Slashdot Mirror
Hyatt Discusses Tabs
Llywelyn writes "Über Geek David Hyatt (who, among other browser projects, works on Safari) has posted an interesting discussion about tabs, what he prefers, what works, and what doesn't."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
You could have been a tad more specific in the descrption. Yes, we can follow the link, but it would be just as simple to specifically mention you are referring to 'tabbed browser windows' as opposed to, say, tabbed paragraphs in a document, or tabs in other GUI interfaces.
...Help the flow of a web application.
Many applications involve the user going through a set of steps, and tabs can help the user understand where he is in the process, and allow him to skip forward or jump backwards if necessary. I think tabs are generally accepted in most applications nowadays as way of controlling and guiding program flow.
What is more of a debate where I work is if pagination is better than scrolling.
(I vote scrolling for CTRl+F purposes)
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
I think he really has hit the nail on the head. Tabs aren't for everyone, but its stupid for someone building a browser to not implement them. If I were to hypothetically speaking gotten my hands on v64 build of Safari, I would hypothetically know that tabs are being implemented like Dave describes. I've already adopted Safari as my primary browser, non of its current deficiencies are so glaring that any other browser is better for me overall.
It is nice to see competition in the browser world, cause in the end its the user who wins.
It sure wasn't on the end of that link. That article is about as interesting as this http://www.pattiann.com/webcam/paint.html
Worst. Sig. Ever.
Is it really necessary on /. to qualify anyone as an übergeek?
I use netscape 7 at work, and have multiple instances running with multiple tabs open for each for my api references. I usually have one instance for all my opened Oracle doc pages, and another for Java. I just keep them open and tab between document. Very handy.
SCO to Hell
Safari desparately needs tabs because moving between open, maximized windows is so clunky in OSX.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
Come on, you're holding the rest of the web back. NS 4.7 is dead.
Well, one could reduce the annoyance by only asking in case there's more than one tab open.
Even better idea: What if cou could undo that accidental close? Maybe the browser, after getting in a "close-ready" state (appearing already closed), would wait, say, 3 seconds before actually terminating, and if during that time you start a new one (which is a sign that you closed it accidentally), it offers you to recover that old state.
This probably should be made an option (some people might mot like the program to still hold ressources 3 seconds after it's apparent close), but I think it would be an useful one. One could also enable customizing the time to wait before really terminating.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
I have to disagree with David Hyatt's opinion about close boxes in tabs. I've used Galeon, and I hate having the close boxes in the individual tabs; a close box in a tab takes up such a large proportion of space that it is very easy to accidentally close a tab just by clicking on it. This happened to me so often that I stopped using Galeon and started using Mozilla.
I suppose having one close box on the right-hand side is conceptually inconsistent, but I find the Mozilla solution to be more usable. It never confused me: Mozilla's "close tab" button on the right balances with the "new tab" button on the left. I hope that Hyatt and Apple, before deciding on a solution for Chimera, do usability research with users and don't rely solely on theories of consistency.
1. Middle-click on each interesting entry
Instead, the Microsoft way is:
1. Right-click interesting entry
2. choose "open in new window"
3. Go back to main window
This takes not only Much longer, but is also very awkard because you can't organize your windows. I have every Google-search in a different window, while you would end up with 20 different windows from different searches.
Or click through all interesting links and wait everytime for the page to load.
Once you really understand what tabs can do for you, you will never go back.
Tabbed browsing is useful. But it shouldn't be necessary; tabs should be implemented by the *window manager*, then they would be available with the same interface for all applications.
Imagine how crazy it would be if each app implemented its own title bar and close button on every window. Now think about the current situation with tabs in Mozilla, tabs in terminal emulators, tabs in XEmacs...
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
the road to interface hell is paved with good intentions.
At first, I was annoyed that Safari opened a new window every time I clicked on a link in Mail. After a while, however, I started to realize that this was much more in line with the Macintosh Way.
.ICO file from the site.
How many times have you done this? You want to follow a link in an email, but you know that this will replace whatever is currently in your browser window, so you:
1. Switch back to the browser.
2. Open a new window.
3. Switch back to the email client.
4. Click the link.
I personally do that all the time, and ignored how annoying it is because I got used to it. With Safari, it works like this:
1. Click the link.
Since a new window opens, I don't lose whatever other window I had open.
Now, about tabbed browsers. In general, I hate tabbed interfaces for the following reasons:
1. Too much screen real estate. I have a 17" wide-screen, but I STILL don't want to waste it.
2. Tabs don't scale well. Beyond the discussion in the article, regarding where new tabs should appear, what happens when there are too many tabs for one row? Multiple row tabs take up even more screen real estate, and present a perplexing interface, since the rows must rearrange themselves as tabs are added and deleted. (The only alternative is horizontal scrolling of the tabs -- hideous!)Imagine twenty tabs called "Slashdot..." Which one did you want to pick? Your only choice will be to click at random, and so it's no better than Apple-~ to cycle through all open windows.
All my other Mac applications open a window for every document, so why wouldn't Safari?
Ideally, someone should think of a better way to do this. How about a history view which resembles iPhoto's gallery? Page snapshots could be scaled up or down, sorted by date visited and categorized by url. At smaller sizes, the snapshots could turn into generic icons, or use the
Tabs are a UI workaround for Microsoft's horrible windows within windows design. They don't need to be applied to Mac OS X.
Of course, for the people who like Tabs, I don't see any reason why it couldn't be an option -- as long as it's turned off by default. However, this is also not the Macintosh Way of doing things. It's much better to figure out the right/best way to do it, and stick to it.
Mike van Lammeren
It will challenge your head, your brain, and your mind.
Now that Microsoft has cornered the browser market, they see no more reason to innovate, er, spend more money, on the product.
When they were playing catch-up, it was all about new features. How many features have been added to IE lately?
At this point, the only changes to IE are going to be things which will make Microsoft money, like DRM.
Wow.
You're a fucking superstar. Thank you for informing me how google is supposed to be used.
Y'know what? I dont want a fucking borg cube wallpaper on my desktop.
Thats why all of this stuff is collectively called "preferences".
I *prefer* a seperate window per webpage.
Oh, and holding down shift when I click a link doesnt take much longer, which is how you open in a new window unless you havent read "windows for dummies" and believe you have to open the context menu and pick "open in new window".