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."

Comments

Browser Tabs

[Sgs-Cruz]

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.

Re:Browser Tabs

[jsonic]

I've had the same issue. One way of solving it is to enable exit confirmation. That way, when you hit the main exit button, it will ask if you really want to close or not. Kind of a trade off since that can get annoying too, but at least you won't lose all the browser tabs you have open.

Re:Browser Tabs

[maxwell demon]

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.

Re:Browser Tabs

[Sgs-Cruz]

The problem with that is, when you have to, er, close something in a hurry :), and then later, somebody else in my house starts up Opera, and sees what I was last looking at... as you can imagine, that option is turned off on my Opera...

Re:Browser Tabs

[PotPieMan]

Even better idea: What if cou could undo that accidental close?

You mean like Galeon's concept of a session? Galeon remembers what tabs you had open when you exit, and they appear next time you load the app. Great feature that's missing (IIRC) from Mozilla, Phoenix, and many of the other tabbed browsers.

Re:Browser Tabs

[SashaM]

You mean like Galeon [sourceforge.net]'s concept of a session? Galeon remembers what tabs you had open when you exit, and they appear next time you load the app.

Yes, exactly like Opera does as well.

Re:Browser Tabs

[rseuhs]

What you "IE-only" users will never understand is how Goggle was meant to be used:

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.

Re:Browser Tabs

[illtud]

I've had the same issue. One way of solving it is to enable exit confirmation. That way, when you hit the main exit button, it will ask if you really want to close or not. Kind of a trade off since that can get annoying too, but at least you won't lose all the browser tabs you have open.

Please take a moment to vote for that bug in Bugzilla. ie, Moz has no confirmation on CTRL-Q for 'close browser', and it's right next to CTRL-W for 'close tab'. The bug's here: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52821

(can't make a link cos bugzilla doesn't allow direct slashdot links)

I have never had the opportunity

[GMontag]

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 :(

Tabs seem to...

[Joe the Lesser]

...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)

Re:Tabs seem to...

[corian]

What is more of a debate where I work is if pagination is better than scrolling.

Scrolling, for practicality reasons.

Many of us who still dial-up for internet access like to open a bunch of pages to read later, off-line (when we're not paying by-the-minute). That's easy to do with scrolling, all-on-one-page texts. Paginated texts, you have to first have to notice that they ARE paginated, and then go through and open each individual one, and then pay attention to actually read the in order. Much more of a hassle.

The only benefits I've seen of pagination is that it increases the number of ad viewings (because each page in a pagination can have a new ad). But that only benefits the site, not the user. IS there a user benefit to pagination?

Re:Tabs seem to...

[Yort]

Paginated texts, you have to first have to notice that they ARE paginated, and then go through and open each individual one, and then pay attention to actually read the in order. Much more of a hassle.

YES. My recent experience is shopping for new tires. I went to Discount Tires, and after clicking through a few simple questions they displayed all the tires for my car on a simple page (which, incidentally, I then used tabbed browsing to open the "more info" button on the ones I was interested in).

Then, being the price checker I am, I also visited Tires Plus. After clicking a few simple questions, they told me that there were 86 tires to choose from - and started listing them at six per page.

Well, there was no freaking way I was going to click through 15 pages of tires. That and the fact that they wouldn't tell me the price, but had to email me a quote, got Discount Tires my business.

Tabs should not be used in code

[Anonymous Coward]

Set your editor to indent 4 spaces as God commanded.

Re:Tabs should not be used in code

[maxwell demon]

You've misspelled: "as God indented".

Dave hit the nail on the head

[octover]

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.

Re:Dave hit the nail on the head

[Spoing]

I thought the same thing about the mouse scroll wheel. Tabs make a browser so much more valuable, though -- like the mouse wheel -- you won't 'get it' unless you use it.

Here are just a few examples;

1. Less use of the back button and no page reloading caused by the use of that button . When in doubt, open another tab...and switch to it. Close tabs that are no longer needed.

2. Checking on the results from a search engine.

3. Switch to different search engines with one click -- and keep your old search results for reference. If you use Google -- Google.com, news.google.com, and groups.google.com -- and want to see how your search works in different areas, load a new tab. Without tabs, it's just awkward.

4. Saving and reloading multiple tabs later. If you want to return to exactly the same set of web pages, bookmark the group of tabs. Later, select the bookmark and BAM! you're back. Very handy for news sites or checking on posts to forums.

Suggestion: If you have a 3 button mouse or a scroll mouse, change the default behavior to open a new tab on middle button click.

In Mozilla or Netscape, this can be done by going to Edit...Preferences and selecting Navigator...Tabbed_Browsing and checking off Open tabs for "Middle clidk or control-click of links in a web page".

How about sub-sub-tabs.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

oh, that narrows it down.

[joedoe]

Is it really necessary on /. to qualify anyone as an übergeek?

IE

[eadz]

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.

Re:IE

[MojoRilla]

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.

Reckless advice...

[MosesJones]

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.

Brought to you by the peoples republic of Barnsley

Tabs Very useful

[ralico]

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.

So THATS how you do that

[emacs_abuser]

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.

Re:it's interesting...

[pussycat]

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.

he is mistaken....

[smd4985]

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...."

Re:it's interesting...

[tbmaddux]

A build was leaked that included tabbed browsing.

That was Safari beta v0.62. There's a new leak of v0.64. You can get at them both here.

drag n drop tabs

[paradesign]

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. if you have used photoshop 7s 'pallete well' feature, you will know what sort of freedom i want with my tabs.

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).

Re:drag n drop tabs

[Turmio]

Actually, Galeon has exactly these features. Yuo can arrange the order of tabs within a window by dragging. You can drag tabs from a Galeon window to another or you can create a new window out of a tab by dragging the tab outside the window in which it currently is. No wonder Galeon has such advanced tab features since Galeon was the first browser to use tabs (if my memory serves correctly) so it kind of started this whole tab craze (on which we all depend nowadays :)

Serious question on tabbed browsing

[Zathrus]

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.

Re:Serious question on tabbed browsing

[G27 Radio]

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.

For me it's precisely the fact that it keeps all the titles out of the task bar. It's not that big of a deal if all I'm doing is browsing, but if I'm switching between multiple apps and browsing at the same time, it's great to have my open web pages separate from my open apps.

Also, as someone who usually keeps their taskbar hidden, it's very convenient to have that little tab bar right beneath my personal toolbar rather than having to pop up my taskbar or ALT-TAB to switch between pages.

Another thing I like better about tabs (in Mozilla at least) is that they fit a longer description then the WinXP taskbar can manage. For instance, two articles on Slashdot opened in both Mozilla (using tabs) and IE (not using tabs):

Mozilla: "Slashdot | Hyatt Discusses Tabs"
IE: "Slashdot | Hyatt..."

Mozilla: "Slashdot | Microsoft to End DLL Conf..."
IE: "Slashdot | Micro..."

In this case even the WinXP taskbar is sufficient to distinguish between the two pages. However, a lot of sites like to include a bunch of redundant crap at the beginning of their title tags, so the more descriptive tab becomes very useful.

Windows are just fine for simple browsing. Tabs really start to come in handy when you have several apps open at once for reference or cut-n-pasting.

Re:Tabs in Safari

[TomorrowPlusX]

Repeat after me: "command-~ is your friend"

Try it, you'll like it.

Now, this is one of my apple gripes. Mac os has some great keyboard commands, and some great features that blow everybody away. But... the only way I learn these things is when somebody tells me. There's no documentation saying "to switch between windows of one app, hit command tilde". No.

You learn because some fat, sarcastic apple geek looks down his nose at you because you're doing something crudely and as such, he feels he has the right to scorn you. It pains me that that's the ONLY way to learn how to use a mac properly.

Of course, I've just earned my fat sarcastic apple geek prize for this snarky post. But hell, I'm skinny. So pttth.

Close boxes in individual tabs - a bad idea

[SVDave]

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.

Re:Close boxes in individual tabs - a bad idea

[Polo]

I have to disagree too. Using the X at the right to close all tabs might be good from a consistency standpoint, but I think it would really cause problems. The thing is - I rarely use close all tabs - I use it more by accident (losing a lot of pages) than on purpose.

In mozilla, the X to the right of all the tabs is really useful and I use it ALL THE TIME. I pre-open a whole group of interesting stuff, then I work my way through it with the mouse on the X. Click, next. Useful and efficient (and I don't get confused by the X).

New MSDN browser uses tabs

[Kunta Kinte]

I'm a mozilla guy myself, but I have the January 2003 Microsoft developer network documentation DVD and it's browser uses tabs.

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.

Re:New MSDN browser uses tabs

[Drakonian]

It also has some nice feature that Moz/Phoenix don't have:

1. Closing a tab takes you onto the previous tab you were viewing, not the physically next tab. (Logical tab stack)
2. You can drag and drop tabs to rearrange them.

Browser Tabs Haiku

[Sgs-Cruz]

Like leaves in the fall
Browser tabs fade away, and
you close the window.