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Toby — Better Than Bookmarks
Bookmarks are for books, not browsers. Organize your browser tabs into Toby so you can access key resources in one click instead of seven. Toby is browser extension that helps organize your tabs.
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Raphaël Chabaud
Lots of extensions are competing to get the Chrome New Tab space !
I used to have the Product Hunt Extension showing up today's hunt in my New Tab. And I like to have it. So how can I keep PH Extension for my new tab and use Toby at the same time ?
It would be nice to have the possibility to use Toby without being forced to have it in a new tab.
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@raphc @tgerin @dtireli @jamielovelace You can use it without having it in a new tab :) When you install it, it will use your new tab, but if you want to use something else as a new tab, you still can continue to use Toby. Click the Toby icon and you'll see button "Open Toby". That will open the dashboard in case you don't want to have it on your new tab :) Great point, though! Thanks a lot for your feedback and for trying it out! Let me know if you have any other thoughts
@raphc there's an idea for an extension. A Chrome New Tab extension that has an API for other extensions to inject widgets from other extensions.
@fogueiravb @raphc Right... haha You can still use Toby if it's not your default new tab. Just click the Toby icon and then the button "Open Toby". Then you'll see all your lists.
First off, this is amazing. I've really been wanting something like this. The UI and UX are spot on for the most part.
I have one small feature request for the future: Please add the ability to remove a tab from your Toby quickly through the chrome extension. I like that I can add websites to Toby quickly, but when I'm finished reading something from my 'Read Soon' list, I'd like to tap the chrome extension and click a minus button somewhere so I don't have to open a new blank Toby tab just to remove and manage that specific item.
Amazing product!
Edit: after a bit of usage I realized that tab lists are not shared between installations. Unfortunately a deal breaker for me as I constantly hop between my mac and PC. Will this ever be implemented in the future? :(
@xcadaverx Thanks for the review, Daniel. Yes, both of those are part of our plans for the very near future. Great to see our efforts are aligned with your needs. More specifically, the sync feature is ALMOST there, I'd say 95% done. Archiving a tab from Toby easily is also in my plans and will be nice to have as well, like you described. Thanks again, and let me know if you have any additional thoughts.
@arthur_camara How exciting! Can I join a mailing list to be notified when syncing is enabled, or will the extension automatically update? Cheers!
@xcadaverx @arthur_camara We should get a mailing list up and running, but for now I promise to message you here on PH/ or twitter when it's ready to fly.
@mackflavelle @arthur_camara Agreed, a mailing list would be fantastic! I'm excited to see all the features that get added to this—it already does enough (hallelujah Toby), but with a couple more this thing will rule the internet. Also, thanks for releasing it for free, but you should really have a donate link on your site... This thing is worth its weight in gold. :)
@xcadaverx @thejohnnyhill @mackflavelle There are now live!!! YAY If your Toby has already been upgraded to version 0.2.2 you can already remove websites easily by using the right click. You can remove from a list or from all lists. You can also remove from a list using the pop up.
Also, you can sync tabs across devices that use the same Google account, using Google Drive. I hope you try Toby again, Daniel. Let me know how it goes.
Read more about other features here: http://www.gettoby.com/blog/post...
Neat! It would be nice if it allowed you to add "pinned" tabs and recall that state when they're restored similar to how "Session Buddy" does it :)
@hopkinschris Yeah, I thought pinned tabs shouldn't be draggable because they're always there anyways, but I should give it another thought! I'll also look into Session Buddy and check out how that works. Thanks for using Toby, Christopher!
@mikelholford @hopkinschris Hey guys, I changed the way pinned tabs work now. So, you can drag them (but they wont close) and they look different, so you know which ones are pinned. There's also a new "Save Session" feature that I find really handy. Let me know what you think of version 0.2.2 and keep those thoughts coming. They are really helpful. Thanks! Also, you can read a blog post about all the new features here: http://www.gettoby.com/blog/post...
@arthur_camara Nice work! I gave it a quick try but still doesn't do the trick for me compared to "Session Buddy". When I see "Save Session" and click that I expected all of the pinned and non-pinned tabs open in my current browser window to be saved to a single list and the tab's state (pinned vs. unpinned) to be stored so I can restore a saved session after Chrome closes or I have to do a restart. I will circle back soon! The UI/UX is next level compared to "Session Buddy".
@hopkinschris alright Chris. Thank you for giving it a try :) I guess the pinned tabs are used very differently by different people and some hate to have them being closed - ever (that's why they pinned them in the first place). But I'll make sure I give it some extra thought and brainstorm a lot on this to see what we can do to make folks who use tabs like you're describing happy with Toby as well. I appreciate your feedback :) have an awesome week
Love it - I'm an open tab hoarder..
It would be awesome if there was a quicker way to remove a tab from Toby - two clicks is one too many for me. I like Daniel's minus button suggestion, or some sort of option to automatically remove a tab if you open it from Toby then close it again after a certain period..? (Eg when you're using it as a 'read later' list).
@siororke Nice one Siobhan. Yeah, I'll make sure to brainstorm a bit about this and add that asap. Thanks for using Toby
@arthur_camara @siororke Yep, it would be awesome if i can designate a special list, from which a tab would be automatically removed once i've clicked it and opened it.
I just gave this a test run, and I absolutely love the product! :) Unfortunately, it seems as if it becomes the default new tab screen.
Personally, I would love to continue my existing new tab preference (PH extension FTW) while also using Toby. Is there any way Toby could be accessible without becoming the default tab preference?
@marc_rosa Thanks for using it! I'm glad you love it. Yes, Toby is accessible without being the default tab. Just click the Toby icon and then click the "Open Toby" button. I included that specifically for people who don't want to use the default new tab for Toby. #hiddenFeature
@marc_rosa Now you can choose to optionally turn that off in version 0.2.2. Toby defaults to the new tab, but you can turn that off and use something else in the new tab if you want to. Keep accessing Toby through the popup. Let me know how you like it :)
@arthur_camara is there a way for me to use Toby without it showing up for my new tab? If not this option is desperately needed.
@haoyangnz @arthur_camara You can still use Toby without using it in every new tab. Just click on the Toby badge and then on the button "Open Toby" to bring up the Toby UI and all your lists.
@mackflavelle @arthur_camara I understand we can open Toby up without opening a new tab. What I was asking though was how to stop it from showing automatically when I open a new tab - as I had other things showing up in new tabs but now taken over by Toby.
@haoyangnz @mackflavelle Working on a solution for this. It will be pretty cool, I promise. Keep an eye open, I'll update you guys soon on this :)
Really nice! I've been looking for something like this for a very long time.
Why disable special characters in the sections name and in the search though? My language (French) uses characters like "é" or "à", and no way to use them there :/
@brunostasse Very valid point. I'll make sure to reanable that in the next release! Thanks for your feedback and let me know if you have any additional thoughts. I hope Toby helps you :)
@brunostasse Check out the new updatesm Bruno. I added special characters to list names and you can now use French. Or Japanese. Or Swedish - you name it :) I hope you enjoy version 0.2.2. Let me know if you like it.
My friend Arthur is one of the productivity nuts. Always looking for a way to claw back precious time stolen by shitty processes and stupid UX design. So he built Toby, cause tabs suck! Toby makes them not suck. Or not as much at least.
Most of us at the office are using this religiously now. It makes managing waaaaay to much information much more gooder. We (but really he) would love to answer your questions about why he built it, why the other solutions on the market weren't the right fit for him, and some of the cool features we plan on launching in the next couple weeks.
This is lit! I just created a list for what I was working on yesterday. I'll reopen them this afternoon. Now, I only have the tabs I am currently working on opened.
@ldesserrey Great to hear Laurent! Let me know how it's working for you
@mackflavelle this looks awesome, excited to try it out! Curious about the development process—did you discover anything unexpected once you started using it, or did the final version end up being close to the initial design vision?
@bcjordan @mackflavelle The final version ended up looking quite like the initial design vision, with some changes and simplifications here and there. The idea was always to have a board for my tabs, and drag them around. Some original ideas we still plan on adding (like integrating with your history), and others just came along the way, like better way to highlight search items and overall design.
If you want to check out one of my early experiences with the UX, check out this codepen I wrote a while ago and drag "tabs" around: http://codepen.io/arthurcamara1/...
I think the most unexpected thing I found was all the different ways people have been using Toby. Some people really use it to organize their tabs, and other have repurposed it to function like a Todo list or bookmarks. It's awesome to see all the different ways people use it and get feedback from each one of them. Thanks for trying it out and let me know if you have any thoughts Brian.
@arthur_camara that's awesome, thanks for sharing that! Love using CodePen as a way to quickly mock up an idea
@bcjordan Yep, same here. CodePen is fun. I haven't had time to post much over there lately, but feel free to check out a few things I have in there http://codepen.io/arthurcamara1/ ;)
There doesn't seem to be support for tabs from multiple windows. When I open a new tab, the Open Tabs list only displays open tabs from the current window? I'd like to be able to find an open tabs from other windows in my current window.
It would be useful if Toby remembered whether the tab was pinned or not when it was added to a list too and reopened it in the same state.
@aplssf That's correct, Alex. Toby only lists tabs in the current window, but that's something we've been discussing. Thanks for your feedback and for trying it out, and let me know if Toby helps you get more productive or organized.
@arthur_camara the option to drag & drop open tabs into a list would be useful too, at the moment I'm finding adding tabs to lists quite awkward to be honest.
I might be missing this but any plans to have Toby's sync across computers? I just put it on 2 computers and have manually been updating my visual layout to match. So far I'm loving this by the way
Looks very promising ! Will test it along my other tab chrome extensions (Onetab, tab organizer, the great suspender...)
Hello Arthur, great tool indeed. Love Toby.
My only issue is with using Toby while keeping my existing new tab extension, which is Empty New Tab.
I have uninstalled Empty New Tab after having installed Toby and then I have re-installed, but Toby always gets to manage the new tab content. How can I prevent this from happening?
Many thanks
Are there any plans of making Toby sync across multiple devices, ie. work and personal laptops? I can appreciate the concerns of privacy, maybe an opt-in feature for the information to be stored on your servers, or you could encrypt the url of the tabs on-sync which would also work well.
I've installed the extension and it works really well, thank you.
@samayres1992 Yes, very very very soon you'll be able to sync. Stay tuned!
@samayres1992 YES! That's now implemented in version 0.2.2. Go check it out and come back to lmk what you think
This is great, But I have a question. How can I use more than one chrome extension when all of them need new tab screen to perform.
@arthur_camara @mackflavelle Is there any workaround for this?
@nishant_k_gupta @arthur_camara You can still use Toby without using it in every new tab. Just click on the Toby badge and then on the button "Open Toby" to bring up the Toby UI and all your lists.
Thanks for checking it out!
@nishant_k_gupta @mackflavelle You now can choose if Toby will be in the new tab or something else. Just go to the preferences menu on version 0.2.2 :) Let me know how you like it
I'm using Vivaldi web browser (which is based on Chromium) and I can't manage to have Toby as my New Tab page. Do you know how to do it?
@benjamin_bnds Sorry Benjamin, I'm not sure. I've tried Vivaldi once, but have never tried to install Toby on it. Didn't even know that was possible! hahaha I'll try later.
@benjamin_bnds Hey I'm going through the comments again, I use vivalidi as well.
1. Open toby
2. Copy url
3. Open Vivaldi Settings
4. Search for "new tab"
5. Set "New Tab Page" to the url you copied
@arthur_camara is there any reason why the extension is blocked incognito? https://infinit.io/_/C5LzkLd
@samayres1992 I'll check what's causing this and get back to you. It could be that incognito doesn't allow for persistent storage? I'm not sure, will investigate
Can you use Toby for separated worktables?
Lets say you need to be logged in to 2 CRM systems (but the same, for example Hubspot). Mostly if you are logged into one you can't log in to another one without the system automatically logging you out from the other. Hope this makes sense. :) So like this you can set up your private workplace in your browser.
In short. You can manage 2-3-4 companies in separated browsers without incognito mode.
