Drive4ik
Allowing groups to be closed and reopened by using bookmarks, which also supports multi-computer use
I use STG extensively and use it like a project container, where each group relates to some sort of project I am working on (researching a topic, trying to fix some problem, etc.) The result is that I often have more than a dozen groups. This uses way to many resources in firefox, but there is no easy/obvious support for closing and reopening groups.
I would like groups to be backed by bookmarks in real-time. When I open a tab in a group it gets added to the bookmarks for the group and when I close a tab the bookmark is deleted. Bookmarks become the definition of the groups.
With bookmarks defining the groups, STG can support closing a group, which leaves the bookmarks, and then reopening the group later. All know groups can be in a list of groups and some will have a the state as closed and some as open. By moving group definitions to bookmarks this enables STG to work across multiple computers as they will all see the shared bookmarks.
Additional notes. STG already supports backing up groups to bookmarks. This would just be a change to use the bookmarks as the definition of the group instead of storing that information in local storage.
STG already has tabs in groups not being used unloaded so that when I switch to that group I have to wait for each page to load. Closing a group would just make that wait for reload seem obvious.
If I had all the unused groups closed then it would make sense that if I open a closed group all tabs in the groups should be loaded (or this could be an option).
With the ability to close groups, the number of groups on the manage groups page could be reduced to make moving tabs between groups easier.
I have considered forking the project and doing it all the way I want. However, I would prefer to have input from current users and contribute to the current project. (There is no discussion page available for this Github project so I have to put my comments here.)
Thanks for a great extension!
After more review, I realize that this feature is almost implemented with archive. But I didn't realize it because of: terminology, storage location for group definitions, and difficulty of access.
Archive vs close. Everyone is used to closing a file and then opening it later to work on it. Most people think of archive as put it in long term storage in case I ever need to refer to it again. From my perspective I never need to "archive" tabs or groups of tabs.
Archived groups are stored in localstorage which is not visible to non-developers. The only way to see archived groups is if you happend to enable show archived groups in the settings.
Accessiblity is not obvious. I found it on the manage groups page, but there was no button like there is for delete. I had to just start trying things until I found that there is a right click context menu that shows archive groups as a choice.
With my proposal close tab group would be just as visible as delete group.
Other extensions describe similar functionality as "unloading" or "sleeping," perhaps that would be clearer? I agree that 'Archive' is not a very good term if unloading the tabs from memory is in fact what that does, and actually I'm surprised to find that isn't the default for groups that are not currently displayed. There should be an option to 'Archive' all groups by default until they are opened. Is this what "Discard tabs after hide" does in Options? The different terminology is confusing.
@julie777 I archived a group and it still shows up in the toolbar icon menu for me (it just has an extra icon next to the name), but is hidden on the Manage Groups page (unless I check the box you mentioned). That doesn't make any sense to me, shouldn't it be consistent?