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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."
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With Opera 6, I didn't use them (I used multiple windows). With Opera 7, I've started using tabs. They actually do rock, though it is incredibly hard to resist the urge to accidentally just close the Opera window (this is what I'm used to from before... and now MS office uses a multiple document interface also...), accidentally closing all 30 tabs I have open :). Really, IMO though, they're great, aside from that one problem.
Karma: pi (Mostly due to circular reasoning in posts).
I have never had the opportunity to run a tab at a Hyatt. Maybe if I used my room key or something lioke that, but otherwise they always want me to pay by the drink :(
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
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)
When i surf the internet, it would be a nice feature to have subtabs (ie several tab under the main tab). It would be very useful for a power user.
Set your editor to indent 4 spaces as God commanded.
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.
When I surf the internet, it would be a nice feature to have subsubtabs (ie several subtabs under the main subtabs under the main tab). It would be very useful for a mega power user.
Is it really necessary on /. to qualify anyone as an übergeek?
Pretty soon, Internet Explorer will be the only browser without tabs. I wonder how long it will be before Microsoft realises that - yes - tabs are good.
is the best tabbed browser I've ever used. True, it's a wrapper for IE and only works on windoze, but still, it's the best. And I love phoenix, but Crazy Browser keeps me coming back for more.
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
Everyone knows that Tabs give you lung-cancer, I'm suprised that in the US people are pushing Tabs onto everyone, even kids, saying they should be the "default". I for one think its dreadful that Mr Hyatt is pushing Tabs and saying "when they are useful", Tabs KILL, simple as that.
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An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
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
I've been wondering how I could get Mozilla to open a tab in the background. From reading the article, now I know, you use Shift button 2. Great.
Now if I could figure out how to rearrange the tabs.
Safari desparately needs tabs because moving between open, maximized windows is so clunky in OSX.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
this guy is apparently so keen on tabbed browsing, yet there is no sign of this on the horizon for Safari
Actually, there are more than signs of this on the horizon for Safari. A build was leaked that included tabbed browsing. Some genius put the build on his iDisk and posted it in a forum so many people have seen it.
when he says novice users don't need or like tabs. everytime a friend is over my place and watching me surf with mozilla, i always get a 'cool' when i show and explain tabs to them. so i think users like tabs. i also think they need them - i think internet savvy has increased to the point where having multiple browsing tabs would be useful to all.
i wouldn't be surprised if the next version of IE has tabbed browsing.
"if you build it, they will come...."
smd4985
On Most browsers I have seen tabs are not defaultly turned on untill you do a ^T or select it in the menu option. I say put the feature in because it is not going to hurt the experence of using the product because it is not like the tabs keep on apearing all over the place. If you want it its there if you dont then dont select the option. Of course I think the X should be placed inside the tab picture and they should have the option to drag the tab out of the desktop to allow for a new window with that tab and the ability to change the order. But still Tabs are nice but they are not the next big thing sience sliced bread.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?
"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."
Well, I don't know about Mr. Hyatt's techniques, but I have found that giving the bartender my card and saying "I'd like to open a tab and start off with a Woodchuck Amber, please." does the job nicely. YMMV. Sometimes I have to employ the Arm Wave or the On-fire Napkin tactics to get the tab started, but these are advanced practices best avoided by beginners. (If you're in austin and are looking for a good place to start a tab, I can heartily recommend the Dog and Duck pub as well as the Crown and Anchor, both close to the UT campus.)
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
i think the current crop of tabbed browsers will adopt this in their second generation of tabs, and i cant wait, it makes the future that much brighter (and yes, i do wear shades).
I want 2D games back.
How does tabbed browsing differ from MDI (which I've used in Opera5) or from simply opening multiple browser windows? As best I can tell it's just the same thing as MDI...
As far as MDI vs multiple windows, it's a tradeoff. With MDI you only need to minimize one app to get it out of the way, and don't have to sequence through a ton of browsers to get to something else - neither of which may be an issue for many people. With multiple windows you can see the titles for everything in the task bar, instead of on a tab bar, so it's a more consistent interface - again, may not be an issue depending on how you do things.
Switching between them is a wash - ctrl-tab vs alt-tab. Opening stuff up in another window/tab is also a wash, although being able to open stuff up in the background is a nice addition for tabs (it's just an additional keypress/mouse action with multiple windows).
I guess I just don't see the wonderfulness of tabs, even having used Opera5 previously. What features am I missing here? And no, I'm not trolling.
I posted a trackback in response to Dave's assertation that tabs are scalable. I simply don't believe that they are, in fact prior to his article about tabs, scalability was one of the main weaknesses I would bring up in discussions about tabs -- it's not the main weakness, just one of them.
I wonder if my PowerMac G3 can take a Slashdot beating...
mbbac
Does anyone know if you can easily (without spending tons of time parsing XUL) assign a keybinding to switch between tabs in mozilla or mozilla-based (NS7) browsers? I'd love to be able to do the alt-tab like thing to switch between my tabs (ok, that just looks weird) but there doesn't seem to be a default way to do this.
Does _anyone_ use the sidebar? I find it's the first thing I shut off as it eats up space and serves no real useful purpose. If a novice user has it open I imagine it's only because they don't know how to turn it off.
All the best,
--Bob
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.
My sister drank a lot of Tabs way back in the 70's. But then the comapny introduced Diet Coke and that was that big "switch campaign." I didn't know theyy were still making the stuff...
It's a joke...just chuckle and move along...
indeed there is, albeit with dhtml - in this case i refer to the International Herald Tribune's pagination scheme which implements a very cute way of getting past the unavailability of the any <MULTICOL> tag in today's browsers.
:)
it also offers the option to reformat the page in a varity of ways, but the default layout (for applicable browsers) is that of a columned, page by page setup.
newspapers work in columns because they are easier to scan and digest. most people dislike scrolling, as it means the reading material moves - as opposed to one's eyes moving. QED.
<B>note to self:</B> <I>post as html</I>
That's interesting because the MSDN document browser application is basically a web browser using the IE engine and shares IE bookmarks. And it hints that microsoft isn't entirely opposed to tabbed browsing.
Links have an "open in new window" right menu item and an "open in separate window" right-click menu, just as mozilla.
I've been wondering if this is a signal of things to come.
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
You've been rated funny, but I wonder how many people actually got the joke. Even someone from the South of England is unlikely to get the reference, never mind an American.
OK. I'll spill. In the North of England, a Tab is a cigarette, so they do indeed cause cancer.
Lord Pixel - The cat who walks through walls
A little bigger on the inside than out
The percentage of Safari Users that would use autocomplete is low at best ... it seems that the only people that are wanting this feature which causes interface clutter (eventhough minimal, it is is evasive) are the only ones posting, maybe several thousand. It also bloats code.
Other than a few bugs, in my opinion, the only thing Safari needs is tabs. Everyone that I do business with uses tabs. Personally, I list on eBay; for this, tabs is great when listing or when paying for something online.
I deal with 100's of customers a month and not one has wondered why Safari doesn't have autocomplete. ALL, miss tabs - some want password/keychain interaction.
if it ain't broke, break it.
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
Disclaimer: this isn't my idea, I got this idea off the January'03 MSDN document browser behavior. Also, although I didn't find the option in mozilla, other tabbed browsers may have this.
When I tab is closed mozilla gives focus to the next tab "physically" in the stack. That is, if you have 5 tabs open, and you open then close a sixth, you'll *always* find yourself staring at the 5th tab.
Mozilla could store a "logical" tab order, or stack. So when I open and close a new tab, the last tab I viewed before that gets focus.
What this means is that if you open a article link from your slashdot tab eg. tab 2 of say 5, and the article opens as the 6th tab; after closing the 6th tab, the 2nd tabs regains focus.
This is simple but very useful. It's almost like the tab focus order acts like the "back" button.
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
While I do agree with the AC, you deserve an explenation.
You see, Netscape 4.7 has poor support for Cascading Style Sheets. Cascading Style Sheets are a technology we webdesigners use to exercise greater control over the look and feel of a website. Sadly, during the first browser war, CSS and other standards were ignored. Companies thought they could win the war by providing proprietary functionality. Netscape 4.7 was the last version of Netscape before standards became their priority.
If you're looking for a similar browser, download Netscape 7, If you have not upgraded due to concern of CPU load and memory, you'll probably like Phoenix. Of course, there are other browsers out there. I just tend to ignore anything that isn't based on mozilla (which the new netscape and phoenix are).
Like leaves in the fall
Browser tabs fade away, and
you close the window.
Karma: pi (Mostly due to circular reasoning in posts).
i want to be able to drag and drop my tabs either to arrange them within one window, or to move them between windows. i think they should worry less about the order of opened tabs and allow users to move them.
Galeon handles this very well. Drag a tab outside of the browser window, and it detaches into a new browser. Drag a browser window into the tab-bar of another window, and it "docks" and becomes a tab. Going along with this, galeon also lets you re-order tabs within a window easily and intuitively.
TheFrood
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
To avoid clutter, I "shade" windows to show only the title bar.
I consider shaded windows as having all the benefits of tabbed browsing with none of its drawbacks.
Here's why:
I use Opera, which (like Netscape) remembers my chosen window size and does not try to impose a "default" window size on me, like some browsers do. The only problem is sites that assume a larger window size than the one you are using. I also wish Opera would let the child window inherit the parent window's history, just in case I would have closed it.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Well you only mentioned things that are trivial to do with multiple windows, which is why you got the response you did. How about letting us in on the "much much more" you talk about - is there anything of note that you can do with tabs that you can't do with multiple windows?
Huh? What is the difference between a set of clickable things inside the browser window, and a set of clickable things outside the browser window, apart from with the former I can't use my usual interface to manipulate them?
I try tabs every now and then. The only time I found it useful is when I was stuck on windows at work. It allowed me to group sets of browser windows. Ordinarily, I would use virtual desktops to do this, which isn't limited to a single application.