Firefox is a great browser and it has a lot of features. However, sometimes you may want to customize some of the behavior of the tabs in the browser. For example, you may want to make sure that all tabs open in a new window when you first open them, or that they close automatically when you leave the page. There are a few ways to do this in Firefox. The first way is to use the Firefox preferences. To do this, open Firefox and click on the Preferences button (the three lines at the top of the screen). Then, click on the Tabbed browsing section (the one with three lines under it). In this section, you can set different tab behavior depending on which tab you are currently working on. For example, if you are working on a document tab and want all your documents to open in a new window when you first open them, then set this preference to true. If you are working on an application tab and want all your applications to close automatically when you leave the page, then set this preference to false. The second way is to use add-ons. Add-ons are programs that add new features or improve existing features of Firefox. To find out how to install an add-on, click on Add-ons from within Firefox or type about:addons into your address bar and hit enter. Once installed, open up its preferences file (usually called “about:config”). In this file, there will be a section called “tabs”. In this section, there will be several tabs called “browser”, “application”, and “document”. The “browser” tab will be used for general browsing purposes; for example, opening links and checking email etc. The “application” tab will be used for specific applications such as Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome; for example Safari or Opera; and for websites that require an Adobe Flash player; for example YouTube or Facebook. The “document” tab will be
Initial Setup
Once you have installed the extension and restarted your browser, you will see the following window before Firefox itself will finish loading. You will need to decide which Tab Bar layout best suits your needs. Notice that you have the option to continue using the default Tab Bar layout in Firefox.
Options for Tab Kit
Once Firefox has finished loading, it is time to have a good look at the options that are available with Tab Kit.
In the Tab Bar Window, you can select the browser window positioning for the Tab Bar as well as the Sidebar (i.e. Left, Right, Top, Bottom). If you choose to use the “Multi-row Tabs” layout, you can select the maximum number of rows that will be able to display (wonderful!). For those who choose the “Tree Tabs” layout, you can select for indentation of child tabs, maximum tree level, and the amount of indentation for each tree level. Choice is good!
In the Tabs Window, you can specify minimum tab width, use or non-use of close buttons on tabs, tab appearance (i.e. highlighting or emphasis), and tab coloration (i.e. grouping and saturation).
Note: For our example browser, the Close Button did not display on the last open tab.
In the Controls Window, there are options regarding mouse gestures, tab dragging, scrolling, and opening selected links.
In the Grouping Window, you can choose grouping behavior for tabs, positioning for ungrouped tabs (definitely a terrific option!), and the actions to be taken when closing tabs.
In the Advanced Window, you can choose to have tabs open from a specific area (i.e. the Address or Search Bars), tab closing options, tab order, and more specialized behavior for tabs based on the opening source. Notice that you can also reset all options to their original defaults (very nice!) or deactivate all features.
The Right Click Menu
Here is a look at the Right Click Menu that is available when right clicking on a tab. More tab goodness!
Conclusion
Whether you are looking for only one or two of Tab Kit’s features or all of them, this is one extension that will definitely put you in control of your browser’s tabs!
Links
Download the Tab Kit extension (version 0.5.6)
