Well I managed to work on the laptop I borrowed from my friend (thanks buddy!) and give some final touches to ColorfulTabs version 3.9. (By the way my only computer – the Dell Precision M90 died on me – and I’m badly in need of another computer. If you want, consider a donation which will help me make a better and faster decision about the hardware).
So back to ColorfulTabs 3.9; it was a challenge getting used to a machine with the “home” and the “end” and the “insert” and the CTRL and the windows key all jumbled up. Installing a new Firefox profile with all the developer extensions was a task. Finally I installed my text editor and then I realized I’d have to start over since the dev-version of ColorfulTabs 3.9 had gone down with my computer. So I started from scratch, documenting and implementing each and every change slowly and verifying them. Most of these requests come from the forums. Out of all the changes here are the notable ones.
- Foreground color change takes place immediately: The new preference to reverse the foreground color of the tab was not taking effect real-time. This has been fixed.
- More preferences to make the current tab stands out: A lot of the users want the selected tab to have a fixed color. While it may be desirable to have that fixed color for the selected tab, it defeats the entire purpose of ColorfulTabs – to help differentiate, identify and locate the tab of your choice. So, I’ve coded some functions to help us decorate the selected tab better. Currently enabling selected tab highlighting will give a slight inverted gradient to the selected tab. But we can decide the best decoration upon receiving further feedback. Of course those of you who have been using ColorfulTabs for a long time would be familiar with the ‘fade’ option which fades the unselected tabs.
- Updated help and documentation panel: With so many support requests coming through mail I decided to place a small panel under preferences to provide basic and quick help to first-time users.
- Several bugfixes including – Tab looses color when moved to new window: I still can’t say we’ve fixed it. The tabs gets colored when they are opened, moved or reloaded (in the case of color-by-domain option). However moving the tab to a new window does not trigger a reload when color-by-domain is enabled. Thus the tab gets colored in all cases but when in color-by-domain mode. There’s little documentation about these new events and features coming up with Firefox 3.1 (or may be I’ve not really been able to read through the fine-print).
I’ll now be working to update the documentation, worry further about my broken laptop and try to buy a new one while you explore Binary Turf.
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{ 43 comments… read them below or add one }
While you all are donating computers, donate me one too so I can have monitor with color. Right now all my colorful tabs are different shades of grey.
Well, that sure is an idea – not the monitor but the gray tabs. How about a fancy version with metallic tabs?
Thanks for the updated version. I didn’t really notice any difference, but no problems either.
in the past I’ve learnt that users arn’t necessarily receptive to noticeable difference. They are there but pretty subtle. We didn’t change any colors
Installed the update, but with a custom theme, it won’t work properly. It turns the tab titles to black (makes it hard to read on Aero Fox theme) but the tabs are still the same colour as the theme I have.
Hey Thanks the new version of Colorful tabs it is Great!
The major annoyance I’ve had with colorful tabs is that there was not enough of a difference between the selected tab and the others to be able to easily tell which tab you are on. So I am very happy to see that this problem is now fixed!!! It is now very easy to tell the difference.
Whenever I set up a computer for someone — which is pretty frequent… one of the first things I install is your colorful tabs. Firefox just looks naked without it. I tried a couple of the other colored tabs programs, but really prefer yours.
So thank you for a wonderful program.
———–
quote: and then I realized I’d have to start over since the dev-version of ColorfulTabs 3.9 had gone down with my computer.
Well, it can be a good thing to do a rewrite of a program, the second version almost always winds up being better than the first version.
But you need not fear for the loss of your files. Although they may be inaccessible at the moment they are certainly not gone. From your description of the failure of your laptop I expect that your hard disk is fully intact. All you need to do is to put the hard disk into another computer and presto all your files return. Easiest way to do this is to put the drive into an external disk case with a usb interface. Like this one: http://www.dealextreme.com/products.dx/category.310
Just make sure you get the right size and the right interface for your drive. I would guess that you want 2.5 inch IDE, but check and make sure. I have purchased quite a few things from dealextreme and they are top notch, you can trust them to deliver what they say they will deliver and at truly amazing prices.
Thanks for the tabs! Have to agree about feeling naked without the colour!
Great add-on. Makes a real difference to aesthetics and productivity.
But let me add my vote, PLEASE make the current tab really stand out, with the brightest day-glo color or something. I can understand not wanting to make such a thing the default, only it will be a kindness to add an option for those of us who may have a bit of color/gradient blindness.
Currently, even with default scheme, it takes 2-3 close squints to make out the current tab. Several days of habituating myself to look for the “slight inverted gradient” made little or no difference, I keep closing the wrong tab — just can’t make it out without squinting.
Thanks!
HI – Question: Is it normal for the “inactive” tabs to show a different color about half-way down? Sort of like the gradient is not “smooth” but rather a lighter shade at the top half and a darker shade at the bottom half? (Or maybe there isn’t a gradient and its just a two-tone color tab??) Didn’t notice this too much before but you change in version 3.9 but with the “reverse gradient” in the “Highlight currently selected tab” made this more obvious on the “non-selected” tabs.
Thanks for a really great add-on – I wouldn’t use Firefox without it!!
Roxie: I haven’t touched the inactive tab so it should look like it used to be before 3.9. However the active tab has a flat or rather inverted gradient giving an appearance of a pushed-in tab. You may want to submit a screenshot in the forum.
I have to agree with Jake, post #5. I also have the custom Aero Fox Premium Theme installed, and before this update, it worked very well. However, after this update, the tabs are all very hard to see and read. I’ve tried to change/tweak all of the options to my knowledge, and the problem remains. I really miss having the colorful tabs, and unfortunately, now, I have to disable it. I’ll reinstall the prev. version, and see if it helps. Thanks for a wonderful program!
Thanks, Mapsking
Mapsking: Head to the forums in case you need any assistance.
i notice that it does not work well with dark themes, or is it the theme that disables it?
The official statement is that ColorfulTabs is only guaranteed to work with the official theme. I can only test it on windows but users have reported that it has acceptable performance on the Mac and they want it.
Dear Shivanand Sharma,
Thank you for Colorful Tabs – anything to add to the plain gray of Firefox is much appreciated.
However, as I’ve commented before, as RR in #8 asks above, and as apparently many others have signaled to you: making the active tab stand out more would be the most useful thing of all! I couldn’t believe it when you said “A lot of the users want the selected tab to have a fixed color. While it may be desirable to have that fixed color for the selected tab, it defeats the entire purpose of ColorfulTabs – to help differentiate, identify and locate the tab of your choice.” Reading this made my jaw drop! Yes, it is desirable! But I don’t see how a fixed color for the active tab and “the purpose of Colorful Tabs” are mutually exclusive – wouldn’t you still be able to “differentiate, identify and locate the tab of your choice” if the active tab is a fixed color? It doesn’t even have to be fixed – how about just colored, so long as it is a brighter hue then all the rest? The actual “colorful” part of the active tab is so small that it hardly makes a difference (I had to do a double and triple take to figure out what the “inverted gradient” was). I’ve never understood making the active tab match the darker shade of Firefox gray, and coloring the rest: the words are actually easier to read in inactive tabs! Although increasing the fading does make the active tab stand out, decreasing the visibility of all the other tabs seems like an unnecessary sacrifice, since it also makes it harder to know which tab you want to go to next.
I realize that you’ve put so much time and effort into Colorful Tabs, and again I thank you. But I have to wonder what the purpose of Colorful Tabs is if there is indeed feedback clamoring for a certain change, and that feedback is ignored.
If it doesn’t have to be fixed but a brighter hue, I’ve already provided this option in the current version. Users associate various tabs with their color so if the tab’s color changes after selection that association gets broken. Gmail is a pretty pink but after selection it could be say green and later after deselection it will be pink again – kinda breaks the pink-gmail association.
Most of the users arn’t willing to utilize the current options to differentiate the selected tab – use a background-image, a fading of 1-2 and checking the highlight box. With that done there’s nothing really left to be desired to make the active tab more prominent. However if you’d just like to have a fixed color for active tab because it’s not implemented, you can edit the userchrome.css and make it happen. For now beyone the reasons I’ve stated, it is also complicated to implemenent and as I can see I won’t be very satisfied with a fixed color which I cannot choose. And again as one size doesn’t fit all, I’ll abstain from implementing this unless provided as completely optional.
Gladly tried the current options again, only it is not working for me, so please fill in for what I am doing wrong. Yes, what you said first is all that is wanted, just a (very noticeably) brighter hue by tweaking the current options, so we are only need instructions on how to do so with current options.
Checking the Highlight box under “Selected Tab” has what I find to be a counterintuitive effect — implementation is evidently to decrease highlight to all other tabs, instead of expected increase highlight to the selected tab. But never mind if it does the job, I thought, and tried playing with the fading level for a few minutes to get the desired highlight. Fading of 2 for other tabs is barely sufficient to highlight the selected tab, for my eyes at least, while fading of 3+ makes the text of many of the other tabs unreadable. I think implementation of increase highlight would completely solve the problem.
Next, tried using a background image as you suggest. Is there an option somewhere to apply a background to the selected tab? It seems to always apply to all tabs, thus makes no difference to the selected tab. What am I missing on this one?
RR: The background image does not apply to the selected tab. So when used with fading of 2, the unselected tabs are 20% transparent while the selected tab is 100% opaque. That helps to add another level of differentiation. Also a darker background image performs better at this than a brighter (whiter) shade.
It works. Individually each change is subtle; collectively they are sufficient.
Thanks, Shivanand Sharma. Great add-on, and free, and now the tweaking of settings make sense.
Let me recap your instructions for others who may want their selected tab to be markedly highlighted:
There is already a slight inverted gradient on the selected tab. You may notice it rises just a bit above adjacent tabs. Now try this:
1. Check Highlight option in Preferences, and choose a setting of 1 or 2 for Fading Level: it applies to all but the selected tab. Before finalising, also
2. Check “Enable a background image for tabs”; this applies to all but the selected tab. A plain image is better for this purpose than the default mottled image. For instance, download this free steel background image into a suitable folder and Browse to select it. Now try increasing your Fading Level up to 5 or 6, checking that the tab names remain readable.
3. For those who want day-glo colors for the selected tab, and have opted for Generate Colors At Random, go to Advanced and check Enable Advanced Options, then increase Saturation, and adjust Luminance towards the middle. I found 85 to 95 works well for Saturation, 40 to 60 for Luminance, to produce day-glo colors with some variation. You can press Reset anytime to go back to original settings. Only the selected tab will be in day-glo color, because you chose Fading Level earlier for all other tabs. Only new tabs appear with the new settings, so use File->New Tab (or Ctrl-T) a few times, and click on the various tabs and experiment with settings till you are happy. Have fun!
Thanks for an excellent summary.
If I remember correctly, in an early version the text turned red in the selected tab. Maybe I’m not remembering correctly, but in any case something like that could be done to emphasize the selected tab while keeping the background color the same.
Thanks, Shivanand Sharma. You are welcome to use any part or all of that summary text as you wish, of course.
Having had a chance to try this on a couple of other systems, it is evident that results vary by monitor and its settings. On one monitor, using the numbers from my summary above gave completely unreadable results … much to my surprise after extolling its readability. And on both monitors, they required a bit of tweaking for legible results, very easy and fast with good results but still tweaking. So it seems you had good reason for wanting to retain your “safe settings” by default.
For your next big revision if any, please consider, under Options, folding the Advanced tab back into (an enlarged) General tab. This would allow the related settings of Fading Level, Saturation, and Luminance to be seen and changed as a group.
ColorfulTabs used to work beautifully on my Mac Mini, OS Tiger. When I upgraded to Leopard, the colors disappeared. All tabs are blue. Fading and background image seem to be the only settings that function. Do you have plans to make ColorfulTabs compatible with Leopard? I miss it terribly!
Signed,
Terribly Blue
I must be really dumb, as i cant find a download link to try this. and now my 1 minute attention span has been used up so I’ll move on…….
To “lez”:
The official download site is:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1368
You can also go to the main ColorfulTabs page on this site.
http://colorfultabs.binaryturf.com/?v=3.9
Dear Shivanand Sharma,
One person wrote on the ColorfulTabs feedback forum at Firefox that CT is incompatible with the aero theme. I’m using the Vista-aero theme, so I suspect that this is this my problem with seeing only blue, not OS Leopard as I suggested in my first comment above. I would so much love for CT to work with my favorite theme, but can understand if this is not possible, so I may have to accept that I’ll be…
Forever Blue
P.S. Kudos for a great extension.
In your “several bug fixes” category, you have “tabs looses color…” That should be tab “loses” color…
I installed colorful tabs, which are prettier, but I hate that black line with a white print across the top of my window (the same line where the tabs are). How do I get rid of it?
Lisa, in Firefox go to Tools>> Add-ons>> click on the Extensions tab, highlight ColorfulTabs and click on preferences. Under the general tab, go down to Misc and either un-check Enable a Background Image, or change it.
Thank you for a very useful Extension. On my Win·XP/FF2 installation using the ‘Crystal Dream’ theme the foreground (current / ‘highlighted’) tab had a deep yellow top border (I presumed from my Windows theme) which facilitated instant recognition and identification — even without need for Background Tab Fading.
Indeed I thought at first the ‘Highlight Current Tab’ and ‘Background Image’ options in Colorful Tabs 3.9 might have offered this functionality but disappointingly neither does, thus making Current Tab identification VERY difficult on my current Win·Vista/FF3 installation.
Is there any chance this option/modification could be built ino the next iteration of Colorful Tabs? Pleeeeaaaase?
I can’t see the names on closed tabs. I’ve set the text color “Advanced” options, closed firefox, reopened it, done all the things as instructed. When i navigate away from my home page, the new tab opens & i can see Google in red italics against the black background, per my theme option. but as I open other tabs, the ones i navigate awy from don’t show the names of those sites on the tabs. Siince i often open several windows at once & like to go back & forth, this is an annoying disadvantage. I haven’t found any refs to this problem. Fixes anyone?
disable your theme and use the Firefox Default Theme. Restart the browser. If you still have problems head over to the forums with a screenshot.
Beautiful add-on. Been using it for some time in Firefox. Any chance you have/can make a .js userscript for Google Chrome/Chromium?
Thanks!
Gracias. Colorful tabs ha creado un ambiente muy amable durante mi trabajo en internet.
I’d like to see colorfultabs on Google Chrome too.
I installed Colorfultabs 3.9.2, and now all the tabs are black (with a little color icon on the left of the tab), except for the active tab. When I click to activate one of the black tabs it becomes colorful and the previous active one becomes black. This looks terrible! Do you know what is wrong? I have tried to remove and reinstall with no success. Also, the color of the active tab is a deeper shade than on previous Colorfultabs versions. I’ve been happily using Colorfultabs for years with no problem until now. Any help is appreciated.
I solved the black tab problem. I determined it was a problem with the 2.1 upgrade of the toolbar theme I am using. When I went back to the 2.0 version all was well again. Thank you for Colorfultabs…it’s the most useful add-on to Firefox.
Thanks for a very useful add-on. But I find it often requires a certain amount of visual effort to locate the current tab, from all the surrounding coloured ones. To address this, I would like to suggest an option in which the Current Tab is given a totally different colour scheme (eg white text on black background).
i’m not exactly sure if it comes from my “Classic Compact Theme” or from “Tree Style Tabs” (or maybe both?), however, since that i have only on the active tab a red close button, all other closebuttons are grey. This is the best way to imediatly find the active tab, at least for me.
By the way, it’s great that it is possible to make the text on the inactive not fading anymore, i was really waiting for that, just discovered it right now…
sly
The save (or close or whatever it was) is gone on my presets. I open the options and I cannot close them. I am using Firefox/3.0.13, Colorful Tabs 3.9.3 and Red Cats (blue flavor) 4.2.4
What is weird is that I have been using them all right along and had no problem.
I tried uninstall / reinstall with no change. Any notions??
Well, I did find how to close and save – just hit enter and the options window will close. And I found out why this happened, also. If you get past a certain number of preset domains – around 17 or so – then the buttons go away. I can use ColorfulTabs like it is, now that I know how to close the window, but you might want to look into this issue, as it might cause problems for others who go nuts on their many colored presets – like me
. I mean, it is *possible* that someone could set a preset for every color in your pallette – that’s 80 colors. Of course, then the window would go off the screen (mine nearly does at 20).
To solve this, you could either put the buttons in the header space (maybe by the ’see documentation’ link) or put a scroll in the preset list when it get too long, to keep it to the necessary space. I’m no programmer, and if my suggestions are useless, I’m sorry – just ignore me. But it seemed that if I was pointing out a problem, I should also try to give a possible solution.
I do love this extension, it makes my browsing much easier, being able to pick out my favorites from open tabs at a glance. It’s especially useful when I am browsing many forums and opening new threads in tabs. Thanks!
Thanks Kat. I’d remember to fix this if you can please report this in the forum.
will this count for chrome?