Tab minimalists look away: Vivaldi introduces two-level tab stacks

Browser maker Vivaldi is tackling the issue of tab overload by adding a second row of the things via two-level tab stacks. Tab stacks have long been a feature of the Vivaldi browser. Indeed, the company's CEO, Jon von Tetzchner, was at the helm of veteran browser maker Opera when tabbed browsing became commonplace. The …

[John Robson]

Looks good

Not for everyone, but I would appreciate the option to gather all windows back together and stack tabs by domain.

[alain williams]

Re: Looks good

I would appreciate an option that tells me which tabs are the ones that are eating CPU.

[John Robson]

Re: Looks good

Colour coded for memory, and brightness coding for CPU?

[aidanstevens]

Re: Looks good

The inbuilt Task Manager (Shift + Esc) on Chromium based browsers lets you sort tabs by CPU usage.

[teknopaul]

Re: Looks good

process per tab + ps

[aidanstevens]

Re: Looks good

@John Robson you can do the latter with Vivaldi, it's brilliant.

[Nick]

Re: Looks good

"Colour coded for memory, and brightness coding for CPU?"

@aidanstevens how do that in Vivaldi now? Sounds like a great trick.

[chivo243]

Some people

I know a few who have 40 or 50 tabs open at any time. Now they can have 80-100! And they wonder why they have no performance from their computer.

[macjules]

Re: Some people

{shudders in revulsion}

[Sgt_Oddball]

Re: Some people

Hey! I'm offended by that.

I already usually have 100+ tabs open on multiple windows... (I get an update on tab numbers everytime Firefox wants restarting so it can run an update).

As for performance... Again I use Firefox. I've not noticed it slowing the machine down with that number of open tabs (though it's not happy if I have more than 1 dev tools open).

[Chris Evans]

Re: Some people

Pah! "100 tabs" a mere trifle. I've over 600 spread across 5 windows!

I'm struggling to find the time to reduce them. I sell into the hobbiest market so have been busier than ever this last year.

[Tom 7]

Re: Some people

I've not seen FF actually restart after an update for a long time.

[richardcox13]

Re: Some people

> I know a few who have 40 or 50 tabs open at any time. Now they can have 80-100!

80–100 seems quite normal to me. Maybe with this I can push towards 200!

I know I can reduce the number, but that takes effort. I can give up when ever I want to, but I don't want to. Give me more tabs, I need more...

"Nurse!"

[chivo243]

Re: Some people

Hi, My name is John, I'm a tabalholic. Hi John!

[The Count Is Dead]

Re: Some people

Tabalholism is a disease that should be treated by the NHS.

[Paul Herber]

Re: Some people

Nobody will ever need more than 640K tabs!

[Chewi]

Re: Some people

I try not to do this but it's hard. To be fair though, Vivaldi doesn't load the tabs until you click on them.

[Jaap Aap]

Re: Some people

757 tabs right now.

[jmch]

Re: Some people

SWMBO does not believe in bookmarks, and she also has a penchant of opening sites she thinks might be interesting 'to see later'. 40-50 tabs is the least of it, she already racks up 60-80 at a time, often on multiple windows and/or multiple browsers, for totals in the hundreds. Every so often I have to bookmark all tabs and close all. None of the bookmarks will ever be used.

Her phone, same thing... 2 different browsers each marking infinity symbol for number of tabs as they don't go over 2 digits. Needless to say she frequently complains everything is soooo slow.

And don't get me started on her email inbox...

[Amentheist]

Erm

Didn't Firefox's legendary tab mix plus have this 15 years ago?

[Jamie Jones]

Re: Erm

Yes! I was about to post that I had this facility via a firefox extension many years ago!

[chivo243]

Re: Erm

I've been waiting years for the macOS DoubleDock™

[sev.monster]

Re: Erm

Tree Style Tab still kicks the respective butts of any tab management in any browser ever. TST+TMP is something I've never tried myself but have heard is a very powerful experience.

[Will Godfrey]

WTF

If the tabs have got so small they're unusable then just maybe you're doing something wrong!

It's extremely unusual for me to have more than 6-7 tabs open.

[Jamie Jones]

Re: WTF

I have around 100 on this tablet, and around another 100 on my main desktop.

I'm not proud of it - each tab is basically a "TODO".. Before multiple saved tabs, I used to have my desk plastered with "todo" post-it notes. At least those have reduced now!

"A tidy desk is a tidy mind"? BOLLOCKS!

[sgp]

Re: WTF

So when the browser crashes, the to-dos are gone? I don't understand the tab hoarders but hey, Vivaldi's got your back!

[eldakka]

Re: WTF

So when the browser crashes, the to-dos are gone?

That's what "Restore previous session" is for, if the browser crashes, start it up and all the open tabs are magically restored to the time of the crash.

[Tom 7]

Re: WTF

Nothing like having all your passwords and stuff either bypassed or having to re-enter them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: WTF

If a tabbed session is still live, it would be live if you got back to the page via a bookmark, or typing the URL directly.

If a tabbed session has expired, it would be expired if you got back to the page via a bookmark, or typing the URL directly.

So, what's your point?

[Roland6]

Re: WTF

>That's what "Restore previous session" is for, if the browser crashes

You might do that, for Chrome/Edge I use Tabs Outliner.

[Andy The Hat]

Re: WTF

Firefox crashes, restarts using tabs from last session ... Opera did the same, I haven't notices Chrome doing anything different ...

The only issue is when a damn open window gets created deliberately or accidentally that you didn't notice/forgot, you close the main window with all the tabs to leave a lovely clean spawned (...of the Devil ...) window. Yes some browser's history can potentially recreate everything easily (does it in Vivaldi?) but that's just plain annoying. I want an "always close spawned windows first" default browser setting ...

[Nelbert Noggins]

Re: WTF

That's where reopen recently closed browser window comes in handy.

I tend to have a few tabs open for things to read later, especially when it's been a bugger to find in the first place.

When the tabs get so small that it's roulette if clicking will open the tab or close it it's usually time to close a few.

[Jamie Jones]

Re: WTF

As the other replies state, all the browsers I use restore tabs on startup (importantly, the tabs aren't rendered until they're clicked on)

As I said, I'm not proud of it, it's something I invariably back slip into after a sort out!

I suppose it's used a bit like bookmarks, but with the advantage that your position on the page is preserved!

[Tom 7]

Re: WTF

I managed about 5 tabs earlier today when paying my tax and accountant and realising I'd closed the bank account with their payment details already set up. Even that got me worried - god knows what the cat bought while I was setting that lot up!

[Pascal Monett]

"It was CEO von Tetzchner who made the initial request"

Well then that settles it, it had to be done. Now it is.

I'm not a person who has a hundred tabs open at the same time. My home PC does have 32GB of RAM, but I tend to reserve that power for my games. I do, however, have a growing list of YouTube channels that open at once - that is going towards 40.

So I can't say that nobody would have any use for this functionality.

However, on my work PC I only have the tabs I need to do my job, and that is typically less than 10.

Apparently, some people need more than 50 tabs in their normal work day. I don't understand how you could manage that, but it is not my place to say anything against it.

If this functionality is useful, then I look forward to seeing it in Firefox.

[sev.monster]

Re: "It was CEO von Tetzchner who made the initial request"

I have ~20 pinned tabs for admin centers and other dashboards, all of which I use on a daily basis, as well as ~100 tabs of research and documentation.

I wear multiple coats at my job.

[Captain Scarlet]

Only two rows pfft

Presto was far more customisable with their tabs, I often had 4 rows simply especially at lunch time viewing The Reg.

I liked to see the description on the tab so 5/6 tabs a row

[Rafael #872397]

Re: Only two rows pfft

Soon we'll have more tabs than contents on the browser -- see https://ophtek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/toolbar.jpg

[Anonymous Coward]

Tab stacks are a poor man's solution

Firefox used to have* a TreeTab extension that worked much better than a simple tab list, or even the mess that is Vivaldi's tab stacks. (I've used Vivaldi for years, but stacking tabs is a useless feature.)

Being able to (re)order tabs is fine, but also being able to collapse specific groups was a much better experience.

* At some point in the past Firefox broke all extensions, which is when I stopped using it. Last time I checked, the TreeTab extension sort of worked, but you were forced to keep the tab bar at the top of the window as well. Which is pointless.

[richardcox13]

Re: Tab stacks are a poor man's solution

The previous update changed the way tab stacks operate, which did makes things significantly better. Two level... we'll see.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Tab stacks are a poor man's solution

The TreeStyleTab extension still works just fine for me.

Firefox not allowing the extension to hide the regular tab bar is indeed annoying, but I believe there were security concerns behind preventing extensions from messing with that. Nevertheless, the regular tab bar can be hidden using some custom CSS in a local config file, if you really want to.

[sev.monster]

Re: Tab stacks are a poor man's solution

...Custom CSS that is technically deprecated and could be removed at a moment's notice.

Because fuck the power user, we only care about targeting the Chrome demographic.

Fuck Mozilla.

[Zippy´s Sausage Factory]

I'm sure this feature has been in Vivaldi for ages. I mean, I remember turning it off months ago...

[Korev]

From the article:

The functionality has been in experimental preview since last year, but has been enabled by default in Vivaldi 3.6. The compact mode for tab stacks remains in place for anyone that prefers things a little more minimalist.

[Potemkine!]

Reminds me manual razors

And soon with 3 blades! Make it 4! No, 5!

[Jaap Aap]

Re: Reminds me manual razors

Double edged safety razor for me. Blades are cheap, and it works so much better for me. Can't recommend it enough if you have trouble with gillette subsonic 5 or similar.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Reminds me manual razors

Growing a beard is a lot less hassle.

Trimmers cost £17 and only need to be used every one or two weeks.

[sev.monster]

Re: Reminds me manual razors

You trim your beard? What kind of monster does that?

[Lucy in the Sky (with Diamonds)]

The only good tabs are made of acid...

Back in 1994, I was experimenting with Norton Desktop for Windows. It essentially gave Windows 3.x the feel of future Windows ’95 with the addition of multiple desktops. From that time on, I disliked the idea of nested Windows. Tabbed browsing is the ultimate nesting experience, and I personally prefer a separate item in the taskbar, and if the taskbar is too full to see individual words on it, then it is telling me that I have too many things open, deal with them and close them down. Kind of a productivity tool. Naturally, I always disable the silly “group like items together” in a nested icon on the taskbar for the very same reason. So, I have a separate window open for every website yet I am still upset that every browser insists on wasting a bar worth of space for the tab, because they refuse to give the option of having no tabs at all. Deep down, a browser should be fully configurable to individual tastes (or lack of them thereof).

[J.G.Harston]

With displays getting wiiiiider it makes no sense at all for window furniture to be taking up more and more uppy-downny screen estate. Peering at the world through a letterbox is for shut-ins.

[sev.monster]

Then dock it on the left or right you freak.

[Anonymous South African Coward]

Wait, what? Tabs on the side you say?

Where do you enable this feature that your tabs are displayed on the side a la OS/2 Warp Merlin instead on the top?

And I do have 6 or 7 tabs open...

Thunderbird I can keep tabs of critical emails open, and they will reopen after a restart, so these'll remind me...

[sev.monster]

The option is presented to you as part of the OOBE. If you somehow blinded through that, open the Vivaldi settings window and check the Tab options.

[sev.monster]

I chose Vivaldi because Chrome isn't customizable enough, and Mozilla took Firefox out back and put it down. I no longer use Fennec (rebranded FF, like IceCat) it on my Android devices either, as they """improved""" the UI by making everything fucking worse.

But Vivaldi's tab handling has always been messy. Tabs opened in a stack open in the opposite direction to what would be logical, functionality is split and duplicated between the tab bar and the window sidebar, on that note using the window sidebar causes clicks to stop registering sometimes due to the drag action getting stuck, closing tabs does not always focus the tab that you tell it should focus in the settings, session management can be buggy...

Why have all the modern web browsers turned into utter shite? I want to be compliant with the latest web standards but there's no way to do that without using one of these steaming, fecund mounds of over-engineered shiny UI dumpsterfires with less features than my Leatherman.

I wish I could use Pale Moon again but I'm still pissy about Moonchild being a whiny baby in the Linux packaging subplot and his immense hatred of "illegal distributions". I'd use Seamonkey again but its performance is bad and it rarely sees significant updates last I checked. I really want to like Vivaldi but it has so many small issues, and updates take forever; it's also still technically not fully open source. I want to get behind Servo but I don't know Rust so I can't hack at it, and I'm sure Mozilla will shove Pocket and excessive telemetry in there at some point just to ruin what good it has going for it.

Okay rant over.

Anyone want to build a browser with me? The main selling point is that there are no bookmarks/favorites: instead open tabs share the same directory structure as what one would think of as bookmarks in a traditional browser, making it easier to organize things. Oh, and if you steal my idea, I'll sue you.