I’m writing my thesis currently and often have different types of tabs open - and lots of them. I would like to make it less cluttered by grouping tabs together, without having to split the pane. I often have a note that I don’t currently need but it would be nice to keep it open because I will inevitably need it again later. So it would be fine if it “drifts out of view” without actually “leaving”.
Proposed solution
Tab stacks similar to what is mentioned in this post.
I want to have tabs of tab-groups, meaning at the top I can switch between tabs easily but also switch between what is opened in this tab easily.
Example:
I have four tab types:
TODOs
Source Notes (Papers)
Knowledge Notes (Extracted bits of information)
Idea Notes (scratchpad of ideas)
How many I have open from each types varies, depending on what I am working on currently but I often have to switch a lot. Now imagine this:
The tab names no longer shrink to invisibility but instead, the tabs that haven’t been viewed the longest vanish from view if space is needed. But there is always one tab from each type visible. If I want to open another tab from the stack (type) that is not currently visible (on top), I click a little arrow or something and get a dropdown where I can select the other tab. Then either a tab from another type vanishes and both of this type are displayed or the one from this type that was previously on top gets replaced (could do this with click vs. control-click or similar), assuming there is not enough space to just also open it.
We could maybe even nest this, for the extreme tab-hoarders (stacks within stacks). But I mainly need it without nesting.
Current workaround
hover over each tab individually to see its name in the popup and find the right one of the 30-some tabs I have open at one time (this is especially fun on smaller screens)
We could also have these configurable, say we have tab groups/stacks/types A and B and we configure it so that A always takes up 3/4 of the space and B the remaining quarter.
Now that workspace saving is a core feature we can easily combine this and make that feature even more useful.
I too would like this feature. I don’t know how to vote for it though; any updates on if this is a planned implementation?
For further reference, this is similar to how Chrome / Edge does “Tab Groups”. You can collapse the group of tabs into just the “Group Title” tab, saving lots of space to focus on whatever other tab group you want to open.
You reply is a verbal upvote. But you can also press the heart button at the bottom of the original post, which is what to do at times when you don’t have extra info to add.
I second this idea of grouping together related tabs, although I believe the original proposal is too complicated.
I would imagine the ideal to be following microsoft’s edge feature for grouping tabs. (Its such a great feature I would use edge just for it!
My obsidian workflow usually requires quite a few tabs to be open (work, personal, other categories, etc.) and the tab header becomes too small to read or navigate conveniently.
A grouping of tabs in the same window like that in Microsoft Edge will boost usability tremendously. i.e. an (optional) additional level of indirection to access tabs
Hi, everyone! Now, you may achieve part of these goals with my plugin Vertical Tabs. It displays open tabs in the sidebar to avoid narrow and hard-to-navigate tabs. Also, you may create multiple groups of tabs and hide/unhide some groups. I’m refactoring and improving the plugin to offer the best navigation experience. Stay tuned!
A partial workaround CSS snippet which only addresses the problems of tabs shrinking too small:
/* Changes tab squish behavior from the chrome-like default (where they squish down really tiny) to firefox's (where they have a minimum size and then scroll).
Courtesy of @.bast. who wrote it for themself. https://discord.com/channels/686053708261228577/707816848615407697/1233953573851762769 */
.workspace .mod-root .workspace-tab-header {
min-width: 100px;
}
Thanks for sharing! The only problem with this snippet is that tabs can collide with the New tab button (+) on the right and are too close with the Expand left sidebar button on the left. Unsightly.
