TooManyTabs for Firefox 1.4.8 is released!

We have released TMT 1.4.8 for Firefox 47+. The folks at Mozilla told us they expect to obsolete support for traditional addons (Yes, that includes TMT) by the end of 2017, so they think it would be great that these traditional addons would continue to work until then. So here is the new version and enjoy!

I always wanted to say a few words on TMT. Here are some of my final thoughts as a developer.

TMT was first released in 2008 and is my first Browser addon. As a "traditional" addon TMT has always been on the verge of being "phased out" ever since Firefox began to "modernize" its addon system.  I am honored that despite all that TMT has lasted for 8 years long and there are so many of you who still find it useful.

Now onto some ranting. :)

TMT is small, but developing it has never been easy. First and foremost, developing "traditional" addons (technically and specifically XUL addons) requires going through a rather steep learning curve. Documentation for an ever changing browser is always limited and often outdated. I often had to check out the source code of Firefox to find the answers. Another difficulty of developing a "traditional" addon is to provide compatibility with other addons. From the user's perspective, an addon is expected to work with every popular addon on the market. To the developer, this is actually very demanding. It's like working with different people on the same software project without any direct form of communication. When you think about it it's amazing that every addon developer find a way to pull that off.

So why persist on developing the addon when it is difficult, not profitable, and never really gets widely appreciated? For your information, TMT has never been really popular or ever featured by the browser's maker (unlike its Chrome incarnation). In fact, there was a period when I was perplexed why TMT never gather a larger audience. Some reviewers had even commented that TMT is just a glorified bookmark system. I was shocked. For a tabaholic like me I have always too many tabs open. I use TMT everyday and I cannot imagine a Firefox without it. As time goes, however, I realize there has never been a lot of people like me (or you, if you cannot live without TMT). The users of TMT is a minority. TMT offers a niche function that could only be appreciated by few people who really needs it like I do. They would email me about how TMT had improved their productivity and how devastated they would be without it. On reflection I think that is why I had persisted to support TMT all these years, when development is difficulty, support from Mozilla platform minimal, and vast majority of Firefox users don't seem to care. I am proud that I have served the many minority of us whose need were not met by the "standard".

But everything would still come to an end. The Mozilla team has decided to obsolete traditional addons by the end of 2017. It seems all traditional addons have also become too niche to be worth supporting. In my opinion, the Internet and the Open Source movement has kind of lost its original ways. If my memory serves, the Internet promised a long tail. Everyone, supposedly, can find their niche on the Internet when there is none in the real world. The Internet now, however, is too becoming more and more tailored to the sole interest of the majority, where the popularity of your product/addon/app/idea/need/self is the sole criteria of survival. We are recommended the most popular apps on our mobile phones. We are shown most popular posts on our Facebook timelines. If you are a niche, like TMT, or other traditional addons, or like Google Reader, you will no longer get support. Maybe it's because it's not profitable. Or compared to the billions of other users on the Internet, that 0.1% of you aren't important.

I do not like the direction that we are heading.

If you are reading this little rant up to this point you must be one of the loyal users of TMT. Thank you for your long time support and farewell! It has been a great time.

Best regards,
Sandy

Important Notice: TooManyTabs for Firefox

*** Surprise!!! TMT 1.4.8 is available for FF47, check out this post for why? ***

The Mozilla team has announced that future Firefox will no longer support XUL and XPCOM based extensions (related post). Therefore, TooManyTabs, with its core functionality based on these two technologies, will cease to work. We have made a lot of effort to continue to support TMT since Firefox 3. It is a pity that it is no longer possible now.

Thank you for your support for all these years.


* Please note that your TMT tabs will remain in your bookmarks folder - Unsorted Bookmarks > TooManyTabs (Do Not Delete).

TooManyTabs for Firefox 1.4.6 is released!

*** Important: Users of Tree Style Tabs would have problems when using TMT 1.3.6, please update to latest version 1.3.7  ****

*** If you are using FF35 (stable channel) or FF36 (Beta Channel), 

please go to TMT options and uncheck "Mark TMT folder readonly". ****

Firefox 36 will arrive soon and this update includes several bug fixes which are necessary for TooManyTabs to work properly in FF36.

• Two options are removed
• Send tab by single/double click - Users have to double click the TMT arrow to send current tab TMT. If it is not responsive sometimes, please try clicking on the arrow directly or use the right click context menu instead
• Mark TMT folder as ready only - the TMT folder in Unsorted Folder will no longer be readonly, users can edit it via the Bookmarks manager anytime.

• The pin tab icon is shown again
• Multiple rows should now display properly even when positioned on the top of the browser

Enjoy!

TooManyTabs now compatible with Aurora (Firefox 29)

Aurora(FF29) will soon be released, users who are using FF29 will have to update to version 1.4.5 for compatibility.

Major Changes in 1.4.5

• TMT Arrow: Because of the layout change of tab in FF29,  the active (or selected) tab can only be sent to the current row by double-clicking on anywhere of the tab (not just the arrow), the tab must be selected and the TMT arrow is shown.
• The TMT arrow now also works for OS X, you can also send tabs using the new mechanism

• Options Page: The new "Rearrange via bookmarks" will open the "Library" directly, and you can easily rearrange their rows inside the TMT folder, i.e. Unsorted Bookmarks > TooManyTabs (Do Not Delete)

Enjoy!

TooManyTabs: Steps to diagnose your problem

If TooManyTabs is not working please check out the following steps to diagnose the cause

Steps to diagnose your problem

1. Export your tabs with TMT export tools (In Options > Advanced) to a file (Or just export all your bookmarks to a file with Firefox Manager)
2. Create a new profile for testing with Profile Manager
3. Install the latest version of TMT
4. Then restart and check TMT is working as a clean install
5. Then restore your TMT tabs and restart again

• If TMT does not work in step 4, please send a bug report to us (instructions below)
• If TMT does not work in step 5, there is a problem with the stored data, try to remove a row one by one and restart Firefox to find out which row is the issue
• Finally, if you restore other extensions and theme and TMT does not work, please contact the corresponding add-on developers for help. There is little we can do.

Steps for sending a bug report (Updated)

• Go to Tools > Web Developer > Browser Console, it looks like below

• Filter the output with keywords like "TMT" or "toomanytabs" in the error message after you interact with TMT (e.g. send a tab and nothing happened)
• Take screen shot of the error messages and include your profile information (Go to TMT options > Advanced and click copy profile information)
• Send all the information in your bug report.

Check out our support forum at getSatisfaction if similar problems are reported, if you found nothing helpful, Please post a new bug report on getSatisfaction or email us. Enjoy!

TooManyTabs for Firefox 1.4.0 is released

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*Important* If you have enabled Firefox Sync or other sync extensions like XMarks, you might want to update to version 1.4.1 http://goo.gl/6VIxz

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Too many rows to manage in your TMT? Check out this new feature that allows you to directly manage your TMT rows!

A new context menu is added when you RIGHT click on a TMT row name in the list of rows. In this popup, you can remove, rename, add a row below, and modify shortcut** of a row easily.

Or you can have total control on your stored tabs by managing TMT via the Bookmarks Manager, click the last option to turn off read-only access of TMT folder and manage them directly in the Bookmarks Manager.

Enjoy!

** The modified shortcut will work after Firefox restarts.

* For users experiencing problems when synchronizing their tabs using Firefox Sync, please check Firefox sync service status at  https://services.mozilla.com/status/. We have no control over the process, so we cannot provide further support on the issue.

* For users who saw empty "Manage Rows" in TMT options, please update to version 1.4.1 here

TooManyTabs now compatible with Firefox 4

Updates on 1.3.9:

• Fix the drag and drop issue that triggers malfunctions in the tabs bar
• OSX:  Profile clipping function in TMT options page is fixed, please remember to include your profile information when submitting a new bug report.
• The TMT arrow in OSX is not fixable at the moment. Please use the right click context menu or drag and drop to send a tab to TMT.

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Thank you for using TooManyTabs for Firefox. The latest version is 1.3.3 and it should be compatible with Firefox 4.0.*

Release notes 1.3.3:

• TMT arrow no longer is shown on pinned tab (app tab), this can prevent accidentally sending the pinned tab to TMT
• Update Russian German Locale
• Drop support before Firefox 3.5
• Patch some conflicts with other add-on

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If you have problems when using TooManyTabs, please refer to the following before you send a bug report via email or at getSatisfaction:

Steps for sending a bug report

• Install this extension Console2 http://goo.gl/JuNOi
• Open Tools > Web Deveopler > Error Console (Open a new tab and enter chrome://console2/content/console2.xul to open the error console)
• Select Chrome, JS, Error in the console, see image below

• Look for the word 'toomanytabs' in the error message after you interact with TMT (e.g. send a tab and nothing happened)
• Take screen shot of the error messages and include your profile information (Go to TMT options > Advanced and click copy profile information)
• Send all the information in your bug report.

Enjoy!

TooManyTabs 1.3.1 now compatible with 4.07b

We have released another version TooManyTabs 1.3.1 today, this fix will make TooManyTabs compatible with Beta 7 now. The incompatibility is caused by some changes on how the tab is rendered. (For others extensions developers' reference, the tabs binding has changed)

I am not sure whether this fix will work for Beta 8, 9, 10... etc. If you would like to help our development, please let us know if you find any problem when using TooManyTabs in Firefox 4 (and Firefox 3).

Also, there are some cosmetic changes for Firefox 4. If you have "tabs on tab" enabled, TMT toolbar will be right under the tab bar.

Other bug fix:

- Fix backup and restore TooManyTabs tabs in 1.3.0

- Optimize scripts loading on Firefox Startup

TooManyTabs 1.3.0 now compatible with FF 4 Beta

In case you have been waiting for it, TMT for Firefox 1.3.0 is now in Sandbox. Please help us to test it by downloading it here now! Besides the compatibilities fix, we have also added some new locales added. nl & sv-SE & zh-CN.

-- Updates on 15 Nov --
Just know that last Beta 7 update breaks TMT 1.3.0 again.. -_-"  We will push 1.3.1 which will be compatible with Beta 7 (4.0b7) soon. Thank you for your patience.

TooManyTabs 1.2.0 Released!

New Functions

• Open All Tabs in new window
• Tab URL now shows in TMT tab's tooltip

New Options: Users can now change the default read only mode of TMT folder to editable. By change the TMT folder to editable, you can edit it manually in the FF library. For example, rearrange TMT rows. However, we suggest users to backup TMT tabs before making any significant changes in the folder.

Private Browsing

• By default, TMT will not remember recently closed tabs if users is in Private Browsing. You can change this preference (extensions.TooManyTabs@visibotech.com.privateMode) in about:config if you prefer otherwise.

Bug Fix

• TMT toolbar now hide correctly after toggle from View > Toolbars menu in auto-hide mode
• Fix the delay when collapsing TMT toolbar during Firefox's launch

TooManyTabs Advanced Configuration & Setting

Backup & Restore TooManyTabs

All the tabs of TooManyTabs are stored in a bookmark folder called "TooManyTabs (Do Not Delete)". To view the folder, go to "Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks". You can use the backup & restore tools provide by Firefox to backup & restore tabs in TooManyTabs. Note there is no way to backup or restore an individual folder using this tool.

Micro manage TMT rows

Normally the manage tab in TMT options is sufficient, but if prefer more micro management. You can set the preference "extensions.TooManyTabs@visibotech.com.tmtFolderReadonly" to "false", then you can manage (delete/order) your TMT rows in your bookmarks Library. Please set the preference back to "true" after you finish the management.

Can I rename of the root directory "TooManyTabs (Do Not Delete)" of TooManyTabs?

Yes. You can go to "Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks" and rename the "TooManyTabs (Do Not Delete)" Folder to another name. The changes would be reflected in the add-on immediately (i.e. There is no need to restart Firefox). Under most situations, this is unnecessary.

How to change the maximum size of tabs in TooManyTabs?

To decrease the size of tabs in TooManyTabs, in your url bar, type "about:config" then enter "toomanytabs" to filter the preferences. Change the preference "extensions.TooManyTabs@visibotech.com.maxTabWidth" to any value under 250. **The add-on will ignore any size larger than 250.

How to clear all data if you uninstall TooManyTabs?

• After uninstall TMT using the addon manager, restart Firefox
• TMT data is stored in the Library > "Unsorted Bookmarks" > "TooManyTabs (Do Not Delete)" folder. Please do not remove this folder in case you are just performing a downgrade.
• To clear all data , just remove the TMT folder. You might also want to backup before you delete the folder (Use backup & save to a file).
• Go to about:config, search for toomanytabs, then reset all preference that has been modified.

Micromanage your TMT tabs & Row

• Go to about:config, search for this preference "extensions.TooManyTabs@visibotech.com.tmtFolderReadonly", set the value to false
• Go to Unsorted Bookmarks > TooManyTabs (Do not delete). 
• To manage your rows, you can order the rows (folders), delete or rename a row directly, the changes are reflected immediately on TMT. 
• For managing TMT tabs, you can drag and drop TMT tab (a bookmark) between rows, delete or rename them. You can also use bookmark addons like SortPlaces that sorts your bookmarks in different ways. 
• For searching, searching TMT tabs is like searching bookmarks. However, unless you open the tab via TMT, the sessions and tabs state cannot be restored by directly clicking on the bookmarks.

How to Use TooManyTabs - a simple tutorial

Pin & Unpin Tab

To pin a tab so that the tab is not removed when restored, right click on TooManytabs, click "Pin This Tab" from the context menu. A little yellow pin will appear on the tab.

When you open a pinned tab, the web page is reloaded and tab state & history will not be restored. You can also access other tab related functions in this context menu, e.g. Rename This Tab, Change Tab Color, View Tab History etc.



Recently Closed Tabs

TooManyTabs stores up to 20 recently closed tabs. To clear the tab history, open the " Recently Closed Tabs" panel and click "Clear Recently Closed Tabs".

Customize, Hide & Show TooManyTabs



There are three ways to hide or show TooManyTabs.

1. Hide/Show ToomanyTabs Toolabr in 'View & Toolbars' 
2. By toggle button: Drag "Toggle TMT" button from your customized toolbar palette and put it on your toolbar. 
3. Use the 'Ctr+Alt+M' shortcut to toggle TooManyTabs 

You can also customize the position of the buttons on TooManyTabs just like other toolbars. For more details, please refer to here.

TooManyTabs Options

Auto Hide TooManyTabs

Go to TooManyTabs > Options > check "Automatically Hide TooManyTabs Row". TooManyTabs will hide automatically when your mouse is away after a certain delay (default is 5 seconds). To show TMT again, see above on 'Hide & Show TMT' section.

You can also adjust the delay in the options. E.g. a delay of 10s means that TooManyTabs Row will automatically hide when your mouse is away from it for 10 seconds. To show TMT again, see the 'Hide & Show TMT' section.



Manage Rows

The new options panel allows you to Add/Delete/Rename Rows easily.



Add-ons & Theme Compatibilities

• Tab Kit 
• Tree Style Tabs
• AnyColor

TooManyTabs (Firefox) 1.1.2

Merry Christmas! We have a present for you! Download now!

New functions:

• Send tab automatically by domain. After the 'Domain Row' option is enabled, simply name a TMT row by a specific domain, e.g. 'google.com'. When you click the TMT arrow later to send a tab to TMT, if it is from 'google.com', then it would be sent to the row 'google.com' directly.
• New status button for toggling TMT. If you prefer the status bar than the toolbar palette button, go to options to show this new status button now!
• You can now see the url in status bar when mouse over a TMT tab
• Two new confirm prompts are added. One is before 'Restore TMT tabs' and the other one is 'Send All Tab to TMT'
  
• Two new locales added! Thanks Edgard Dias Magalhaes(pt-BR) & Nguyễn Hoàng Long(vi-VN) for the translation.

New Options:

• Adding new row in options made easier. In the 'Add Row' prompt, simply check the 'Insert new row BEFORE currently selected row' box. Then the new row would be added right BEFORE the selected row in the options.

Bug fix:

• Sometimes, users may see a display glitches caused by a corrupted toolbar setting (see the image before). TMT1.1.2 will automatically restore the default set of TMT buttons if the glitch happens. If the problem still persist, please right click on the FF toolbar, click 'Customize > Restore Default Set' to reset the corrupted setting.

NEW Support & Suggestion on getSatisfaction is now available!

TooManyTabs 1.1.0 Release Notes

Download TMT 1.1.0 here now!

New Functions

• Multi-row view that shows multiple rows at the same time.
• To enable multi rows, users can go to Options > Interface > TMT Toolbar, and choose the number of visible rows. Or add the multi-row palette button to your toolbar via the customize toolbar dialog.
• We also have a new combo buttons for those who have 3 visible rows or more. This button is hidden if you have 1 or 2 visible rows only.

• For details, please refer to the video tutorial below.

• For easier communication, a new bug report button is added in TMT options. Before submitting a bug report, please go to TMT options and click this button. Then paste the profile information in the email and send to reportbug@visibotech.com. Thank you.

Bug Fix

• The conflict between the TMT tab context menu and the mouse gesture of FoxTab on Mac & Linux is fixed.
• The flickering issue caused by the conflict between TMT and Multirow Bookmarks Toolbar is fixed.

TMT in Babelzilla

We have uploaded TooManyTabs 1.1.0 to Babelzilla. Currently, we have en-US & zh-TW locale available. If you are interested to translate TooManyTabs into other locales. Please check it out here. Thank you.

TooManyTabs 1.0.0 Release Notes

New Functions

• Fully customizable toolbar. Simply drag and drop to rearrange the buttons on TooManyTabs. More details at this post.

• List all tabs in row button. Just like the FF button that lists all tabs opened. This button lists all the tabs stored in the selected row.

• Send ALL tabs to TMT. One of the most requested feature is to add all tabs to TMT. We hope you won't abuse the function by sending 100+ tabs to TMT at once...

• Rename TMT tab. Rename your tab title directly via the context menu. Of course, it would make more sense to rename pinned tabs only~
• New icons: We have updated our icons with some free icons . We hope you like them.

New Options

• Enable shortcut to options in row menu. Now you can decide where to put the shortcut in the the menu. For those who have a long row lists may prefer to put the shortcut at the top rather than at the bottom.

Bug Fixes

• AnyColor, tab bar no longer becomes stretched when mouseover. (Details)
• Full screen mode now correctly shows TMT when it is at the bottom. TMT also autohides with url bar together when it is at the top position.
• Now compatible with Chromifox Extreme 3 theme.

Now Available for download here.

Using TooManyTabs with AnyColor

In earlier versions of TooManyTabs, users with AnyColor add-on installed will find that TMT became stretched (or expanded) when mouse cursor is over the TMT toolbar. Since TMT 1.0.0, this issue is fixed, however due to effect of AnyColor, the color of TMT tab cannot be changed.

Notes: When AnyColor is enabled without restarting Firefox, you may need a second restart to resolve the conflicts.

How to customize TMT toolbar

Beginning from TMT 1.0.0, users can customize the TMT toolbar just like any other toolbar. Right click on any FF toolbar and choose 'Customize' to open the Toolbar Palette. Then you drag and drop toolbar buttoms to left or right or even out of TMT toolbar.

These are the looks of the 3 buttons that you can drag or drop from the toolbar palette.

Apart from these 3 buttons, the 'Row Menu' that allows you select TMT rows can also be dragged to a different position (e.g. right of TMT toolbar). However, please do not drag and drop the 'Row Menu' back to the toolbar palette as that would cause unexpected error. Don't worry if you have lost those buttons, you can always click 'Restore Default Set' to reset the toolbars . (And restart Firefox if you have lost the Row Menu.)

** To enable customization of your TMT toolbar, you will need to move the TMT toolbar position to the top first. Sometimes Firefox may change the order of your buttons if you move the TMT from bottom to top.

We hope you enjoy your unique TMT toolbar!

How to add more rows to TooManyTabs?

Starting from version 0.4.0, you can add tabs to TooManyTabs via the options panel. Click "New Row" and assign a name to the new row. You can also rename exisiting row or delete a row via the option panel

I got this error "Invalid Hash" when installing TooManyTabs, what should I do?

This problem happens when the add-on file in Firefox Add-on platform is not copied to other mirror servers properly. As this a Firefox server error, we can't do much about it. Please refer to the details here. You can manually install the add-on by following the steps below.

• Click "Add to Firefox" or "Download it"
• When the End-User License Agreement page is shown, do not click the green button
• Right click and choose "Save Link As...", save the file to your hard disk
• Drag the file to your Firefox window and the installation should start