Show HN: I am building a Safari Web Extension to switch tabs efficiently

Not to belittle the project because it looks really nice but have you tried the pinch gesture on the trackpad to zoom out and see all your tabs at once? I don't know if it's always been there but apparently there's a box for search tabs.

https://i.imgur.com/bT175kO.png

No worries at all. Appreciate that you like how it looks. I really wanted the feature you mention to be good but alas it is half baked. In fact I have been waiting for Apple to add enough shortcuts to the Tab Overview that it is useful. Right now I have things that I can do with my extension but can't with the Tab Overview :

- I can filter tabs down but can't select them without my hands leaving the keyboard.

- I can't switch between two tabs really fast. My workflow often involves alternating between two tabs.

- Tab overview does not have multi-window support which is important to me as I am often working on multiple monitors with multiple windows open.

- I can't quit, pin, mute a bunch of tabs using the Tab Overview with just keyboard shortcuts.

I didn't know about the pinch gesture or the search, which I have been desperate for. Thanks!

That Show Tab Overview will Kill you Mac if you have hundreds of Tab, pre Safari 16 it will reload every single one of your Tab to try and get a Screenshot, leading to constant paging to your SSD, which could easily be a few hundred GB before it crash. Post Safari 16 is a little better but still isn't perfect.

Basically Tab Overview isn't for "Lots of Tabs" users.

This is a great idea! I have been using Vimium [1] for years now in both Chrome and FF which provides similar functionality, it's a real productivity booster for me.

Vimium calls their flavor the "vomnibar", and you can search in open tabs, history and bookmarks. The bar is my most used feature next to navigating on pages, opening links and managing tabs (Go to previous tab, pinning, muting, closing, duplicating). It might be a nice extension to take a look at for even more inspiration!

For people wanting tab switching like this on Chrome or FF, I'd say give Vimium a shot. Even if you're not into Vim-like key bindings, knowing Vim is definitely not a requirement to getting value out of it. It allows me to be completely keyboard driven.

[1]: https://github.com/philc/vimium

Thank you!! I use vimium and love it! I have not used its tab navigation though. I just use it because Vim life haha!

There is also https://github.com/televator-apps/vimari the Safari port thought it is not full featured as vimium.

The killer tab feature I would like to see is a keystroke to switch to the previously focused tab in the current window. That’s it.

I frequently find myself jumping between two tabs (for example filling a form with details from another page) and no browser I know of makes it easy.

Firefox has ctrl-tab to do this: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tab-preferences-and-set...

Thank you for the feedback. This is a popular request for sure. As it currently stands the way to back to the previous tab has one extra step :

- Open the extension : Shift + Cmd + A

- Press Enter

I will stick with that for the first cut as I want it released soon but this feature is definitely on the top of my list once this extension is released.

Vimium provides go-to-previous-tab via `^`.

I'm not much of a tab person, so this is pretty personal. My way to cycle through tabs is `SHFT + ⌘ + [ ]`, or to see the "Tab Overview" with `SHFT + ⌘ + \`.

Honestly, I'm not even aware of the Chrome tab-switching you mentioned, I use the same `SHFT + ⌘ + [ ]` to go between tabs.

I'm more of staying with as little and minimal extensions, plugins, menubar apps, as possible. And learn to use the native commands/shortcuts as possible. Perhaps that is one of the reason.

The project does look nice. Best of luck and have fun while building it.

Tab Overview is so nice ... together with tab groups, these features make Safari much more pleasurable to use than Firefox which stopped innovating the UI long ago.

Yes it's been a bunch of fun! Thanks for the kind words!

I am with you. I was using Tab Overview for a long time before I used Shift + Cmd + A on Chrome. Really made switching tabs a breeze! I wish I didn't have to build this and Safari provided a better native method to be honest :)

It'd be awesome if it could open a new tab/autocomplete based on history if nothing is found when searching the current tabs. As an example, if I start searching "news" to open up hacker news, and there is no existing tab, then it could autocomplete with "news.ycombinator.com" based on my past browsing history. Chrome essentially has this when you start typing a new url, but I don't think you can click the "switch to this tab" button without using the mouse.

Yup, great feature request! Love it. Definitely on the cards to do it after I release the first cut.

I love the same feature in Chrome so I am with you.

This is cool, though its a shame how reduced Safari's extension interface is.

Arc appears to take this to the next level and makes all tabs, spaces, windows, notes, easels, web search, and commands available to the command palette shortcut that conventionally opens a new tab elsewhere, Ctrl-T/Cmd-T. I think this is definitely the next step in browser UI, but this extension is probably how far Safari will let you go until they implement it themselves.

Can concur. I have a hard time justifying their decision to lock down the Web Extension API so much. They do it in the name of privacy but advanced users should totally be able to modify the experience of the browser as they want.

Yea Arc does look really cool doesn't it. And the fact that it wraps the Chromium engine in Swift would make it feel really native on Mac. Something which bugs me about Chrome, Firefox, etc

I used BetterTouchTool to configured three-fingered-swipe on the trackpad to switch tabs (left or right). https://folivora.ai

I like it so much that I've actually been petitioning Apple to add it as an option in System Settings, but like so many things, they seem to think they got Trackpad Gestures right the first time and haven't added anything to it since debut.

That's a really cool use of BetterTouchTool. Definitely going to give that a shot.

The more I see comments like yours the more it reaffirms my faith that "pro" users want customisation. If Apple opens up the OS a little bit it will have arguably the best hardware and a great OS. But I won't hold my breath.

Why do they need to open the OS up anymore than they have? Their accessibility APIs are already industry leading, constantly being worked on and provides the ability for devs to make heaps of apps on top of it.

What more could you want? I like that apps can extend the usability of macOS in ways that Apple wouldn’t do themselves. And if I don’t like a specific app, I can just remove it.

Genuinely curious would opening the OS would do.

One example is just opening the Web Extension API in Safari. As much as I love Safari, Chrome/Firefox extension ecosystem is miles ahead. I don't use Safari for work for the same reason. Give me ModHeader : https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/modheader-modify-h... on Safari. But can't happen because the API is locked down.

I do agree with you on that! Safari shouldn’t really be tied to the system, also.

But having said that I now use safari and Firefox and I enjoy having both. Safari is simple and fast and gets the job done.

Firefox I use for a different kind of web surfing. Especially with containers. But safari syncs with my phone. So that’s another kind of browsing is do.

Plus one on Safari not being tied to the system. I would love a more regular cadence of updates. Yup Safari is pretty fast but I do fall back to Brave for my work. I still hope that Safari will open up their Web Extensions API more, they are moving in that direction, so that I can use Safari everywhere!

I currently use the "Tabs Switcher" menu bar app which works quite well: https://alexdenk.eu/mywork/tabsswitcher.html

Have you looked at this app for inspiration? I'm not affiliated, just a happy customer.

Yup I have! I really wanted something that is native to the browser and not an app extension. And I wanted a design more to my preference :)

I have not updated the website in a week or so and will get around to it soon but in the meanwhile here is the latest update :

https://twitter.com/ManiBatra23/status/1598284760966606849

This is something I wanted a long time. Which Chrome, the browser that doesn’t care about lots of Tabs for the longest time actually got it right. The List of Tabs with close button allow Manual Garbage Collection. Can’t wait to try it out.

Thank you for the kind words! I am working on releasing it as soon as possible. Working on it after work and amidst wedding planning hence it's not out yet.

The website doesn't reflect it but I also tried building this for iPad and it works like a charm! This was a request from a user on Reddit and very useful.

The plan to release it to iPad is after I have released the first cut.

Just wondering - doesn’t Safari suggest opened tabs when you type something in the search bar? Which would make Cmd + L and then type what you’re looking for equally powerful?

Congrats on shipping

It does but I needed something a little more focussed and featured. Safari surfaces a lot of information from Google suggestions to bookmarks. My brain really wants the focus to be just tabs. I like the idea of visually seeing a list. And on top of that really focussing the keyboard shortcuts. Plus switching back and forth between two tabs. Thanks!

> My workflow often involves alternating between two tabs.

Same here! I really wish Safari used Ctrl-Tab to toggle since CMD-Shift-[,] already does prior/next in order.

Yup! I find Safari keyboard shortcut choices not the best.

Not bad! Would profit from being able to display collapsible trees.

Tell me more about it please!

For my daily browsing I use Firefox with an Extension called Sidebery (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sidebery/). The ability to logically sort tabs (by default by the tab they were opened from) makes it much much easier dealing with a lot of tabs.

My primary (but not only) use case is researching something and opening every relevant-seeming result in a new tab, afterwards closing the ones that seem the least relevant and keeping the still-open ones around for reference. Then when I'm doing something else (in which the open tabs aren't immediately relevant anymore, but may become so at any time), I can collapse the tree and focus on whatever else I'm doing. Should I then decide that sub-tree isn't relevant anymore, I can close all of the contained tabs at once.

I can't really work with a browser that doesn't have this now. It's so convenient and natural.