403441 - Firefox named instances and tab transfers

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Toolkit :: Startup and Profile System, enhancement)

Description

[Aaron C. de Bruyn]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.8.1.8) Gecko/20071022 Ubuntu/7.10 (gutsy) Firefox/2.0.0.8
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.8.1.8) Gecko/20071022 Ubuntu/7.10 (gutsy) Firefox/2.0.0.8

One thing I love on the linux platform is the ability to have multiple virtual desktops.  It's handy because I usually have a million things going.  I know which desktop to switch to for my general stuff--like email, IM, and administrivia.  I have another desktop for the code I'm currently writing.  Maybe another desktop for my slacking (slashdot, konquest, and whatnot).

A lot of people use this sort of workflow.  One workspace per subject with a lot of various information in it.

I would love to have something sorta like profiles or 'named instances' in firefox.  I'll give you an example using my current firefox situation.

I have two windows open, one with about 10 tabs, and the other with 25.

The first window has two topics mixed in.  One is bug triaging for Ubuntu, the other is packaging.
The second window is various stuff I've followed from slashdot, links from friends, kernel documentation, a few books reviews about linux, and the debian packaging policy.

I would love to be able to open up a few new firefox windows and name them 'bugs', 'packaging', 'kernel', 'books', and 'misc' and then send tabs to them.

I believe this would help people stay organized.

When FF opens, the initial window can be named 'default' or something, and when someone gets to a point like I did--with a bazillion tabs open about various topics, they can start separating them by windows.

Transferring the tab over should keep it's history, form information, etc...


Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Aaron C. de Bruyn]

Heck, I suppose it could also be useful to transfer tabs between profiles...

I also have profiles on my machine for separating out home, work, various client sites, and even a 'temp' profile for when I just need to do something like connect to a router to make a change without loading all my tabs.

Sometimes I find something while at a client site that I want to review when I have more time (back at the office or at home) and transferring a tab to one of those profiles would be nice too...

Comment 2

[Jesse Ruderman]

Once the Gecko infrastructure for moving tabs between windows is in place, I think the Firefox UI will probably just be letting users drag tabs around.  Being able to give windows "names" sounds a bit on the obscure side.   It could be useful for keyboard-only users, though.