Firefox on large wide screen monitors (side by side tabs, or multiple browsers?)

[Jeff]

Well, I'm finally thinking about replacing my partridge-hit holed 21" viewsonic with a new monitor as I'm tired of erasing the same white spots that aren't really there from each photo :hrmm: with one of these monster displays - http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?sku=222-7175&cs=19&c=us&l=en&dgc=SS&cid=27530&lid=627063 - last year's Dell 30" S-IPS panel with 25" x 15" of screen real estate.

That got me thinking though -- in the old days when websites were commonly 600 pixels wide I used to use opera to browse two sites side by side commonly. Opera allows you to open any combination of tabs side-by-side, kind of like windows within the application but easier to keep track of for me. Now I'm really accustomed to firefox and like some of the extensions, but still I haven't found a side-by-side tab extension for firefox.

So how do people with very wide monitors make use of the screen space? Do you simply open two or three separate instances of firefox manually each time you want the side by side?

Is there some application to open each instance to a separate start page?
Tab sets are great for opening multiple related references at once and to start out with the day's sites each day; is there something similar that would open a group side by side? (1 row x 3 columns or 2 rows x 3 columns)

(Currently using most apps maximized most of the time, when I want smaller windows or with some newer apps that have the palettes float linux-like I find working with smaller windows somewhat inexact and messy in terms of window and palette placements to one another, but maybe I'll adapt quickly and stop adjusting each window one pixel over to be perfectly neat...)

[Randall]

I make heavy use of side-by-side windows at Job #2. I wish I knew of a Firefox extension that could do that for tabs, but I just get in the habit of opening a second window. (We have clients using QuickBooks Online now, so I'm spending a lot of time doing work inside the browser. Multiple windows are the best way to retain my sanity, with two or three tabs open in each of them.)

Having two Excel windows open on a 1680x1050 screen and four on a 1600x1200 monitor is a huge help when I have, like, 10 of them to keep track of. :confuz: Tiled Excel tabs would be nice to have too.

That 30-incher would be awesome -- I could fit six windows on it, no problem -- but even on sale it's a bit pricey. :sad:

Randall

[johnfl68]

There is the split browser plug-in for Firefox, but it sounds like it has some issues:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4287

There is also the split panel plug-in for Firefox, but it is currently listed as experimental:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4981

John

[Tom E.]

From Jeff's first post:
Is there some application to open each instance to a separate start page?

Here's a low-tech approach:

You could create two or more different shortcuts to launch Firefox. Each shortcut would specify a different window size and starting URL using command line parameters.

I don't know if you can specify the window position, so you might have to manually place the FF instances on your desktop. If you're lucky, each shortcut might put it's window in the same location it was when you closed it - so you'd only have to position the windows once.

You also might be able to get the same effect by creating multiple FF profiles, then specifying a different one for each shortcut.

Just an idea...

[Jeff]

Thanks Randall, John, and Tom!

The experimental split plugin is definitely interesting and just what I was wondering about the existence of -- it's not there for me quite yet since bookmarks, etc. all load in the non-split normal window (it seems once you split you get a separate url bar in the new split window - I was hoping to find something where I can load bookmarks and tabsets quickly side by side too... but maybe that will come as it develops or as I play around with it more and discover how to do it.)
but even on sale it's a bit pricey.
Yes, but what's the chance of another bird hit? :P In theory it should last me 3-5 years, hopefully (unless with the huge number of pixels I get dead pixels just from the increased odds...)

[Randall]

Yes, but what's the chance of another bird hit? :P Uh-oh, now you're doomed. Somewhere, at this very moment, there's a bird with your name on it. :rasberry: Each shortcut would specify a different window size and starting URL using command line parameters. You can control that from the command line? I'll have to look into it. (Separate shortcuts would also let you control which monitors they open on, if you've got UltraMon (http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/).)

Maybe a local javascript as your home page would let you position the windows, and then load the pages you want to see?

Randall

[Randall]

It's worth mentioning that I've used extensions like TabMix Plus in the past to break a tab out to a new window, among other things. If you've got Firefox set up to open new windows as tabs, you can have it both ways.

Unfortunately, the 3.0-compatible version of TabMix Plus is still in beta. :hrmm:

Randall

[Jeff]

I'm currently using the Duplicate Tab 1.02 extension which technically works to duplicate a tab into a new window, but it's not a very fluid experience. I wish there were a way to drag tabs into windows like you can do with photoshop documents now in CS3 where you can arrange them in the window freely or with the arrange commands to do neat side by sides or where you can drag them freely outside the main window even. Maybe this will take a Firefox 4 framework though to be really fluid.

[Randall]

If I remember right, TabMix Plus allowed drag and drop between windows.

Randall

[Jeff]

Thanks -- will give it a closer look.

I have a little time before my big monitor arrives anyway -- as I understand it the dell has the same S-IPS panel that was in last year's big apple cinema display and so with the cost hundreds lower it seemed like a decent savings, but dealing with dell has been interesting to say the least (and I'll restrain myself from saying what I really think :P). Today I got four hangups and then a call asking me to call back and verify my address, even though the website says it shipped early yesterday. When I asked why they were verifying my address *after* they already shipped it yesterday, the lady seemed stumped. Then another customer service rep said that they couldn't give me a tracking number or even lookup the order because their whole customer database was down today! So we'll see. My new monitor will either arrive here or somewhere tomorrow, or at some point in the future. Oh and they have no idea whether they shipped it fedex, ups, or dhl.

[Jeff]

And google chrome comes to the rescue!

Just installed it and now find I can drag tabs fluidly into new windows for side-by-side comparisons and then drag windows back into tabs! Wow! Just perfect!

[PaulKroll]

I'm considering a big monitor for my next machine (the 30" samsung), but I'm also considering downgrading from the 24" to something more radical: three 22" monitors. That'd give me wicked sick coverage for Unreal Tournament 2004 (UT3 really just bites), and would give me the old multiple-monitor goodness, which is really easy to get used to.

And they're cheap. 24's are still in the slightly expensive range, but 22's are in the sweet spot, around $250/apiece.

Course, that almost certainly means at least two graphics cards (two outputs per card), but what the heck. :)

The two core problems? Not quite the res of full HD per monitor, and how in the name of giant amphibious landing craft am I going to fit those beasts onto my desk?

[Jeff]

My "problem" with the 24" and 26" monitors is that they're all widescreen format now and I actually prefer more height. I must be unique as the monitor trends are not going this way. I opted for the 30" which gets me 1600 pixels vertically. And I'm using my viewsonic 21" rotated 90 degrees as a "utility" monitor for toolbars and status windows which then is 1200 wide x 1600 high next to my 2560 wide x 1600 high 30".

If I wasn't bent on more height, I do like the symmetry of three though. And my 30" still feels a little wide, though I'm starting to like it too. In another week it will probably feel perfect.

(I was thinking of getting the 30" samsung but we just got three samsung desktop color laser printers and they're terrible -- only 2 of the 3 are still working after one week -- worst printers I've used to date in terms of reliability, hardware and software, so samsung is out for me now as a brand -- that might be a little harsh as the printers are bargain-basement printers not high-end, but still I'm not impressed with the engineering or software at all.)

Back on the topic of new monitors, the other thing I'm still struggling a bit with is the high-color gamut of the dell 30" I chose. I had to get a spyder3 calibrator as sRGB colors were way too saturated otherwise. With the color profile it looks great, but the problem I find is that my windows software isn't very consistent in color management -- e.g. I have firefox which is color managed, IE7 and windows mail and now chrome which aren't so everything is super vivid in those. Nikon Capture and View which I use for editing my camera's raw files are only partially color managed which is ironic -- the main window and editor window work as expected, but for some very odd reason thumbnails in those program aren't (these programs display the internal jpeg thumbnails embedded in the nef files too.) Likewise, Photoshop and Corel both are spot on in the main workspace in terms of honoring the color profile, but when I go to open or import a file and use the open dialogue to display thumbnails, like in windows explorer, the thumbnails are not color managed so way too vivid on the HC monitor. In a way it's only a minor inconvenience to have the "secondary" things not color managed and thus showing me something different than the "real" image, but since I'm working in sRGB for the web and the even more limited CMYK for print color spaces, I don't gain much with the "HC" high color monitor real-world and it's a lot more inconvenient than with my oldschool viewsonic that just displayed sRGB colors pretty accurately out of the box. Still, I don't feel I can send back the HC monitor at this point and go with an older more limited color gamut monitor as that would feel like taking a step backwards for the same money, so I'll just hope that software comes along in the next year in consistently using the monitor color profile to display everything.

[Randall]

how in the name of giant amphibious landing craft am I going to fit those beasts onto my desk? I spent yesterday assembling my new desk at Job#2, and it's got a pretty wide monitor shelf — but I don't think I could fit my two 20" monitors (one 16:10, the other 4:3) on it, never mind the laptop. Fortunately I've got a lot of desk space to handle the overflow.

But three 22" widescreens? Eek.

Randall

[PaulKroll]

I've got a corner-piece desk and two side desks, making for a fairly large desk area, and it'd propably JUST BARELY FIT into the corner piece, if I had the center 22" as far back as I could put it. Not entirely practical. Probably will end up getting a 30" but gaming with three screens... it's tempting.