suffice), that instantly switch to all the Tabs open in a given Workspace and hides everything else. Pinned Tabs stay with each Workspace. Tab Groups can exist within a Workspace.

I've tried all the "similar" Firefox addons people suggested throughout the tubes, but as Prince said, "Nothing Compares 2 U".

• They all seem to reload tabs when you switch, which is not fast and therefore not slick. 🙂
  • Some are worse, you have to manually save a "session" and then it'll reload all the tabs in the session when you switch. Not slick.
• They all seem to (purposefully) show Pinned Tabs regardless of Workspace.
  • Perhaps ~Globally-Pinned Tabs that always show regardless of Workspace selected could be useful for others, but unnecessary for me at the moment.
• Some similar ideas "containerize" each ~workspace, which requires you to log into each site in each Workspace separately -- not what I want. I want all my stuff accessible from each Workspace. My Work & Home identities are on separate computers.
  • A "container" feature is different than this request but I think they could work together. E.g. create a Workspace, choose an identity/account/etc. for it. Outside the scope of this request.

E.g. I have:

1. A Main Workspace with my main email + tasks + feed reader pinned, then use that area for general browsing (i.e. normal life).
2. A Gaming Workspace with maps & stuff for games I'm currently playing.
3. A Dev Workspace with all my Dev-related stuff (source control sites, another email account, etc.).
4. Temporary Workspaces for when rabbit holes go too deep...
5. Etc.

I'd likely make even more use of them if they were in my preferred browser. (fanboi since Phoenix🔥🦅)

No idea how this would translate in mobile, not concerned with that for the time being. Desktop Firefox on Windows/Linux.

Also not concerned with being able to sync Workspaces across browsers -- I think we can already see open tabs in other browsers sync'd to our Firefox accounts, good enough for me.

[wally314garcia]

Yes!

I originally tried out Opera because their UI is much more compact and then my life was changed when I discovered workspaces. I still use Firefox because the password manager in Opera is too tedious to get into when I need it, but if they ever make that as easy to access like in Firefox....

[sfink]

It seems like all of these are currently supported by using separate windows (things are preloaded, pinned tabs are per-window), just without being drawn as separate windows.

I would definitely use it. I could imagine a UI where it shows up similar to a pinned tab, but clicking on it gives a list of workspaces to choose from.

If we gained per-window container defaults, I would hope that it would also apply to these workspaces.

[KERR]

Adding a link and pics. Looks good and makes sense (although I haven't tried it myself)

https://www.opera.com/features/workspaces

[Anonymous]

@joshg253@wally314garcia@sfink@KERRHi! How are you guys? What do you think of this idea? If we had a vertical tab with native tab grouping more customizable tab bar - we could have workspaces! reference here: https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/native-vertical-tabs-like-in-microsoft-edge/idi-p/85and reference here: https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/native-tab-grouping-more-customizable-tab-bar/idi-p/303

[Anonymous]

Do i understand this correctly ... that the only 2 issues are having is that  pinned tabs should be contained inside the workspace and that tabs should not reload between workspace switches ?  If so i think this should absolutely be doable via the existing web-extension(aka. addon) api.

The pinned tabs just need to be unpinned before switching the workspace and instead of unloading the tabs they will just need to be hidden.

This addon https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/workspace-manager/ comes close, but doesnt implement the pinned tabs.

Also i would guess that you also expect the workspaces to be persistent ever after closing the browser. But that should also be doable.

[2w]

android: Panel tab, bookmark, history, sessions, group stacked tabs and session lines (work spaces on different lines).  Notes per page and per time, and in folder and file entries.  Reminder alarms for notes, pages and bookmarks, and check at the time if updated and option to load in a workspace.  Ability to stack and hide work spaces, so you can open and look at the auto loaded tabs, and put the workspace back into the stack background when finished.

Like Opera used to do with it's m2 engine, before it got ruined.  But with some better improvements.

You open up the panel and it gives you the folder list with search function for that type of data.  You then can then select cut copy past move save anything anywhere in the Pavel or to any valid file.  Easy to find a tab you have open somewhere, easy to rearrange tabs and other things, easy to back up your data in a way that allows you to use it, say sending a bunch of tabs by file in email fur somebody with a different system to load in and research or use in a word processor.

You can save work sessions in normal file space and come back to them as you need too.

You can leave st all information details on first view date, last view date, number of visits, and list on any feild, and search on any feild.

You can group all related webpages by time, web page open from, manual position opened, website, and put in stacks in that order, while preserving the original position information, to flip between them (as people loss track of things).  This is not just history, but tabs and bookmarks.

Sessions allows you to save a copy of the current session, close all, do something else, gi to another session, and come back to the original session later. :). But, this can be a section of tabs or a section of stacks of tabs.

You can also save the database of the list information used for the panels and these functions, as backup. Byiu can also have timed backup.  Again, to any normal file.

A lot of poor people only have a phone to do internet and word-processing. But, phone apps are crazy poor functioning, making things hard, and you can't back up very much to any file to keep it safe on card USB drive or external hard drive. Very poor. The desktop opera used to be a leader, then opera android was pityful in comparison. But, something better than opera was, can save the day.

I have had much success with old opera and chrome in getting improvments. But, android chrome browser is very reluctant, and the results are not as suggested.

[sahil]

+1 for this. It would be amazing to have this in Firefox, it's by far the best and cleanest solution for tab management I've seen.

[meef]

BLEASE! bro blease.

bei opera is das so elegant gelöst.

bump!

[LongDongShalong]

Add a "workspaces" feature to switch between visible tab groups

Currently, there is extremely little that firefox offers in terms of tab management, and I'm sure those who like to have many tabs open at once will agree that some form of tab grouping or workspace creation would be an extremely useful feature. The Opera browser currently handles tabs very well, with the ability to create workspaces, assign tabs to specific workspaces, and switch between workspaces without forcing tabs to be reloaded. Having only certain tabs visible when in a particular workspace (in my opinion) would improve the user experience tremendously by de-cluttering the tab bar. The closest extension I could find to emulate this functionality is the "Tab Workspaces" extension by Fonso, but it suffers from the tab reload issue, and does not afford an option to include or exclude pinned tabs from being visible across workspaces.

[swanux]

Yes, I need exactly this functionality! I was a long time Opera user, and if it weren't for their shady company background and the browser being chromium based, I probably would never have switched because of how convenient it is. Also, this is the only thing I still miss after more than two years of switching to Firefox.

[SHLMLLC-DEV]

Tab Work Spaces

I do both hardware and software development. I use a different set of tabs / url's for software development than I use for hardware development. It would be nice to have tabs assigned to different work spaces that I could open automatically depending on my work focus.

[jlacroix]

Yes, I would love that!

[Paulito]

Yeah, Vivaldi workspaces looks cool.

[iverwayetows]

Sounds related to https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/workspaces-%C3%A0-la-opera/idi-p/66.

[yoyoblm]

Please, please, please add this... Opera's workspace feature is literally the only thing keeping me from switching to Firefox. Every few months or so I open up Firefox again to see if there's any addons that could possibly mimic Opera workspaces but it's not the same. I want to switch so badly but I can't leave workspaces behind.