DailyApps » tabs

Firefox Tip : Number the Tabs for Quicker Browsing

Karthik Kastury — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 23:38:20 +0000

If you are Firefox Power user, I am sure you have a lot of tabs open while browsing. Shuffling between Tabs can be quite tedious and difficult at times if there are too many of them. But luckily Firefox has a handy feature built in that allows you to shuffle between Tabs knowing their number.

Say you want to go to the 5th Tab just press Ctrl + 5. To reach the first tab, press Ctrl + 1, for the second tab, press Ctrl + 2, and so on until the eighth since Ctrl + 9 is reserved for the last tab. If you are on a Mac replace the Ctrl key with the cmd key.

Well that does sound really useful doesn’t it. But there is only one problem. You just can’t numbering the Tabs in your head just to shuffle between them.

Enters Fancy Numbered Tabs, a simple Firefox extension developed by Chris Gaunt, that replaces the tab close button with the position of the tab so you can quickly know what is the right shortcut (Sweet !). You can still close the tab by pressing the number button.

Simple and effective. Get Fancy Numbered Tabs at Mozilla Add-ons.

Firefox 3 to get Beautiful Tab Switching

Karthik Kastury — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 01:58:47 +0000

Mozilla continues to innovate with the Firefox browser. I believe that the upcoming version of Firefox will be the best ever release we will see from the Firefox team over at Mozilla. A Lot of new features and enhancements have been added to the core of Firefox 3. One of them happens to be Tab Switching that is gorgeous to look at and it kinda mimics the Alt -Tab feature in Windows. The only question is weather this piece of innovation will make it into the Firefox core.

Currently this feature is experimental but I am hoping that it makes it to the final release of Firefox. The new Tab Switcher is an ideal replacement for the existing Ctrl-Tab feature, as it is easier to switch to a Tab you need to go to. When you press Ctrl-Tab in Firefox 3 an overlay with thumbnails of all the Tabs that are open. All you need to do is Click and boom! you’re into the Tab you wished to go to.

Well all this eyecandy comes at a cost, and that is increased CPU usage when using the Tab Switcher. CPU usage spiked from 2-3% to 45-50% during high speed tab switching (that is, I kept Ctrl + Tab pressed for a while), but immediately went back to previous cool 2-3% usage. So you can expect a few things here and there to become unresponsive while switching Tabs.

What do you think of this new and redefined Tab Switcher for Firefox ?

and yeah if you wish to try out Tab Switcher on your existing copy of Firefox install this addon.

Via Tech-Buzz and Mozilla Links

Firefox 3 Gets Smooth Tab Scrolling

Karthik Kastury — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 13:46:46 +0000

Firefox is improving everyday. Its get more user friendly with every passing build. The latest addition that has been added to firefox is the smooth tab scrolling. Instead of the rough tab by tab stepping, tabs now slide in a continuous soft movement whenever you scroll them with the mouse wheel, add a new one or change to a different tab beyond the current visible section.

See the following flash demo to see what Smooth tab Scrolling feels like,

I downloaded the latest copy, and you know what its a lot smoother than the video seems to make it.

If anyone wants to turn it off, set toolkit.scrollbox.smoothScroll to false in about:config and restart Firefox.