With the return of tab groupings to firefox in v137 – originally introduced as Panorama in 2010 and turned off in 2016 (presumably because only geeks used it and we weren’t the target audience any more) – I decided to stop using various tab grouping extensions and just go with the offering in stock firefox.
One thing I didn’t consider: Firefox tab groups aren’t so much a browser workspace as an after-the-fact cleanup operation. You see the trail of tabs behind you and group them. Mozilla wants you to use AI to do it. I think there’s a better way. Just make sure that your related tabs are mostly in one place. Like a workspace. It’s just one more case of re-solving problems but now using ⭐AI⭐.
The simplest way to make tab groups more like a panorama workspace is to create the tab group when you start a task and then make sure that all tabs opened stay in the tab group. By default, however, ctrl-t will open a new tab at the end of the line (or the bottom if you’ve switched to vertical). This will put it out of the tab group. To change this behaviour search for the following about:config setting:
browser.tabs.insertAfterCurrentThis will bring up two settings browser.tabs.insertAfterCurrent and browser.tabs.insertAfterCurrentExceptPinned. The latter will make an exception for the first rule if the current tab is pinned, so new tabs don’t mix with pinned tabs. Note that you will need both settings turned to true, the latter doesn’t work by itself.
The behaviour now should be that a “new tab” opened while the current tab is in a tab group, will also join the tab group (and pop up to the right/underneath the current).
And in case it isn’t already enabled the same can be done for tabs opened from current tabs (right-click, Open Link in New Tab):
browser.tabs.insertRelatedAfterCurrent
