Palemoons Tab Groups (0.3) vs old FF Tab Groups (2.1.4 by Quicksaver)

[ShonkaiDJ]

Hey guys and girls from the Moonchild. I am using the PM Beta versions since a little over a month. It seems to work more flawless to me then the stable version. I opened a topic on it and already know it is going to be hard to figure out what happened last week for example. But beta 4 to beta 5 was flawless while 27.9.3 to 27.9.4 messed up the layout for my browser. (Both in identical profiles/ with identical extensions enabled).

Yet one odd thing: in the PM 27.x versions I can use FF Tab Groups Helper along with a PM Tab Groups 0.3. I cannot get that to work in the Beta version. The other way around in the Beta version I have to install former FF Tab Groups 2.1.4 (The original Quicksaver) which I cannot get to work in PM 27.x.

So there is no big deal going on. My guess is that it is an under the hood thing that breaks PM Tab Groups 0.3 and allows the very last version of FF Tab Groups by the original Quicksaver to work.
Yet; many Tab Group users probably have moved to PM now. To prevent them from getting in trouble some morning when the want to start working where they left off and PM Tab Groups 0.3 stopped working and all their Tabs (In my case usually between 90 - 180) have disappeared or form a gigantic tab row, I did want to mention it.

When you do not use Tab Mix Plus session manager I have noticed that the Tab Groups session and backup manager cannot store or restore very well in PM. So if this issue is not explained or taken care off before we auto update to a stable PM 28 version many of the Tab Groups users will be very busy that morning. And not with what they thought they'd be doing. FEBE is usually my way out of this situations but reading forums I have noticed that many Tab Group users do not make FEBE backups. (It might as well be renamed to PEBE or WEBE backups by now )

[Nigaikaze]

... along with a PM Tab Groups 0.3. I cannot get that to work in the Beta version.

Regarding Tab Groups 0.3 and PM 28, see CraigPD's question here ...

viewtopic.php?f=63&t=19244&p=146553&hil ... ps#p146553

... along with Moonchild's reply.

[ShonkaiDJ]

Thanks Naikaze for redirecting me to that topic. Since that topic is about an instable version and this one actually has Tab Groups in it's title I put up a link there pointing to this topic.

I do realize the maker of Palemoon cannot pay much attention to many Addons. I myself would have liked to be a developer but I am more of a systems engineer, so my time is up already too. I pay all my attention to stable systems to run stable versions on . I do hope to gather some Tab Group users here tot figure this one out. The other topic mentions an instable Alpha 2 while I am in a very Stable Beta 5. Though I am not a developer I do like some more information because after these many years I do have some Idea of development. So my question is this:

From what I understand FF has changed it's engine somewhere around version 26 and then started to work on the Quantum engine and started rolling it out in version 57. From what I remember the Palemoon forked away from FF with the first engine. Whereas Waterfox forked away with the second engine just before the third (Quantum) was rolled out. Quicksaver wrote us Tab Group users more than a year up ahead (Would we use the ESD versions of FF) that Tab Groups was not coming along with the new FF Quantum.

Am I right to believe that (Blue dot) Tab Groups 0.3 for PM is just a very old Tab Groups version written for the first engine and that the working (Orange dot) Tab Groups 2.1.4 is actually just the latest Tab Groups version written for the second engine, last before Quantum? And do I understand it properly that PM 28 actually uses that pre-Quantum engine which would be the most logical reason why my old FF Tab Groups 2.1.4 actually works in PM 28? It is why it works in Waterfox.

Having (Orange dot) Tab Groups Helper installed in your browser when upgrading to PM 28 will actually open up a dialog directing you to FF Page for Tab Groups 2.1.4 so you can immediately install the latter and keep working the way you did in PM 27. Let's hope that doesn't break before any Tab Group enthusiast developer picks up the glove to move it forward. Quicksaver handed out the code in Github so now even FF itself has some cranky Tab Group derivatives.

[SpockFan02]

...Am I right to believe that (Blue dot) Tab Groups 0.3 for PM is just a very old Tab Groups version written for the first engine and that the working (Orange dot) Tab Groups 2.1.4 is actually just the latest Tab Groups version written for the second engine, last before Quantum? And do I understand it properly that PM 28 actually uses that pre-Quantum engine which would be the most logical reason why my old FF Tab Groups 2.1.4 actually works in PM 28? It is why it works in Waterfox.

Having (Orange dot) Tab Groups Helper installed in your browser when upgrading to PM 28 will actually open up a dialog directing you to FF Page for Tab Groups 2.1.4 so you can immediately install the latter and keep working the way you did in PM 27. Let's hope that doesn't break before any Tab Group enthusiast developer picks up the glove to move it forward. Quicksaver handed out the code in Github so now even FF itself has some cranky Tab Group derivatives.

Pale Moon Tab Groups (the current version of which is 0.3; blue dot) is based on Tim Taubert's work to convert the Tab Groups feature to an extension when it was being removed from Firefox, and I believe QuickSaver's extension (orange dot) is also based on the same code, but QuickSaver changed a lot more things as he continued development. Pale Moon 28's platform is a fork of Mozilla 52, and some things that Pale Moon Tab Groups was relying on changed, causing it not to work with the new milestone. QuickSaver kept his version of Tab Groups updated for the newest version of Firefox until the WebExtensions announcement, so it's meant to work with newer versions of the Mozilla platform. However, when I installed it in Pale Moon 28, it did not function; perhaps something is wrong with my profile, or maybe it only works along with Tab Groups Helper.

Oh yeah, with Tab Groups Helper, it works! Neat! The interface is different but that's cool, thanks.

[CraigPD]

when I installed it in Pale Moon 28, it did not function; perhaps something is wrong with my profile, or maybe it only works along with Tab Groups Helper.

That has been my experience as well. I don't think it's a profile issue.

Oh yeah, with Tab Groups Helper, it works! Neat! The interface is different but that's cool, thanks.

For a more minimalist (non-graphic) Tab Groups option you could try Simplified Tab Groups 0.5.0 which doesn't appear to rely on either Tab Groups 0.3 or Quicksaver's Tab Groups 2.1.4 extension installations.

[ShonkaiDJ]

True, it only works along with the Tab Groups Helper. Somehow in the very first beta version I installed it had it's own graphic interface which was really nice but I have to say; the overview I get in Tab Groups Helper made me decide to have Palemoon as my default browser because though the Graphic interface looks really cool the helper interface is much faster to me.

For a more minimalist (non-graphic) Tab Groups option you could try Simplified Tab Groups 0.5.0 which doesn't appear to rely on either Tab Groups 0.3 or Quicksaver's Tab Groups 2.1.4 extension installations.

I did find this one but as long as the Tab Groups will live it's the best for me.

[Moonchild]

If anyone wants to figure out what is needed to make Tab groups 0.3 up to speed with Pale Moon 28, that would be great. Pull requests are welcome on the repo -- i can do the release engineering for it and all, but simply don't have the time to dive into the research needed to figure out why it's not working and how to address it.