Review of the tab mix plus add-on for firefox
The Tab Mix Plus add-on for firefox is what I now use instead of the, now incompatible, tab kit.
Tab Mix Plus has so many features and options, that I decided to do some screen-shots to show how I like to configure it for the best browsing experience.
As a premise, I like to remove the tab close button (on the right of each tab), as I find it easier to close a tab by just double-clicking on the tab.
I also like to remove the “add a new tab” button, since I arrange tab mix plus to automatically open new tabs for just about anything except for plain clicks on links (if I want to open a normal link in a new tab, I right-click, then select “open link in new tab”)… So I don’t need an “add new tab” button.
Here is how I have setup the various options (tools -> addons -> extensions -> tab mix plus -> options).
The change here is: Force to open in new tab: links to other sites, and enable single window mode.
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There are a few changes here: open other tabs next to current one, untick “change opening order”. Then open tabs from: tick all 5 boxes.
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The only change I make here is to untick address bar, as I might want to open a few windows & dont want any to gain “focus”.
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I find it less annoying by unticking “warn me when closing multiple tabs”.
I also like: when closing tab, focus left tab.
I make no changes under the “tab merging” tab.
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I find it useful to increase the max number of closed tabs to remember to 40 or 50
And I like the predictability of ctrl-tab navigation by un-ticking ctrl-tab navigates tabs in the most recently used order.
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Here I untick “new tab button” and “all tabs button”, as well as change “when tabs don’t fit width” to “multi-row”.
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I make quite a few changes here. Click highlight current tab. Untick close tab button. Tab width 22 to 250. Tick “tab width fits to tab title” and “use bookmark name as tab title” (since I use short names in my bookmarks).
Also: click “customize styles” button, and for the current tab, I change the background colour to a light yellow.
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Here, the closed tabs button is effectively an “undo closed tab” button, and you just need to click on the customize button, and drag the closed tabs button to the right of the “home” icon on the toolbar.
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I make no changes to the mouse gestures tab (I don’t use mouse gestures).
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On the mouse clicking tab, I make the following changes (close tab by double-clicking on it, and open a new tab by double clicking on a blank section of the tab bar.
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I make no changes to the “menu” section.
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Although Tab Mix will usually prompt you after it is installed, I usually check that “use firefoxes built-in session restore feature” is ticked.
As you can see, there is a lot that can be customised, with Tab Mix Plus. But if you want to get the most out of your browsing with FireFox, then its worth installing and customising Tab Mix Plus.
Excellent tutorial. Very useful!