Group/Sort Tabs Firefox extension

19. July 2008

This is "Sort Tabs By ..." The central focus changed, so the name changed!

This project has a new home on Google Code, so please submit bug reports and feature requests there. (Or in the comments if you wouldn't otherwise. ;)

If you have a Mozilla Developer account you can view and review this project in Mozilla's Add-on sandbox.

 

screenshot: "Group/Sort Tabs" and ChromaTabs
 
Features
  • Optionally group your tabs by hostname. (More to come.)
  • Sort your tabs by last opened date, hostname, or last browsed date.
  • Intelligently handles the opening/restoration of multiple tabs at once, only sorting when the URL of all opened tabs is known.
  • Sorts tabs immediately upon navigating to a different URL, prior to full page load.
  • Tabs can be manually moved into other groups.

Requirements

Known Limitations

  • The entire host before the first / is matched when comparing host names, so sites with different subdomains (like addons.mozilla.org and developer.mozilla.org) will not be grouped together. This can be undesirable with certain URLs (such as img161.imageshack.us and img299.imageshack.us).
  • You can only manually move a tab into another group if you drop it somewhere in the middle of the group (no edges). I'd like an easy and intuitive method of grouping/ungrouping tabs for the future.
  • Manually rearranging tabs out of the sort order is not a feature of this version. I've worked toward supporting it, but decided to release without it. Also, I may be overestimating its importance.

Recommendations

  • Using ChromaTabs or ColorfulTabs configured to color code your tabs by URL.
  • Similarly the 'close similar tabs' or 'close other tabs from this host' features of Tab Mix Plus and Closy may be useful.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Leveling Assistant for optimal stat gain.

1. May 2008

I've been playing Oblivion recently, and it's been fun, but I was slightly irritated with the leveling system, so I fixed it.

Here's an overview of how (power?) leveling works in Oblivion:

You select 7 "major skills" and the rest become "minor". Skills advance as you use them. Major skills are no different from minor except for an initial bonus and every 10 major skillpoints gained is a new level, at which point you must sleep in a bed to level up and continue gaining skillpoints. Leveling up has you select three of your stats to increase by respective bonuses, but here's the catch: the bonus depends on your advancement in the three skills related to the stat.

This leads to a sort of reversal of priorities. Your "major skills" are more of the opposite, as you postpone them, and thus leveling, to achieve the necessary gains in "minor" skills to maximize the stat bonus when you do finally level. Selecting your least naturally used skills as major skills is in fact to your advantage. A bit strange, but not a dampener on the fun - you can, after all, go all out in the 14 other skills without fear of accidentally leveling and botching your stat bonuses.

There is quite an annoyance with this approach though. Once you reach the maximum +5 bonus in a stat, skillgain in that area is no longer worth your time until you level up (you'd only be advancing a skill, instead of a skill and a stat) - and aside from gratuitous number keeping, there's no way to see exactly how close you are aside from leveling up, noting the advancement screen, and then restoring to an earlier saved game. Something which becomes extremely tedious considering you must advance to just prior to leveling, save, travel to a bed, use a skill to reach the level point, sleep, level up, pick 3 stats and confirm so you can get to open the main menu, and then restore to your saved game.

An annoyance until now anyways! Enter: Oblivion Leveling Assistant.

Utilizing the ever helpful and entertaining Cheat Engine, I put together a little AutoHotkey program which displays the current points you have towards a stat since your last level. It takes 2 skillpoints for a +1 stat bonus, and +5 is the maximum, so all you need to do is focus on reaching a value of 10 (or more, but don't waste too many) in the three stats you would like to apply the bonuses to before you gain that last major skillpoint, and that's it. Be sure to put those 10 required major skillpoints towards the stats you'll be selecting as well, or you'll be doing extra work!

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Leveling Assistant

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Leveling Assistant Compact Mode

 

This was a tricky update, so if clarification is needed ask me in the comments.

5-08-08 There's also at least a few mods for Oblivion which overhaul the system to something more acceptable, these might be a lot more useful so you should check them out. (Especially if you play fullscreen and/or use a single display.) Take a look at other mods as well, there's sure to be some you'll consider essential.

I also only just discovered the UESPWiki and its wealth of Oblivion and Elder Scrolls information (including much more in-depth leveling guides), so hopefully I've learned GameFAQs is no longer the one-stop-shop in this new wiki world.

"Sort Tabs By ..." Firefox extension

31. August 2007

7-19-08 A newer Firefox 3 compatible version of this extension has been released.

2-16-08 Before I began developing this extension (my first) I did an extensive search to be sure one didn't already exist with similar functionality. Not until I was ready to upload it to Mozilla did I learn of the add-on sandbox. After registering I searched the sandbox for a similar extension, and one did indeed exist: Tab Kit. I tried it but it didn't seem to work so I felt better and made this original post. Not long after, however, I tried it again without Tab Mix Plus and it worked beautifully. I have this to say: Tab Kit is fantastic. It is amazing, and it has every feature I had planned for my own extension and beyond. I would be lost without it; I love it. Do yourself a favor, and download Tab Kit instead. If you'd like something simpler but less featured, use mine described below.

screenshot: "Sort Tabs By ..." and ChromaTabs   

See this nifty screencast for a demonstration.

Features
  • Sorts your tabs by domain/host name, or last browsed date.  (More to come.)
  • Optionally space out groups of tabs.  (You can color the spacers too, but it's not very pretty. ;)
  • Intelligently handles tab restoration, only sorting when all tabs have been restored.
  • Intelligently handles the opening of multiple tabs at once, only sorting when the URL of all opened tabs is known.
  • Sorts tabs immediately upon navigating to a different URL, prior to full page load.
  • You can freely drag and drop tabs to other groups.

Requirements

  • Firefox 2.0 (I may lower this to 1.5, I haven't decided yet.)

Known Limitations

  • Currently the entire host before the first / is matched when comparing host names, so sites with different subdomains (like addons.mozilla.org and developer.mozilla.org) will not be grouped together.  This can be undesirable with certain URLs (such as img161.imageshack.us and img299.imageshack.us).  The ability to customize this behavior will be in the next version.

Combine this extension with Justin Dolske's ChromaTabs for the elegant tab coloring seen in the screenshot and screencast.

Also, combine this extension with the 'Close Similar Tabs' feature of Tab Mix Plus (and some others) to close all of the tabs from one site at once via the tab context menu.

 

Install "Sort Tabs By ..." v1.0

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