Comparison of Zen with Rambox and how to deal with migration from Rambox to Zen.

[mikedlr]

At the suggestion of a friend, I started using Rambox for some web browser functions a while ago. Rambox calls itself a "Workspace simplifier". It's a sort of partial browser that works mostly for web applications but doesn't do day to day browsing. I saw the functions of Zen and thought it would be a good substitute so decided to try moving over. My experience has been quite mixed and I thought I'd write it up so it can help others that think about moving over and also perhaps so that it can help suggest ideas for development. Also would like some comment and suggestions, especially from anyone else that's moving over or wants to do similar things.

There are some basic key functions that I used Rambox for which Firefox doesn't satisfy.

1. load all web applications (gmail / whatsapp web / google calendar / slack etc.)
2. rapidly get back to the whole set of applications and switch between them
3. get somewhat unified notifications from all of the different apps where I want to be notified
4. avoid having to have and load at startup a series of proprietary, often memory heavy applications,
   Rambox is based on Google Chrome, but it doesn't attempt to be a web browser. When a new window is opened outside a "web application", the new window opens in the default browser.

I call the function I used Rambox for a "web communicator" which is a name that's been used before - maybe better "multi-application web communicator". Most of those functions can be partly done in Zen.

pros and cons - advantages of each

Advantages of Zen:

• unified web browser and communicator - no need for two separate applications; no need to switch windows to use a second tab in one application.
• rapidly immediately tag any page as a "pinned tab" and it becomes a "web application"
• multiple workspaces / easily configured containers which can make it easy to have separate accounts (e.g. work ad home gmail)
• standard firefox addons so
• proper Free Software application so no weird problems like spell checker part of "pro" plan
• easy automatic unloading of tabs reduces memory hit (but causes problems - see Rambox advantages below)

Advantages of Rambox

• very easy to keep a stable set of applications that return to that same set on startup
• having a single window separate from web browsing makes things clear and simple to understand
• clear per application configuration - effectively there's a separate "container" for each application and it gets lots of separate configuration
• counts notifications from applications and provides totals and information about which have updated since last view.
• ensures that chosen tabs load reliably (opt out) so that messaging continues after a restart
• simple one window design works well with web applications like WhatsApp which don't cope with being open twice in the same browser
• each icon shows a count of new messages / new notifications in that application
• knows which windows will get future notifications and doesn't unload them (linked other discussion)
• easy to manually edit a pinned URL / application home URL (see other linked discussion).
• fixed time delay for tab load after browser start - you know each tab will load, but it won't overload the system at startup.

If anyone ends up interested in this discussion I will update this original post with more information as the discussion goes along.

migrating

The first thing to do is to create separate containers for each application that you want to have a separate space. That needs to be done manually.

Currently migration has to happen manually - create each new application in zen. Each one may need a new container if isolation is needed. Create a tab with the application running in the correct container and then pin the application

In order to be able to see all icons there's a need for two zen mods which work together for a good experience.

• SuperPins - pinned tabs don't take up a whole line, just the icon width.
• No pinned tab reset btn - hides the reset button so that pinned tabs don't jump about.

I haven't been able to get reliable notifications or unified notification counting in Zen yet. I decided to move notifications to my mobile phone.

[mikedlr]

I think that some of the ideas that come from using Rambox - essentially that there's one special window which is for communications and then other windows work like a web browser (Rambox does this by making you use a separate browser) - could be really interesting and useful in Zen.

There are some similarities in what you can do in Rambox to what Arc seems to be achieving, however Rambox has a very different design from Arc and it's maybe worth considering what features come out of that and how they could be done in Zen.

[mikedlr]

One idea that I wonder about is whether it would be good to be able to save the configuration of essentials, pinned tabs, workspaces and containers as a JSON file that could then be manipulated outside Zen and restored to act as a backup configuration?

[mikedlr]

Related other discussions.

• Option to manually edit a pinned tab #2221

• Prevent unloading certain tabs based on the domain #1970

• Parity with Arc on Pinned Tab #2829

• Reddit web communicator discussion I started