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.

[MarcoBalo]

Hi,

Personally, I always tried to work around this absence with Sidebery, but still had some issues with it (not that it's a bad extension, it just wasn't completely what I wanted).
After hearing about the (absence of) options, I just decided to write an extension myself. Hope that's a good solution to you too.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/houdini/
https://github.com/MarcoBalossini/Houdini

I would love some feedback!

[CinderSnivy]

@MarcoBalo Dude. I think you just solved it. Tab groups work, I can customize the different workspaces, and I can use the same workspace on different windows without them sharing tabs! Oh my god, I can finally switch off of Opera! Actual legitimate game-changer! It'll still be painfully quiet (without the GX Mods extension) and not look the best (without some tweaking), but I have high hopes that'll change soon. Now, though, I have to figure out how to actually get it on the sidebar, because I'm not fully familiar with how Firefox works yet...

[MarcoBalo]

@CinderSnivy 
Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad it's working for you!

Unfortunately, Firefox's extension APIs don't allow add-ons to inject custom UI into the tab bar itself. I actually wanted a panel switcher at the top of my vertical tab bar too, but add-ons can't touch that area, so I settled for moving Houdini's icon to the leftmost spot on the toolbar.
Extensions are also fairly limited in how much they can restyle the Firefox window overall, so I don't think the GX-style look would be feasible without modifying userChrome.css, which is a user-side tweak rather than something an add-on can ship. That said, one thing I'm considering is per-panel toolbar coloring, though I'm still exploring its feasibility.

If there are specific features you'd like, open an issue on GitHub and I'll see what I can do. Just keep in mind the goal is to bring the Opera Workspaces feature to Firefox, not to mimic the whole Opera browser.

[CinderSnivy]

@MarcoBalo 
Don't worry, I'm aware it's just for the workspaces feature! But Firefox does actually have a sidebar, which is what I was referring to. You just have to click a button on the toolbar to reveal it. I wasn't asking to add a custom one or anything. If it helps, I do have two other extensions that can be added to the sidebar just through said sidebar's settings.

Still, I'll see about checking the GitHub. I did notice a small issue with tab groups that Opera doesn't have.

[avijayr]

These are some features that I hope FF gets (I switched from FF nightly as my primary browser to Zen Twilight due to these):

I don't use:
- Essentials
- Glance
- split views
- Profile switcher since that opens different windows (I want all browsing/extns/settings/etc in the same window)

I use:
- Pinned Tabs that are specific to workspaces
- Pinned Tab reset url using a keyboard combo
- Workspace with default container
- Open specific websites in specific container by switching to that workspace & container
- Sidebar expand-on-hover (only show icon on collapsed sidebar, show full title on expanded sidebar)
- vertical sidebar
- uBlock Origin
- Workspace switcher keyboard combo
- numbered and cycle through tabs using keyboard combo
- folders

Wishlist:
- Cloud sync for open tabs (pinned, unpinned, folders, prefs - but without polluting bookmarks)
- more icons & colored icons for folders
- DRM