Any way to get TST to simply search thru all my open tabs?

[yaba1]

TST is such a well designed Tabs Mgr with so many custom Tabs options,
*I am shocked that there dos not appear to be any option to search simply thru all our tabs, so we do not have scrolling thru so many tabs just to find a specific tab etc, or add addtl outdated addons, just to search.
I installed the (TST Tab Search) addtl extension, but it appears dead in the water, does nothing.
*Any way to search tabs in TST? Thank you for your time and help.

[irvinm]

One way to solve it is to use the Firefox built in tab search from the URL bar: % <tab search>

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/address-bar-autocomplete-firefox

[yaba1]

Thanks & Fair enough Irvin, that does indeed work, but instead going to desired open tab, browser opens
the same tab again, so will end up with even more messy, open dup tabs etc.

In my previous slower browser, I was able to quickly search all tabs, which was a huge convenience & time saver,
I am so suprised that TST Ext does not have this basic, common option, along with (Auto saving of all tabs session), in case of browser crash, but especially the (search thru tabs) option. Thanks

[irvinm]

@yaba1, when you do the search this way, it ONLY searches your open tabs and if they are in your current browser, you should see "Switch to Tab" next to that selection. It should not open a new tab at all. If you are sync-ing your tabs, you may see tabs from your other browsers connected to your account and in this case it would open a new tab. (Like in my screenshot below) Remember to add "%" at the beginning to search only open tabs. If you don't do that, it gives recommendations and items from your history that will open new tabs.

In terms of "auto saving", again Firefox already does that for you. There is no need for TST to do this specifically. If you want MORE than the standard tab session management Firefox provides (which should still restore your tabs after a crash), you can get additional sessions to store with addons like "Tab Session Manager".

[yaba1]

Sounds good Irwin,
Yes now when scroll down, I see switch to tab option, but I still have to open a new tab just to search.

Re: the Firefox restore crashed tabs, I use Zen Browser via Firefox, no library option, but I did see
in History, and option to restore previous window, which worked.
*I have used Firefox over the years, and always have to move on, Firefox eventually w updates,
gets slower, & eventually crashes losing all my many open research tabs, when Session Restore fails.
Did not have good results with Tabs session backups either.
So I am hoping this great new Zen Browser, along with TST will work out better against Tabs crashing etc.
Many thanks again for you time and help Irwin.

[irvinm]

@yaba1 you do not have to open a tab to search.

You can tell Firefox to open search terms in a new tab and not use up the tab you are currently in:

// FF60+ - https://www.askvg.com/firefox-tip-always-open-address-bar-urls-and-search-box-results-in-new-tab/
user_pref("browser.search.openintab", true);

As for losing your tabs, Firefox writes your session out both regularly and when the browser closes. You can simply backup this file and if needed place it back and it will be exactly the same as when it was backed up. I actually have a batch file that backs this file up every 15 minutes so I am guaranteed to not lose more than 15 minutes of changes worst case.

Here is an article about how to restore your session if you lose your tabs: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-restore-browsing-session-backup

[yaba1]

Wow, was unaware of those 2 options, so I guess Firefox have done some good improvements in recent years. I will check in my new Zen Browser, and hope it also has those 2 Firefox options, which would be a great time saver.
Many thanks for your quick and detailed replies Irvin. Cheers!