I updated the compatibility of Colorfultabs beta to work with Firefox 3 beta5 and pre1. You can download the extension from the software section. Currently I’m not able to offer updates as I lost some data migrating to Binary Turf. However you can manually install it. Hopefully this will be fixed in the future. Hopefully I was able to find the relevant files from my backups (backups really help — like one in a million times 
. So now you will automatically be offered this new update.
This update does not contain any major feature enhancements. It will be some time that the feature set of this beta release matches that of the stable release. Give it a try and provide me your feedback.
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With Firefox 3, Colorful tabs 3.1; if I change the default color of a tab, the setting is not saved and the color reverts to the default when Firefox is restarted.
Excelente!! Gracias!
Still can not get tab colors to change on Firefox 3 on Win xp home. Other features (i.e. fade, background image) work. It does work on my laptop and my husband’s computer also running win xp home. What can be the problem? Please help, I miss the color.
Hej, thanks for this – it’s really helpful. I have a request, although I’m not sure if it’s possible to realize.
Could you add an option to generate the color not by URL but by dominant colors of the website? Maybe it’s possible to analyse the html to extract background colors?
Thanks
I know you prefer comments to e-mail, but it’s not easy to find an appropriate place to comment!
This extension is currently making the job of comparing Javascript between multiple wikis *much* easier, but I’ve found a couple of sites seem to have settled on the same colour. Is it possible to reset or choose the colour for a site? Where is this info stored?
(The culprits are “en.wikipedia.org” and “en.wiktionary.org”.)
Currently it is possible to set the color for a tab and reset it.
The colors (hue) is calculated by an SHA256 algorithm of the URL while saturation and luminance are fixed (to control the overall pleasant-ness of the generated colours).
But the colour is only set for one tab and not saved for the site, right? Because the algorithm recalculates the colour the next time you visit the site?
It’s strange that the colours are so similar for the English sites but radically different for the Irish ones…
en.wiktionary.org rgb(144, 213, 227)
en.wikipedia.org rgb(144, 215, 227)
ga.wiktionary.org rgb(198, 227, 144)
ga.wikipedia.org rgb(144, 147, 227)
fr.wiktionary.org rgb(144, 227, 205)
fr.wikipedia.org rgb(227, 213, 144)
de.wiktionary.org rgb(227, 179, 144)
de.wikipedia.org rgb(227, 219, 144)
nl.wiktionary.org rgb(227, 169, 144)
nl.wikipedia.org rgb(144, 227, 212)
es.wiktionary.org rgb(144, 227, 194)
es.wikipedia.org rgb(144, 227, 153)
it.wiktionary.org rgb(144, 227, 144)
it.wikipedia.org rgb(227, 191, 144)
The Spanish ones are also very similar but you can tell them apart.
As it is the algorithm probably works fine for most users most of the time, but maybe it could do with some tweaking. Perhaps some kind of (configurable?) minimum difference between colours for open tabs, though this might lead to more colour collisions and isn’t as elegant. Or the other option would be to allow the user to choose a colour for a particular site. That would be more work of course.
(reformatted)
en.wiktionary.org rgb(144, 213, 227) hue:127
en.wikipedia.org rgb(144, 215, 227) hue:126
ga.wiktionary.org rgb(198, 227, 144) hue:54
ga.wikipedia.org rgb(144, 147, 227) hue:159
fr.wiktionary.org rgb(144, 227, 205) hue:109
fr.wikipedia.org rgb(227, 213, 144) hue:33
de.wiktionary.org rgb(227, 179, 144) hue:17
de.wikipedia.org rgb(227, 219, 144) hue:36
nl.wiktionary.org rgb(227, 169, 144) hue:12
nl.wikipedia.org rgb(144, 227, 212) hue:113
es.wiktionary.org rgb(144, 227, 194) hue:104
es.wikipedia.org rgb(144, 227, 153) hue:84
it.wiktionary.org rgb(144, 227, 144) hue:80
it.wikipedia.org rgb(227, 191, 144) hue:23
… and each time you visit the site, the domain remains the same and therefore the color remains the same.
In your case you want to use the “random color” setting. The colors have got nothing to do with Italian, English or Hindi for that matter
Well…the colours are connected to the language since the domain name starts with the language code.
Are you saying that random will assign the same colour to the same site?
Because that is the behaviour I need. I need to distinguish multiple tabs from these sites from their corresponding pages on other sites.
My only complaint is that the colours for the English sites (i.e. en.wiktionary.org and en.wikipedia.org) are too similar.
that’s another way of looking at it but it is very misleading to think of it that way. Think of it as the domains color.
The random setting will not assign the color to the site based on its domain name. it will generate a unique color every time you open a site. All your questions are answered in ColorfulTabs documentation and help at http://binaryturf.com/software/colorfultabs-for-firefox/colorfultabs-documentation-and-help/ You may want to go through it.
If that page had answered my questions I’d have never come here!
The only point I’ve been trying to make is that sometimes the colours are just too similar when assigned by the algorithm.
It should. I invested a lot of effort to document this information so let’s go through it together. Refer to the information about preferences at http://binaryturf.com/software/colorfultabs-for-firefox/colorfultabs-documentation-and-help/#3
Under the third bullet it mentions “Colors tabs from a uniquely and randomly generated color.” Since it does not mention that the color is calculated by the domain/url this means the color is totally random.
The fourth bullet mentions the use of the domain in calculating the color. If the domains are too similar the colors will be similar.
Each setting of color generation uses a different algorithm. There are people who prefer selected colors in a sequence, totally random colors and colors based on the domain. Take your pick
Actually, you brought up the random option. I’ve only ever wanted one colour per site.
The problem is that a differences that appears equivalent to a human – the difference between en.wiktionary.org & en.wikipedia.org vs. the difference between ga.wiktionary.org & ga.wikipedia.org – are not equivalent differences to ColorfulTabs. The first two differ in hue by 1, the second two by 105!
I’m merely suggesting this as something that might be worth thinking about since it’s contrary to what a user would expect.
If you don’t have the time or inclination to give it much thought, that’s perfectly fine too.
It’s fair to expect a software to live upto expectations. However it’s not fair to expect technology to live upto expectations.
I do not wish to change the algorithm due to several factors. Your point has been taken. And to rephrase your issue; currently we are only calculating the hue, the luminance and saturation remain the same. This limits us to 360 different colors. But there are more than 360 sites and essentially not enough colors to paint them.
There’s some other consideration also. There’s no algorithm or artificial intelligence that can differentiate between pleasant and unpleasant colors. But with ColorfulTabs everything changes. The pastel colors that show up when 20-30 tabs are open still play soft on the eyes and appear pleasing. Hoever if we were to use black brown etc… the thing would look ugly.
I’ve acted in favour of the overall pleasantness of the interface. There are rare cases of people opening 360 tabs and different sites into everyone. But yes, once in a while we do run into issues where in colors are very similiar.
At your request I will further play around and see if we can also vary the saturation and luminance by the domain. If it still comes out to be pleasing, we are good to go. Essentially it’s not about time or inclination. It’s just that the phenomenon is comparatively rare and not enough or a botheration to look for alternatives. But let me work on it further.
Just now installed ColorfulTabs and it’s fantastic! Great idea, great execution, instantly useful.
One thing: When I press the “Get background images” link, I’m getting a 404 error.
It’s not a big dieal since odds are I wouldn’t have been using the background images feature anyway. I just thought it would be fun to try it out.
Wonderful idea, especially having colour related to URL, but is it not possible for me to choose the colour I want for a specific domain and then have that same colour appear everytime I go to that domain? At the moment it seems that the colour for a URL is chosen by the program and not by the user.
Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please…
More “Preset Domain Colors”!
More More More More More.
At least a dozen, maybe two dozen … or three … or … !
Just More More More More More.
I love this Extension, and it would be so perfect for me if I could just get more than five Preset Domain Colors.
Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please…
Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!
What a comment
Maybe you could collaberate with the TabBrowserPreferences guy,Bradley Chapman,
https://addons.update.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/158?application=firefox&id=158&vid=1345
or at least help him make his app usable in FF3. It’s one of the best.
This may have nothing to do with you, but do you perhaps know how to download a Firefox AddOn in FF3 without installing? I would like everyone on my network to be able to install without every user downloading separately.
Would it be possible to add an option to always have the same colour for the active tab? I would find this really useful.
Thanks
WTF is Flock?
Ewald
I’m not sure if your query was directed to me. In case it was, here’s a link on how to download and enable older extensions on FF3:
http://www.dailygyan.com/2008/05/how-to-download-firefox-2-extensions.html
It’s way over my head. If anyone figures out a way to make it work, please let me know.
I answered Ewald directly. He wanted to deploy the extension to multiple computers.
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