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Tell HN: Use separate windows, not tabs, for distinct tasks

33 points by wrftaylor ↗ HN
I find this reduces cognitive switching penalty.

Each window has all the tabs relating to a specific task.

When you finish a task, you can close the whole window at once.

When you want to pause a task, you can minimise the window.

Your minimised windows show you of your tasks in progress without you having to infer it be checking all of your tabs.

Building the habit is hard, so what I did was install a browser extension that limits the number of tabs you have running, and set the limit to three. This will force you to start using new windows for different tasks. It can be annoying in the long term, but it's enough to break the "new-tab-by-default" habit.

25 comments

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zmp0989
If you use Chrome I recommend the tab group feature. I group all of my relevant tabs into a group and close out the entire group when I'm done with that task/project (or sometimes never, but at least things are organized).

But I wholeheartedly agree with OPs idea in concept.

skribanto
I do something similar with TreeStyleTabs/Sidebery in firefox
exabrial
I really wish Eclipse or IntelliJ had windowing like Pixelmator. I'd love to split everything up over multiple screens and take advantage of multi-monitor setup on my Intel mac.
navjack27
If I could do that with everything I would.

Windows needs window containers in which house windowed "desktops" that house programs.

I want to put a project on pause I can just close the container and pick up with everything in it later instead of trying to document and remember where and what I was using and opening everything the same way every time

jasfi
Virtual desktops sounds like what you want. Just press Win+Tab.
Jtsummers
Windows supports virtual desktops which is how I generally group different applications and documents that are open simultaneously. Use Windows+Tab to bring up the set of current desktops and create a new one. Windows+Control+left/right will let you move one at a time through them (though it doesn't cycle, leftmost and rightmost don't bring you back to the next).

Or you can use VMs like some projects do in my office. Closed and status saved, totally restored to the last working condition when reopened. It's convenient, though not my personal preference (also cleanly handles issues around projects requiring different versions of some system libraries and tooling).

bmitc
Do you mean Windows as in the OS? (Not sure since it's the first word in your sentence.) Because Windows has a multiple desktops feature which allows you to group open applications for various purposes. To my knowledge, it does not have a sort of container-like restart capability, but you could just leave everything in the desktop open.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/multiple-desktop...

Your feature request of suspend and resume is actually a pretty neat idea. Both Windows and macOS have features to re-open windows after restart, so I assume they could do the same for both of their multiple desktops feature.

jasfi
There's still the annoyance of wanting to hang on to some tabs, but not others. Bookmarking extensions are typically the answer, but there seems to be a problem with out-of-sight, out-of-mind. So once you've bookmarked a tab and closed it, the chance of going back to it isn't good.
hammyhavoc
I can probably count on two hands the number of times I've ever directly opened my bookmarks in about 26 years of browsing. The reason I still bother to bookmark is that most browsers these days allow you to type into the URL bar a word and it'll suggest bookmark titles containing the word, that works for me. Still think bookmarking needs a paradigm shift in how we manage and organize the data.
dizhn
It might fit your style to combine pinned tabs with a tab group extension. The groups are named and you can switch to them with a shortcut and pinned tabs are obviously visible everywhere.

EDIT: I am using the Simple Tab Groups extension on Firefox.

kornork
I wrote a script that opens a random bookmark. I set it to run every day when I know I'll be taking a break.

Now I can safely close tabs, having successfully satisfied my brain's objections.

cassianoleal
Safari Tab Groups does that without the need for multiple windows - although you can still have them if you want.
animesh
I use edge at work and do this for similar reasons.

All my AWS tabs in one window, work websites on another window etc.

mmphosis
That’s how I arrange things. I have enough screen space to visibly see all of the windows. I avoid tabs, mdi, workspaces, containers and other such groupings and stick to separate windows.
dmarinoc
That’s been one of the strategies to help me cope with my ADD: turning my most visited services into standalone apps, and forbid to open links outside the domain in those apps.

I use Fluid in Mac, although IIRC there was a non trivial way to create them using Firefox.

warrenm
I use multiple browsers for this purpose - trying to keep individual windows straight that are all holding [supposedly] grouped tabs sounds like about 20x the mental overhead
karmakaze
I do the same, as well as using multiple apps in particular editors for different flavours of tasks: RubyMine, VSCode, Sublime Text.

I do still end up with too many Chrome tabs for work items. Using a couple of windows helps and tab groups delay the inevitable but isn't a good solution (other than store only, read never).

hlesesne
Running Ubuntu (and most other os’s support this) I opt for different desktops for different contextual work - and I keep my sound turned down when I’m focused. I find that it minimizes my cognitive switching costs, but is still easy to switch when I choose.
danielcid
I do the same. 3 different browsers: work, personal and random stuff. Keeping them isolated from each other clears the clutter and my focus when working.
hammyhavoc
There's such a big overlap between most tasks though. The tab paradigm is fine for casuals, but think grouping, tagging, and sorting needs a lot of work.
pkulak
Even better is to use a single workspace for each task. I keep an IDE window, a few terminals, and a couple browsers for each task I'm working on. Not sure if this works in floating WMs, but in a tiling WM it's a delight. I actually disabled tabs in Firefox and let Sway do tabbing instead. That way I can have a single window tabbed with multiple apps, only some of them a browser.

Before I started working this way, my stress levels were through the roof. I spent so much time alt-tabbing through 100 windows and getting burned out. Organization is key!

markus_zhang
I'm uaing this methodology. The only issue is whence I have 4 Chrome windows I cannot tell which one is which. I hope it can show group name instead of tab name.
cyanydeez
I got 4 browsers for various tasks
muzani
I don't like doing this on a Mac because the windows seem to disappear when in background. Windows is incredibly good for well, multiple windows. It snaps to corners and halves, swaps contexts, handles multiple monitors well. A Mac is a better focused work machine, but sometimes I just forego the multi tasking.