mrqwerky

For years I've been using MrOtherGuy's multi-row_tabs_below_content.css script, ever since XUL add-ons became obsolete, and I had to give up the wonderful TabMixPlus. I have tab width set to 100px, which shows the favicon and the beginning of the tab title, from which I can identify a tab 95% of the time without hovering to see the full title. At this width, I have fifteen tabs per row, so with three rows set I can see 45 tabs at a time. I like to be able to see as many tabs at once as possible, while still being able to identify them, unlike many current users (especially Chrome refugees) who like to scrunch tabs down so narrow as to show only the favicon. :-)

But today the rave seems to be vertical tabs, in part largely, I think, to the 'cool' factor. But when every available browser has vertical tabs available, either natively or via add-on, that cool factor will soon disappear. And yes, there are serious advantages, such as making best use of the available horizontal screen space while freeing up vertical space. And so Firefox has available several vertical-tab add-ons. And now there is MrOtherGuy's vertical_tabs.css script. What I think is cool about this script is that, unlike all the add-ons that I'm aware of, this script doesn't use the sidebar, leaving the sidebar free for other uses. So one can have both the vertical tabs, and the sidebar visible at the same time, even on opposite sides of the window, which leaves the page content centred between them.

Which brings me to the idea: multi-column vertical tabs! Consider, the vertical_tabs.css script creates a vertical-tabs sidebar that is 220px wide, including a vertical scrollbar of perhaps 20px. With my preferred tab width of 100px, I could have two columns of tabs in that same space. At 20 tabs per column, that would give me a total of 40 tabs visible at one time, nearly equal to 45 tabs I now have visible.

How it works: the current multi-row horizontal tab bar shows the number of rows the user has set, and has a narrow (doesn't use much space) vertical scrollbar on the right edge. When the tab bar is scrolled vertically, the top row of tabs scrolls out of view, and the next lower row of tabs scrolls into view at the bottom. So scrolling shows 15 new tabs at a time (in my case).

In like manner, the multi-column vertical tab bar would show the number of columns the user has set, and would have a narrow (doesn't use much space) horizontal scrollbar at the bottom edge. This would free up all of that space used by the current vertical scrollbar, making the entire vertical tab bar narrower (depending on the user's choice of tab width and number of columns). When the tab bar is scrolled horizontally, the left column of tabs scrolls out of view, and the next column of tabs scrolls into view at the right, showing 20 new tabs at a time (depending on the height of the user's window). If the user prefers narrower tabs, as many seem to do, one could have more columns is the same space, or have the same number of columns use even less space.

That's it. But no browser or add-on that I am aware of, currently provides multi-column vertical tabs. If a .css script could be made to do so, that would make Firefox the only browser with such a feature. Now that's cool! :-)

Hi. I've been experimenting with MrOtherGuy's vertical tabs script. I found that the tab bar could be moved to the right side of the window with just two simple changes:

change line 19 from: margin-left: var(--uc-vertical-tabs-width); to margin-right: var(--uc-vertical-tabs-width);
and

change line 31 from: left: 0; to right: 0;
Works for me.

First, a big thank you to Mr. Other Guy for all his great work!

The following issue is on FF 115 ESR on Windows 10, using a fresh clean profile, using compact mode, with title bar enabled, and static menu bar enabled, and creating a bunch of new tabs in order to fill four rows. Using the July 18 commit of multi-row_tabs_below_content (set for three rows) and trying the March 11 and September 9 commits of fake_statusbar_w_bookmarks_bar.

With userChrome.css containing only the import of multi-row_tabs_below_content, the three rows of tabs appear correctly at the bottom of the window, and they scroll properly--all good. Interestingly, the bookmark bar now appears at the very bottom of the window, below the tab bar (why?). When the bookmark bar is toggled off/on (Shift-Control-B), the tab moves down/up as it should.

When the import of fake_statusbar_w_bookmarks_bar (either commit) is added after the tab bar import, the tab bar background appears to be four rows tall rather than three (with the bottom row hidden by the bookmark bar), the top row is empty so that only two rows of tabs are showing, and when the bookmark bar is toggled off, the third row of tabs appears at the bottom. With the bookmark bar visible, there is no indication anywhere of link address or activity when a link is clicked.

When I follow this same testing procedure on my working profile, with just the tabs bar import, the tabs at the bottom work fine, and the bookmarks bar still appears but this time it has all of my extension icons in it (there were no extensions in the clean profile), toward the left end. The link activity is shown in the bottom left corner of the main client area, above the tab bar.

When I add the status bar import, the behavior is the same as with the clean profile, but now the extension icons are at the right end of the status bar, and the link activity appears at the left end of the status bar (the desired behavior).

If I instead import the old version (from FF 99) of the fake status bar, now the tab bar is correct, and the status bar has the extension icons to the right, but the link activity is back in the client area rather than in the status bar.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.