More Details on IE7 Tabs

GraemeDonaldson writes "Another member of the IE dev team, Tony Schreiner, has revealed details of IE7's tabbed browsing implementation including the fact that the user will retain control over how tabs are handled." From the post: "Regarding script, there is no "target='_tab'" feature or any direct access to tabs from script beyond what is available with multiple windows today. We are working on balancing the default behavior for whether a window opened from script opens as in a new frame or a tab. Currently, windows that have been customized, such as hiding a toolbar or making the window non-resizable, will default to opening in their own standalone frame, whereas ordinary pop-up windows will open in a new foreground tab. CTRL-clicking and middle-clicking links will open those links in a background tab."

Comments

middle-click

[nocomment]

A touch off-topic but...Just for clicks I tested middle-click in safari and sure enough it opened a new tab. nice

Re:middle-click

[ravenspear]

What is this middle click you speak of? I've been using Safari for a while but I can't test this because I don't see any buttons to "click" on my mouse.

Re:middle-click

[Toad McFrog Esq.]

Yes, Opera opens a back ground tab with middle click as well. Also, both Firefox and Opera allow you to close a tab with a single middle click.

Re:middle-click

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to smash it open, because it's in the middle.

Re:middle-click

[Kesh]

If you have a mouse with a middle-button or a scroll-wheel, clicking that button down tells Safari "open this link in a new tab."

If you don't have a mouse with those features, just hold down Option when you click, and it'll do the same thing.

Re:middle-click

[sim82]

Just out of interest: last time I checked, macs only had what I would consider a middle mouse button. So how do you open a link not in a new tab?

Re:middle-click

[nocomment]

Get a new mouse ;)

Re:middle-click

[pomo monster]

In a hurry to post? :-) Option is the shortcut to download the link, actually. To open it in a new tab, you want to command-click.

Re:middle-click

[Professor_UNIX]

You can use the CTRL and Apple buttons while hitting the mouse button to simulate the same effect as a middle click or a right click. Or just attach any old 3 button USB mouse. I've got a Logitech Marble trackball on my PowerMac at work and it works fine.

Re:middle-click

[muszek]

AFAIR Opera asks you what to do with middle click after you use it for the first time. Actually, I remember setting this many times before, but I have fresh Opera 8 install (fresh OS installed) and I think it didn't ask me... so from 8.0 it's set as default and you can change it...

I really wish that MS is going to copy not only usability features, but also the level of standard compliance (sorry if spelling's not all right) from its competitors. Would be nice, if they did nothing about security, though (after all, most of us don't want people using it...).

Re:middle-click

[line.at.infinity]

Maybe you have your mouse configured so that middle click == command click.

Safari middle click, shift click == same as left click
Firefox Mac middle click, shift click == opens link in new window

On Safari and Firefox Mac:
* cmd-click == open link in new tab
* option-click == download link

On Firefox Win:
* ctrl-click == open link in new tab
* shift-click == download link

Re:middle-click

[FLEB]

Open-apple or closed-apple?

Re:middle-click

[friedmud]

In Firefox type "about:config" into the address bar and filter for "middle".

You should see a "Preferance Name" named: middlemouse.contentLoadURL

Set it to "False"... now it won't load what's on the clipboard when you middle click on something other than a link...

Friedmud

sounds like...

[torrents]

someone's been using firefox!!!

Re:sounds like...

[DanteLysin]

Firefox was not the first browser to use tabbed browsing. I love Firefox too, but they folks there didn't invent tabbed browsing.

Re:sounds like...

[lphuberdeau]

Middle-click or ctrl-click... yep... Mozilla (I don't like firefox!) has the exact same behavior. They should have used a different keystroke, the copy wouldn't have been so obvious.

Re:sounds like...

[uhlume]

That's idiotic. I can't imagine why anyone would care that they "copied" Firefox et al in providing tabbed browsing, which has become a standard feature in practically every current browser -- so why on earth should they confuse people by using their own proprietary invocation method just to differentiate their product, when every other browser on the market uses middle-click?

I can imagine the uproar from people just like you if Microsoft actually followed your advice: "They're breaking standards! They introduced their own incompatible proprietary interface just to promote browser lock-in!"

Criticize them for their predatory business practices all you like, but this kind of shit is purely assinine.

no more ie7 tab news!

[__aaitqo8496]

enough about tabs! as a web developer here's topics i'd like to hear about:

• correct implementation of box model
• support for png alpha transparency
• full support for css2
• support for application/xhtml+xml mime type

let's worry about the back end before we do anything with the front end

Re:no more ie7 tab news!

[Chromodromic]

Amen, brother.

I mean, don't we already have great browsers with tabs? I'm using one right now. All this news about tabs in IE is a little like Ford announcing a new product: a gas-powered, horseless carriage which will convey any number up to four passengers at a high rate of speed and without all the hassle horses require!

"Yay," yells the crowd! "And it will run over standard roads, too, won't it?"

"Standard roads? Oh, now let's not get carried away, son! No, SPECIAL roads will be required because, um, because, oh! Because ours is a SPECIAL vehicle, so we need SPECIAL roads and we'll build them and charge a minimal toll."

"Fuck you!" yells the crowd! Microsoft won't lend full support to CSS2 because they claim it's a flawed specification, which, of course, is true, in the sense that revenue model for Microsoft was not built into it.

To hell with this. I'm going to switch from Firefox because IE finally got tabbed browsing? Yawn. I have Maxthon installed and I *still* use Firefox.

Re:no more ie7 tab news!

[__aaitqo8496]

for those interested to know more about support for application/xhtml+xml mime type, let me sum it up for you:

basically, every time something loads in your browser, several headers are sent before the content, letting the browser know what to do with it. this is how it knows to display web pages in the viewport versus downloading compressed files. specifically, xhtml pages are to be served to the browser as application/xhtml+xml. now, for xhtml 1.0, you MAY serve them as the old html4.0 way (text/html), but you SHOULD use the newer way.

xhtml1.1 doesn't allow such a variance. they SHOULD be served as application/xhtml+xml (the alternative being application/xml which would be interpreted as a straight xml file)... except IE doesn't support such a mime type, thus making it IMPOSSIBLE to correctly serve a xhtml1.1 document to any IE browser. this has severly limited the ability for the web to transform to support documents within several namespaces (such as xhtml, mathml, svg all integrated into a single web page)

for more info, see http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-media-types/

stick that in your pipe and smoke it microsoft

Re:no more ie7 tab news!

[binary paladin]

Yeah well... I expect hell to freeze over first. However...

1. I'm a sad, sad person but I would rather see everyone else support IE's box model. It's proposed that CSS3 will allow a person to choose which box model they are using. (I'm all for web standards and test my sites on Windows, Linux and Mac and about every browser I can, but the wc3 box model sucks ass.) Or hell, you could even add something like total-width: to CSS. I don't care. Having no way to create one object with a % width that also has padding and borders of a specific size is retarded.

Honestly, the world would be better off in this case if non-IE browsers supported the IE box model and forced the w3c to buckle on it. For liquid layouts IE's is vastly superior. In fact, I can't see ANY advantage to the standards compliant box model.

2. I forget where, but I seem to remember reading multiple times that PNGs will FINALLY be supported properly in IE7. Though, the behavior: bit and some .htcs have made this less hellish than it used to.

3. Not gonna happen. I'll be pleasantly surprised if it does, but it's simply not gonna happen. Right now I'm just rooting for selectors. If they get those going I'll be REALLY happy. +, >, [attrib=], etc, that's be great.:hover working on all elements would be a nice addition too.

4. Dunno anything about that in IE7.

Hell. I'd be happy if they'd fix the fucking display bugs with the portion of CSS that they DO "support." There's a novel idea. (Safari is curretly my browser of choice... now if only its input widgets obeyed CSS properly. *sigh*)

Although in the end, your last statement is the most important. I don't care about glitzy tabs or vector based widgets or some new method of rendering fonts better. MS, your HTML rendering engine sucks. It sucks big time. You need to stop hiring programmers from the Special Olympics for Nerds to handle your web browser.

And you know, while I'm going on let me just say I fucking hate that fucking piece of shit browser. Never has Microsoft's ability to stifle a market been clearer. The adoption of new, excellent technologies on the web is at a crawl because they haven't felt the need to upgrade that travesty of a browser in umpteen years. FUCK YOU ASSHOLES! These aren't even just gee-whiz features but also things that assist with accessibility.

I really, really hope there is a special place in hell for corporate executives who cause this kind of irritation. I also hope they're sodomized by some uber demon in the pits of damnation for hour of my life and other web devs that was wasted taking a perfectly standards compliant site and trying to get it to work all right in their garbage browser. FUCK YOU MICROSOFT!

Woah. I get REALLY annoyed just thinking about it.

Re:no more ie7 tab news!

[phoenix.bam!]

when people say css2 they mean css2.1 Just like when someone says they use os X then don't me 10.0, they mean 10.4 (or at least 10.1)

Re:no more ie7 tab news!

[MidnightBrewer]

Microsoft announced several weeks ago that they'd support transparent PNGs and more robust CSS support. From the same website:

• Support the alpha channel in PNG images. We've actually had this on our radar for a long time, and have had it supported in the code for a while now. We have certainly heard the clear feedback from the web design community that per-pixel alpha is a really important feature.
• Address CSS consistency problems. Our first and most important goal with our Cascading Style Sheet support is to remove the major inconsistencies so that web developers have a consistent set of functionality on which they can rely. For example, we have already checked in the fixes to the peekaboo and guillotine bugs documented at positioniseverything.net so use of floated elements become more consistent.

Great to be passionate about something, but make sure you check your facts before you wax melodramatic. ;)

Re:Boooooooring!

[rpozz]

Not trolling here, but haven't they already lost all the people who would actually care about tabs? Anyone who wanted tabs on their web browser would be using Firefox/Opera by now.

Adblock?

[wallykeyster]

I look forward to how Microsoft will respond to the recent challenge to their browser dominance, but anything short of Adblock for IE will keep me with Firefox. I can't believe how much nicer the Internet is with Firefox and this single extension.

Re:Adblock?

[packetl0ss]

I can't believe how much nicer the Internet is with Firefox and this single extension.

and a nice adblock filterset.

Re:Adblock?

[wallykeyster]

Not nicer for everybody... hopefully this will change soon, but currently ads give me 100% of my income (they're on a site with tones of free and original information... don't I deserve to get something out of it?). Ad blocking is not a very neat idea.

This argument has been made a million times on /. and no one ever wins :) For me, it is as simple as a few things. 1) I don't click on ads unless by accident. 2) If your ads are small and benign, I don't block them anyway. 3) If your revenue depends on something that a significant portion of your clientele go out of their way to avoid, perhaps you need to re-evaluate your business model. Thousands upon thousands of others have done the same already.

Tabs in IE7?

[UnknowingFool]

IIRC, didn't MS say that tabs really weren't a useful feature in browsers? It was back when SP2 was being released. People were asking many questions to MS whether SP2 would add tabbed browsing and MS said tabs weren't all that useful in browsers.

Re:Tabs in IE7?

[rpozz]

From the article, the guy claims it was quite a bit of trouble to implement tabs for a few different reasons. I imagine that they couldn't get it ready for SP2, and they just made an excuse.

Re:Tabs in IE7?

[simetra]

Yeah, and they said they didn't want to use them because they would confuse users. But now, it sounds like they'll have a combo of pop-up windows, and tabs! What's the point of having tabs if you still have your pop-up windows?

Re:Tabs in IE7?

[LiquidCoooled]

I used to think the same.
Now that I use them, I hate using plain IE.

Slight side issue, I keep on middle clicking on the little program tabs at the bottom of my screen and cursing when they don't open or close as expected.

Do any of the OS's offer middle button support for general things, or is it mainly restricted to browser functionality?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Do more in one window

[quickbasicguru]

Now you can do all of this in one window:
1)Download Spyware
2)Download Adware
3)Download More Malware
4)Download your P0rn
5)Take a picture of yourself online.

I am happy Microsoft is interested in tabs.

[sllim]

All the old security problems were starting to bore me. Now I can look forward to an entire new set of problems.
Just think this time next year we will be griping about things like 'hijacked tabs' and such.

Cant run IE 7 even if i wanted too.

[nurb432]

My windows machine is 2000. And since microsoft no longer supports me, i dont get any new features. ( or bugs ).

This isnt a 'me' post, there are a *lot* of people and businesses that have no plans to goto XP ( or server 2003 ) in the near future.

Re:Cant run IE 7 even if i wanted too.

[TheCodeFoundry]

"since microsoft no longer supports me, i dont get any new features. ( or bugs "

That's crap and you know it. Windows 2000 goes into extended support June 30th. They are still supporting it. Typical /. post.....

Re:Cant run IE 7 even if i wanted too.

[GeeBee2k]

Jeez,

* I have Win95 and they haven't given me any NTFS yet! * Winge.

* Ford haven't updated my 1969 Mustang with ABS, and airbags either. * Winge.

Do you not understand? - in commercial world OLD products aren't given new features. It doesn't matter whether you are talking software, cars, or washing machines.

Thats no reason to stop bitching about MS, is it?

Re:Cant run IE 7 even if i wanted too.

[sootman]

"This isnt a 'me' post, there are a *lot* of people and businesses that have no plans to goto XP ( or server 2003 ) in the near future."

So it's a "Me, too!" post? :-)

Re:Cant run IE 7 even if i wanted too.

[freeweed]

in commercial world OLD products aren't given new features

Yeah, you're right. That's why Win2000 will only run the version of IE it came with in the first place.

Oh wait...

Competition Fostering Innovation

[AntsInMyPants]

Looks like customers win here. Maybe Firefox wasn't the first to ever do multiple tabs, but their popularity spurred MS to do something to make their own browser better. Once customers start seeing other features in Firefox that aren't in IE and start complaining they will be (slowly) added. Competition works! But of course we already knew that....

Wooo

[billieja2]

This core functionality is largely catch-up to other browsers which support tabs, but a necessary foundation for future work.

Atleast they acknowledge it finally.

New features creating bugs in old features?

[goneutt]

Okay, I'll admitt that I use IE. And I know it's full of bugs and glitches. Most of which I never see.

Since the tabs have been a function used in other web browsers for some time, the new mass deployment will give new reason to abuse users tabs by hijack-sites, hackers, and other undesirables. I know they say there are no commands to control tabs, but that doesn't mean they aren't tamper proof.

In esscence, will IE's incorporation of common features lead to bugs (or flaws) being found in other browsers.

tabbed browsing and window management

[cryptoz]

One of the main reasons I stay away from Windows is the extremely poor window management. Hence the reason I'm using GNOME with six virtual desktops. And I can have dozens of web pages open and still take only one spot on my bottom panel.

My point is that "tabbed browsing" is not a god-like feature. It's just something that helps with a user's window management (the ability to be able to have a bunch of web pages open at one time without making a huge mess is NOT a web browser problem, it's an entire usability issue for the whole machine).

Yes, I know there are attempts at virtual desktops in Windows, but they all suck. I've tried them. They're either too slow, don't work properly (ie, they leave the minimized windows on the task bar the entire time...I don't get how thatworks).

Re:tabbed browsing and window management

[jhoger]

The "desktop" metaphor sucks and deserves to die. Hell, I can't find anything on my *real* desktop why would anyone organize a WM that way? Surely there's something better by now.

There is... tabs should be a feature of the window manager, not the application (unless it's a tabbed dialog).

On my desktop I use Ion WM, a tabbed window manager. Apps open full-screen or within a subdivision of the main window, providing tabs for navigation.

Ion WM works with some applications better than others. It would be nice to see some support built in to X and X applications. Not sure what that means, but basically tab-aware applications would be a good way to go versus trying to make every application implement tabs in its own non-standard way.

-- John.

Re:tabbed browsing and window management

[toddestan]

I agree, tabbed browsing isn't that great. It's for people who run their browsers maximized because they don't understand windowing interfaces or lack the resolution. Being able to actually see the page I want to switch to as opposed to memorizing its title (which may be obscure) is much better.

You must be thinking of the way Firefox and Safari do tabs. I suggest you try Opera's way of doing tabs before knocking the concept entirely. Opera actually treats each tab as its own window inside of the main program's window. The windows can be resized, tiled, and moved around just like you might expect. You can even drag the tabs out of the main program, creating an entirely seperate window (great for dual head). Basically you have all the advantages of tabs and seperate windows at the same time.

Monopoly

[Jesus IS the Devil]

No Thanks. Microsoft is full of crap. They sit around and do NOTHING for the past 3-4 years (since they slaughtered Netscape). And now that finally there's competition they get off their lazy a$$es and steal other people's ideas once again.

M$ gets no respect from me.

Re:Monopoly

[NanoGator]

"And now that finally there's competition they get off their lazy a$$es and steal other people's ideas once again."

So.. did FireFox 'steal' their ideas from Opera, then? They don't get your repsect, either?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not thrilled with MS's laziness with IE either, but 'stealing' tabs? Please. It's a standard feature for web browsing and has been for years. It'd be really dumb of MS NOT to include it. FireFox did a good job of, pardon the expression, lighting a fire under MS. Now the FireFox team is going to have to work harder. This means a better browser for you.

Both FireFox and IE get better. Oh the horror.

Re:Boooooooring!

[DanteLysin]

As a user of both Firefox and IE, tabbed browsing would still be welcome.

At work, I use a host of applications that require IE. Some may have the opinion, "well, they must not be good apps". Hoever, there are plenty of high end applications that offer more functionality in IE than in Firefox or alternate browsers.

Good ol' M$

[cataclyst]

Glad to see that M$ is taking the time to address the REAL concerns facing it. Like how to emulate the UI of better software without that whole originality concept getting in the way. Maybe it'll even be impressive enough for some of the potential end users to forget why people started switching away from IE in the first place: the security holes bigger than -[insert 'yo mama' joke here]- worst...priorites...EVER...

Rip Off!

[Entropy248]

This is totally a rip-off (from the user standpoint) of standard Firefox behavior. Nice innovation. But, they didn't mention the ability to drag tabs around (to change the order) though.

It also seems like they are quite sincere in catching up fully in the browser feature race. Now IE will have a pop-up blocker and tabs. Sounds a lot like we again have a nearly identical major feature set as a neat bulleted list for marketing. Plus, IE will forever have a faster start-up time (by cheating).

We need to stay ahead in features to stay competitive. We need more features to watch porn more efficiently!

Re:Rip Off!

[The Bungi]

This is totally a rip-off

Wait... are you saying Mozilla invented tabbed browsing? Surely you jest. What exactly is MS "ripping off" here?

Plus, IE will forever have a faster start-up time (by cheating)

Cheating how?

I'd prefer they fixed their rendering

[bluGill]

I know tabs are the killer that takes users from IE, but I'd prefer they work on their rendering. Their CSS doesn't work.

We make all our sites to work in Konqueror now, and only minor tweaking is needed for Firefox and safari. Easy enough, all are so close to the standard that there is little difficulty. IE doesn't work. We have to spend three times the effort to make it work in IE without breaking the rest. (We have chosen to not detect IE and give you a different page. I'm still not sure about the wisdom of that)

Typical Microsoft though, make it look nice, who cares if it works right so long as the users don't know.

Re:I'd prefer they fixed their rendering

[bluGill]

We know for a fact that some of our customers are Windows only, and others are unix (AIX). The former are either clueless, or very locked down - for either IE is the most likely choice. They will not install firefox for us. IE doesn't run on AIX, so we have to support firefox.

Half the developers prefer a Unix desktop, and run Konqueror/safari (one guy brings his own laptop cause we only supply x86), while the Windows people run firefox. We could drop Konqueror/safari, but once you have firefox those are trivial. We cannot drop IE or firefox because there are known customers that are locked into one.

Innovative? No

[DrIdiot]

I'm sure that Microsoft will sell IE7 as "cutting edge" software, especially since those ideas were implemented by TBE in Firefox before IE7 was even considered.

"Did you hear about the new IE7? It has tabs, that's like, totally, new technology. Only Bill Gates could come up with something so genius!"

what a great idea!!

[Some_Llama]

"whereas ordinary pop-up windows will open in a new foreground tab. "

Hmm, how about ordinary pop up windows not opening AT ALL!?!?

I have just started using Firefox and I love how most pop-ups are blocked, and the ones that do happen to pop thru open in a new Background window so they are easily killed...

from TFA:
"We are working on balancing the default behavior for whether a window opened from script opens.."

How about let me choose what behavior I want from my browser instead of making all of these "defaults" which I will end up changing anyway because they are usually the less intuitive choice. sheesh.. i'll just stick with Firefox.

Side note, since changing to Firefox, my 4 home systems which my family uses (that used to fill up with spyware weekly) have been running spyware free now for 2 weeks. Thanks Mozilla...

You are correct

[Eternally optimistic]

And MS still believes they are not very useful, except they can add bloat. That's why they are now needed.

Not about tabs, but...

[93 Escort Wagon]

As a web developer, I am looking forward to seeing IE7. Seriously. While I do recommend Firefox to people when the opportunity comes up, all I really care about is the rendering. If IE7 does a good enough job with CSS and the DOM in general that I can code something once and it'll work most of the time in all the common browsers, I'll be one happy camper.

I know we'll never reach the point where 100% of code will "work on all browsers the first time, every time". But if IE's performance gets to the point where its quirkiness is no more of an issue than Safari's or Gecko's, then that'll be good enough for me. Right now IE probably adds 30% to my development time for any project, because the reality is things have to work acceptably well in IE.

Re:Not about tabs, but...

[toddestan]

If I was you, I would be dreading IE7. I'm sure it will be a little bit better at CSS and DOM, but it will have it's quirks and bugs that you'll need to program around - which will be nothing like the current quirks and bugs found in current versions of IE. And to add to the headache, I'm guessing you'll have to still support the various versions of IE6 for quite a long time into the future.

revised

[line.at.infinity]

Actually, it should be like this:

On Safari and Firefox Mac:
* middle click, shift click == same as left click
* cmd-click == open link in new tab
* option-click == download link

On Firefox Win:
* ctrl-click == open link in new tab
* shift-click == download link

I just plugged in a mouse with three buttons that I haven't configured and tried.

Re:Boooooooring!

[caluml]

Anyone who wanted tabs on their web browser would be using Firefox/Opera by now.

I didn't want them until I had used them.

Learning from the original?

[Metaphorically]

FTA:

Currently, windows that have been customized, such as hiding a toolbar or making the window non-resizable, will default to opening in their own standalone frame, ... The rationale for opening only customized windows in a new frame is that this seems to correlate with scenarios where showing a window on top of the current window is desirable

The interesting thing is that I read this blog post yesterday, then I also ran across something on the Firefox tips page. It basically says that by setting browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction to 2, Firefox will behave the same way. I think this is the default setting nowadays, because Fx already did this for me without my changing any prefs.

I suppose it's a logical conclusion for anyone building tabbed browsing into a web browser, but when I first read the tip I was struck by the similarity in the reasoning.

Re:Boooooooring!

[llamaluvr]

I use firefox right now, and I can't wait to try IE7. I'm not super-impressed with the stability and speed, and it's not like Firefox is perfect, so, if IE7 is better, I'm as good as there.

(Before anybody calls me an ungrateful twerp, I have contributed financially to the Mozilla foundation...)

wow! Tabs!

[gnarlin]

Microsoft sure knows how to inovate. If it weren't for them I would have never heard of this "tab" thingie. How many years is it since tabbed browsing for first intruduced? (I can't be bothered to find out right now). Wasn't there an article recently were free software maker about not being inovative? Let us play a game of 'spot the irony' shall we?

10 to 1

[Snaller]

It will be a crappy implementation which favors the advertizers and not the end user.

(And if they could fix their damn stylesheet bugs: When you select 'ignore font sizes' it is supposed to ignore line height as well!)

The sad thing is

[SQLz]

Microsoft will patent some small thing about tabbed browsing that 100 Firefox pluings will have done for years.