What's new

Tab Seeker is live! v1.0.0

If you have ever found yourself in a situation where you have a fairly large number of open tabs and you really wanted to select a specific tab, you'll be glad to know that so did I. That is the main reason why this extension ever came to life.

A lesson in history

I do not want to be afraid of opening new tabs.

Whenever I surf the web, I always tend to open more tabs than I should. There is so much stuff to see and so many tabs to open - the Internet is so much fun!

Despite my curiosity, I always faced a dilemma. If I open another tab, how will I find it later when I may need it again. I was so sick of clicking back and forth through tabs to try and find the "elusive one".

I would often close tabs, just for the sake of decluttering my "workspace". And not a minute later would I need one of those websites once again. Probing recently closed tabs isn't fun either, believe me.

That is when I "devised" my own way of surfing the web.

How I use the browser

In theory, whenever I'm looking up related topics I open a new window. And in that window, all of the tabs that I would open would be related to a certain topic: "used cars for sale", "restaurants that are open" - any topic, really.

And then I would go on browsing... either for work or for leisure. Quickly, the number of open windows would get out of hand just as the number of tabs did.

After a while I would remember that I really wanted that burger, but I forgot in what browser window did I leave that tab open. I only have to find the window where I parked that website, and certainly there are far fewer tabs to choose from once there - but you do have to find the window you're looking for first and we're back to square one.

The tab did have a "burger" in its name, that's for sure.

It finally clicked - what if I could find a tab by its "name"?

That is when I started searching for the solution. Surely, someone has faced this problem before me. I'm not special.

Built-in browser tab search and other "tab manager" extensions simply did not work for me. They were either overly concerned with duplicating, closing and grouping tabs or downright awful to use when my problem is simple - I want to find a tab by its title or, perhaps, even its URL.

And it has to be fast, and intuitive too. When I'm "in the zone" I do not want to move my hands away from the keyboard, even for a second.

I found no such tool, so I built mine.

Keyboard first

Do one thing and do it well. This extension was never intended to be a tab manager and it is never going to be one. Its only concern is with aiding you in finding the tab you need.

Keyboard is a first class citizen here. Therefore, speed and ease of use is the most important aspect of the extension.

To open the extension on any page, press the shortcut keys Ctrl+Shift+F (or Cmd+Shift+F on Mac).

Then you can either start typing to filter the list of shown tabs or use Arrow Up and Arrow Down keys (or Shift+Tab and Tab) to select tabs in the list.

To bring forward the tab you selected in the list use the Enter key.

Sometimes "quick-selection" comes in handy as well. To activate quick-selection mode, press and hold Ctrl (or Cmd on Mac) key and numbers will be shown for the first 9 tabs shown in the list. If, while stil holding the Ctrl/Cmd key, you press a number key - the tab with that number will be selected and brought into focus along with its window.

Albeit too slow for my taste, using the mouse is not forbidden of course.

How you can use it

You could use it the same way I do. But I do not want to restrict anyone in any way. That is why customization is at the core of Tab Seeker. You can customize almost anything about the extension. Pick a theme, decide how the search works and the way tabs are going to be displayed.

To open the Options page, right-click on the extension in the browser's navigation bar, then select Options.

So far, the extension turned out far better than I had expected and I do have some future features planned already. Any changes made to the extension will be published on this page.

Thank your for using the Tab Seeker extension. I hope it saves you as much time as it did for me.