Hyatt Discusses Tabs 504
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."
An adequate bootstrap is a contradiction in terms.
Browser Tabs (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Browser Tabs (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Browser Tabs (Score:3, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
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. Great feature that's missing (IIRC) from Mozilla, Phoenix, and many of the other tabbed browsers.
Re:Browser Tabs (Score:2, Informative)
Opera has that feature (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Browser Tabs (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:2)
Re:Browser Tabs (Score:5, Informative)
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)
change the settings (Score:2)
Re:Browser Tabs (Score:2)
Some folks really don't understand that there is a whole program running under there, not just a window with code inside it. I've always like being able to close a window and not have quit the app. It just makes more sense IMNSHO.
Re:Browser Tabs (Score:2)
Re:Browser Tabs (Score:3, Informative)
Actually Konqueror asks you if you really want to close the window if (and only if) there are more than one tabs open.
KDE/Konqueror is also the only browser overall that can remember the pages between login/logouts, btw.
Re:Browser Tabs (Score:2)
Re:Browser Tabs (Score:3)
If I open an Konqueror window on desktop 1, another on desktop 2 and a third on desktop 3, then close them, log out, log in, I get one window on desktop 1, another on desktop 2 and a third on desktop 3. And you probably guessed it, they all load the correct pages.
Opera can't do that, nor can any other browser I have tried.
Re:Browser Tabs (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Browser Tabs (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:3, Insightful)
I have never had the opportunity (Score:5, Funny)
Tabs. (Score:2, Insightful)
Tabs seem to... (Score:5, Insightful)
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... (Score:5, Interesting)
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... (Score:2)
Re:Tabs seem to... (Score:3, Insightful)
YES. My recent experience is shopping for new tires. I went to Discount Tires [tires.com], 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 [tiresplus.com]. 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.
benefits to pagination (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Re:Tabs seem to... (Score:3, Insightful)
Again, bandwidth savings of that magnitude are of benefit primarily to the site, but pagination does potentially have a side effect which benfits readers as well - it can make the content clearer and easier to comprehend if the pagination is prefaced with a summary guide to all the pages. I know when I read a large web page, I am a lot more likely to read the whole thing if there is a summary up front that gives me an indication that I will find the content interesting. If there is no summary, I might skim the content to see if it's interesting, but I imagine this is less accurate than if the author were to summarize up front why I should care about the content. If the content is paginated with a TOC and intro, the author is generally forced to do this summary, so pagination does benefit readers in that respect in much the same way that intros and TOCs can help you decide whether or not you want to read a particular book.
Re:Tabs seem to... (Score:2, Informative)
http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/
There's tons more research on web usability that you should also check out at that site.
How about sub-tabs. (Score:2, Interesting)
How about sub-sub-tabs. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How about sub-sub-tabs. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:How about sub-tabs. (Score:2)
Re:How about sub-tabs. (Score:2)
But he's not speaking to your audience, those who like to have multiple windows open, each with their own tabs.
Me, I like to have one window open and none others. This can get a little daunting once you have around 15+ tabs loaded (which, at any point during the day, is a possibility).
I'd love to be looking at php.net and then have sub-tabs of different functions I'm using at the time.
This is a brilliant idea. Don't dimiss it because you wouldn't use it. Now where is the execution?
Re:How about sub-tabs. (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course smart loading of only the 'next page' links, as opposed to a 'wget -r' approach would be a little trickier...possibly a very useful and worthwhile feature though.
-Ben
Tabs should not be used in code (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Tabs should not be used in code (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Tabs should not be used in code (Score:2)
Dave hit the nail on the head (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm wondering what Microsoft will call them when it comes out. It certainly couldn't be "Tabs" since that name would indicate they were playing catchup.
Re:Dave hit the nail on the head (Score:3, Insightful)
What makes you think they ever will? Speaking as a longtime IE/Windows user, I never quite understood the fuss of tabs. I just use multiple browser windows and use the taskbar to flip between them. Why put into an application that which should be part of the OS?
Re:Dave hit the nail on the head (Score:3, Interesting)
It's just faster. What you can do with Windows in 10 seconds, I can do with tabs in 3.
And it's more organized. While I have no problems using about a dozen browser windows on my 16 desktops with about 5-10 webpages in each windows, I have severe problems managing more than 10 IE windows in MS Windows.
Re:Dave hit the nail on the head (Score:5, Insightful)
Here are just a few examples;
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".
Re:Dave hit the nail on the head (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Horse...water...drink? (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Where's the interesting discussion? (Score:2, Insightful)
Hm (Score:2)
oh, that narrows it down. (Score:3, Insightful)
IE (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:IE (Score:2)
Note that not all MS Office tools work properly with tab like features? You open two excel files at the same time you get two listings on the taskbar, while the close button on top of each document window is for entire excel?
Re:IE (Score:3, Informative)
Go to the view tab in Excel/Word's Options (Tools Menu) and uncheck the box marked "Windows in Taskbar". Viola! All is back to normal with multiple documents contained within 1 window again.
New MSDN browser uses tabs (Score:4, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:IE (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Crazy Browser (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Crazy Browser (Score:2)
And I love my integrated popup blocking.
Reckless advice... (Score:3, Funny)
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 (Score:3, Insightful)
So THATS how you do that (Score:3, Informative)
Now if I could figure out how to rearrange the tabs.
Re:So THATS how you do that (Score:2, Informative)
[X] Load Links in the Background
This, of course, reverses the effect of Shift-Clicking to open the tab.
Re:So THATS how you do that (Score:3, Informative)
I figured that one out. You install Opera 7. It lets you drag and drop tabs to re-arrange them, has better CSS support than any other browser I've used, and a smaller memory footprint than Moz. Oh, and groovy buttons that look Aqua-inspired, without being a blatant rip-off. It's $20 for students (more for real people), but the ad-supported version only ever seems to advertise Opera to me. 7 is out for Windows, and in beta for Linux. 6 is availible on a number of other platforms, including FreeBSD, but it was 7 that made me drop Mozilla.
Tabs in Safari (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Tabs in Safari (Score:2)
Ok, back on topic. So stop maximizing. The only reason to maximize is if you have "large content". Say you have someone who wrote code that line breaks at, 300 chars. Or you are working on a very large picture. On a 15" monitor, hell yeah, maximize. But if you are on a 21" monitor, you may not need to.
It's a race between users and "content writers". It's probably the best reason to code to 80 (or 100) char line width. You can have multiple windows on your desktop. Same
I kinda like OSX for it's clunky maximize features. It stops me from maximizing and using my desktop space as a finite resource. As a coder, I can now restrict myself to 100char width and have, two or three windows open near side-by-side, without having to maximize.
Re:Tabs in Safari (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Tabs in Safari (Score:2)
he is mistaken.... (Score:4, Interesting)
i wouldn't be surprised if the next version of IE has tabbed browsing.
"if you build it, they will come...."
Re:he is mistaken.... (Score:2)
I dont see why Tabbing is such a big issue. (Score:3, Interesting)
geek advice on tabs (Score:3, Funny)
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.)
drag n drop tabs (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:drag n drop tabs (Score:3, Informative)
info can be found here [macworld.com], and here [slashdot.org] as well as the standard google search [google.com]
Galeon does this (Score:3, Informative)
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
Novice users *love* tabs (Score:4, Interesting)
I gotta disagree with him here. I have two main data points that refute his perception:
So given this sample, I'd say that the everyday novice user, as well as the more experienced user like myself, finds tabs extremely useful.
Serious question on tabbed browsing (Score:4, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
My trackback to his article (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if my PowerMac G3 can take a Slashdot beating...
keybinding for tab switching in mozilla/NS7? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:keybinding for tab switching in mozilla/NS7? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:keybinding for tab switching in mozilla/NS7? (Score:2)
What's so bad about maximized browser windows? (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't consider myself a newbie, but I use almost exclusively maximized browser windows BECAUSE tabs and multiple desktops allow me that in a comfortable manner.
I don't get it: Why would anybody want to not maximize his browser windows?
Re:What's so bad about maximized browser windows? (Score:2)
On my laptop, I generally have browser windows maximised.
On my desktop, which has a larger monitor that runs at a higher resolution, at my preferred font size (which isn't all that small) I find that a full-width window is hard to read. There's so much text on a line that it's difficult to locate the start of line n+1 when I'm at the end of line n.
A narrower browser window fixes this.
Incidentally, this is the reason newspapers are printed in columns.
Sidebar??? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Sidebar??? (Score:3, Funny)
Close boxes in individual tabs - a bad idea (Score:4, Insightful)
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 (Score:4, Insightful)
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).
People still drink that? (Score:2, Funny)
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...
Tabs = MDI = broken (Score:3, Insightful)
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...
simple improvement to tabs (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Browser Tabs Haiku (Score:4, Funny)
Browser tabs fade away, and
you close the window.
Re:it's interesting... (Score:2)
Re:it's interesting... (Score:4, Funny)
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.
Re:it's interesting... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:it's interesting... (Score:2)
Re:it's interesting... (Score:2)
Re:The percentage of Safari Users that would use t (Score:2)
You may be right about the percentage, but it's one of those things where those who want it, REALLY want it. I disagree about ui clutter though, since the way I look at it, it reduces ui clutter by reducing the number of open windows. I know I may be a bit unique in how I interact with my ui, but I tend to have MANY windows open at once (several browser sessions, several msdev sessions, excel, word, powerpoint, explorer (win not ie) and I make extensive use of virtual desktops. Tabs allow me to open a grouping of webpages and then "manage them" (i.e. minimize, move, etc) as a single unit. I watch others and they inevitably spend what seems like an eternity minimizing their 9 IE browser windows. I know it's not for everybody, but just like keyboard shortcuts, those who use it tend to take a lot of advantage of it.
Re:The percentage of Safari Users that would use t (Score:2)
My iBook is setup with multiple users, so that each gets their own set of preferences, etc. One day while we were sitting on the sofa watching TV, my girlfriend asks me "What are these?" For some reason, tabbed browsing was turned on in Chimera/Navigator/Camino. She had opened another page and it opened into a tab. She had no idea what it was, or how it got there. Why? Because it breaks the one window, one document metaphor. So, I had to show her how to close the tab and then I showed her how to go into preferences and turn them off.
Tabbed browsing is a poor solution to a questionable problem. Most importantly, it will confuse the majority of users. It doesn't belond in Safari.
everything cofuses the user once (Score:2)
Of course, one has the choice to never learn anything new and stay exactly where they are. For now... eventually progress will be forced upon us.
Re:strange magic (Score:2)
Re:Browser managed tasks, not OS (Score:2)
Tabs are just much faster, because they're closer to your point of attention. You do most navigational operations around the URL/standard buttons toolbar at the top of your screen. Changing window in the taskbar means moving the cursor or your attention across the whole screen, which is bad design.
Tabs, at least the way they're implemented in Phoenix, also display the sites' belonging icons, which makes it easier to identify a tab/window quickly without thinking.
Those are small factors, but they matter.
Re:XP's grouping MAKES me use tabs (Score:2)
Re:Browser managed tasks, not OS (Score:2)
Well the original poster was talking about Windows. While things may be different on X+WhateverWindowManager you use, the overhead of a new window in Windows is very minimal. Coupled with 512 megabytes of more of memory and this is a complete non-issue.