[KidRed]

Can't take the poll because my answer isn't there.

I want tabs, but only if implemented in a non obtrusive and user friendly way. Otherwise, I can live with opening a few windows.

[Fallout]

Tabs kick ass. Safari would be far better with them.

[Nathan Adams]

Guy, exactly HOW MUCH "bloat" would tabs add? I'm willing to guess very very little, at least as little for it to be completely negligable in the grand scheme of downloading the browser, the hd space it occupies, and browsing. It would certainly be far less than the bookmarks interface is.

[jhunt5247]

Originally posted by Fallout:
Tabs kick ass. Safari would be far better with them.

Right. I will not even begin to use Safari, until tabs have been implemented.

I currently use Chimera and will continue to do so until this feature is added.

I don't understand how anyone could not want tabs, especially since it is an option that will not effect them unless the use it. Who wants to have a million freaking windows open for various websites when you could have just one and be able to tab through various web sites you have loaded.

It is a real pathetic attempt to even put out a broweser that does not support this, so I give Safari a big TWO THUMBS DOWN for lack of a mandatory feature.

[OreoCookie]

If you don't like them, don't use them. I love it. I am sure I will love it even more the Apple way.

[Guy Incognito]

Originally posted by Nathan Adams:
Guy, exactly HOW MUCH "bloat" would tabs add? I'm willing to guess very very little, at least as little for it to be completely negligable in the grand scheme of downloading the browser, the hd space it occupies, and browsing. It would certainly be far less than the bookmarks interface is.

It's not bloat in terms of HD space or CPU usage...it's bloat UI-wise.

Multi-document switching should be done at the windowserver level...not the app level.

[Filburt]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
It's not bloat in terms of HD space or CPU usage...it's bloat UI-wise.

Please explain what you mean by UI bloat. You won't know what tab is in Chimera unless you start opening new tabs using Command-Tab or via menu (total of 4 menu items are in reference to tab).

[Spirit_VW]

Originally posted by jhunt5247:
It is a real pathetic attempt to even put out a broweser that does not support this, so I give Safari a big TWO THUMBS DOWN for lack of a mandatory feature.

I'm seriously not trying to be rude here or anything, but tabs are in no way a "mandatory" feature, IMHO.

[khufuu]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
It's not bloat in terms of HD space or CPU usage...it's bloat UI-wise.

Multi-document switching should be done at the windowserver level...not the app level.

Actually, isn't it more like the dynamic creation of web links to pages in your browsers disk cache? The links just exhibit themselves as 'tabs' because that a real-world paradigm that everyone can easily understand.

This is exactly what I like. While I look at one tab, the browser is downloading desired pages into it's cache and creating a hyper-link that I can use when I'm ready.

I see this as being different from multi-document switching.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
If you don't like Safari sans tabs...don't use it, you stupid sonovabitch! How do you like getting a taste of your own medicine?

Use Chimera...it's fast and it's got tabs. WOW! Why should we have another browser that's fast and that's got tabs?

I should start a "Keep the Bloat Away from Safari" petition.

Someone -I don't knwo who- reported you for this post. Watch the personal insults, Guy. This goes for everyone else as well; while I will not pretend that I believe Guy to be particularly informed about a lot of things, there is no need to get nasty about it.

I'm going to call you on one thing, though, purely as regards the debate: justify this assertion that tabs = bloat. Though you haven't used this wording before, you've made this assertion many times, without any sort of justification that I've been able to recognize. It's essentially been "Keep tabs out of Safari because I don't like them". You cry bloat with no facts to back it up. So, if you have nothing more to say, I think I'll rip the "tabs = bloat" argument apart now.

The way you're talking, you seem to think it would add a few megs onto Safari's size. I don't know about that; I'd guess that a decent tab implementation might take 500 lines of Objective-C, if that. Yes, 500 lines, I say; such is the power of Cocoa, that framework you adore with such zealotry that it's almost sad how it will be your undoing here. Admittedly, I forget how much code it took to add that feature to Chimera; perhaps we should invite Hyatt over and ask him. I think he's the one who implemented it (though our own sfraser might have; I don't know for sure). Given that both are Cocoa apps, the amount of code it would take is likely to be comparable.

To put that amount of code into perspective, I refer you to Hyatt's page where he notes that the entire rendering engine (KHTML, that is) is 140,000 lines of code. That's KHTML, keep in mind, not Gecko. I'll also refer you to WebCore's page, where you'll note that the engine -with all 140,000 lines of code- fits into less than a meg of download size. When the disk image is expanded and the code is compiled it's bigger; JavaScriptCore (which WebCore needs) is about 724K (as included in Safari; for some reason the version I compiled is over 3.5 megs) and WebCore itself is 3.1 megs (as included in Safari; unfortunately the build of WebCore I downloaded has failed to compile). If we put that into proportion (not the greatest of estimates when it comes to code, but fairly decent), adding 4K for extra entries in the appropriate .nib files (and more than likely it wouldn't even be 1K, but I'll humor you and round up to the default HFS+ block size), the full, expanded and then compiled version of the tabbing code would add about 15K onto Safari's size. Download-wise, that's about 8K, which translates into an extra four seconds of download time over a 56K modem, if the modem's not working well that day.

Now, of course, one might say that this proportion isn't quite fair. After all, JavaScriptCore and WebCore are written mostly in C++, with a fairly thin wrapper of Objective-C to make it accessible to Cocoa, whereas the tabbbing code would probably be written in Objective-C to match the rest of the Safari interface. This is a valid claim. As it so happens, the default settings for new projects in ProjectBuilder both conveniently define simple "Hello world" apps, so let's take a quick look at the code they generate. This is not the most scientific means in the world of doing this, but for a quickie estimate it ought to suffice. The settings are the default for both apps, except that debugging symbols are stripped (as is likely to be the case for shipping Apple code, though oddly enough it is not the case for the Open-Source WebCore and JavaScriptCore builds). From this, we see that the default Cocoa app is 2K in size, while the default C++ app is a whopping 35K. Proportionally, that's 1/17th the size of the code, and that's with no nib files. If we really want to take this proporitionally, this would mean that for tabbed browsing to reach my original estimate of 11K for code (remember, I estimated 4K for .nib file stuff), it would have to be not 500 lines of code, but 8500 lines. To put this into perspective, that's more lines of Objective-C than the entire Cocoa port of Quake 3. Q3 does have plenty of code in other languages, of course, but if the entire OSX-specific portion of the code (which includes app initialization as well as some interface code) can fit into that space, surely a decent tabbed-browsing implementation can. However, if indeed my estimate of 500 lines is correct, then the entire feature, once compiled, would likely fit inside a single HFS+ allocation block; there's a very real chance that it wouldn't increase the size on disk at all!

Oh, yes, there is the potential of memory issues. After all, multiple tabs in a window would take up memory. However, as many people here have already noted, a single WebCore view in a tab does not take as much memory as an entire browser window, which is the alternative you suggest. So again, the point is moot.

So tell me again: how are tabs bloat? Not that it matters. Hyatt has already gone on record saying that tabs -or something like them- are slated for the 1.0 release. So your "campaign", assuming you can even justify why tabs are bloat, has already lost. If you don't like tabs don't use them, but don't spoil things for those of us who do.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
It's not bloat in terms of HD space or CPU usage...it's bloat UI-wise.

Multi-document switching should be done at the windowserver level...not the app level.

UI bloat, Guy? Surely you jest. Having gone through Chimera's UI, here's what I find that's tab-related:

• The tab bar itself (not visible if no tabs are present)
• Four menu items, only three of which are visible if tabs are present. One of the ones which is visible -New Tab- I hope you will concede as minimally necessary for the feature. The other two, Previous Tab and Next Tab, could admittedly be hidden when no tabs are present.
• Two toolbar items, neither of which is in the default set.

As for multi-document switching being handled by the window server, you have a point. But are Web pages documents? I'm going to argue that they aren't, in the classic sense. The user generally does not modify them. They are ordinarily not saved to disk; they may be cached, but this is totally user-transparent. They cannot be moved or deleted by the user under ordinary circumstances (the user might save the pages to disk, but then they become something else entirely; just a collection of files like any other). Navigating through Web pages is very different from looking through a hard disk. Often, there are many pages with either content or purpose so similar that it makes a great deal of sense to group them together and work with the group rather than individual documents.

I would argue, based on this, that the whole idea of Web browsing is so different from the traditional paradigm of working with documents that a different style of UI is not only warranted for them, but necessary in order to make things as usable as possible. This is also why I believe that combining a browser and a file manager or a browser and a file-searching tool, as Windows has sone and as some wish Apple would do with the Finder or Sherlock, would be such a terrible mistake.

[Guy Incognito]

Originally posted by Millennium:
UI bloat, Guy? Surely you jest. Having gone through Chimera's UI, here's what I find that's tab-related:

• The tab bar itself (not visible if no tabs are present)
• Four menu items, only three of which are visible if tabs are present. One of the ones which is visible -New Tab- I hope you will concede as minimally necessary for the feature. The other two, Previous Tab and Next Tab, could admittedly be hidden when no tabs are present.
• Two toolbar items, neither of which is in the default set.

As for multi-document switching being handled by the window server, you have a point. But are Web pages documents? I'm going to argue that they aren't, in the classic sense. The user generally does not modify them. They are ordinarily not saved to disk; they may be cached, but this is totally user-transparent. They cannot be moved or deleted by the user under ordinary circumstances (the user might save the pages to disk, but then they become something else entirely; just a collection of files like any other). Navigating through Web pages is very different from looking through a hard disk. Often, there are many pages with either content or purpose so similar that it makes a great deal of sense to group them together and work with the group rather than individual documents.

I would argue, based on this, that the whole idea of Web browsing is so different from the traditional paradigm of working with documents that a different style of UI is not only warranted for them, but necessary in order to make things as usable as possible. This is also why I believe that combining a browser and a file manager or a browser and a file-searching tool, as Windows has sone and as some wish Apple would do with the Finder or Sherlock, would be such a terrible mistake.

Well I'll undo your two last posts with a few words: Any feature that is unnecessary and doable at a lower level is bloat.

For the moment, tabs will do because Apple hasn't implemented anything yet for this kind of multi-document switching. They are by no means a good solution though. In fact, it's a downright crappy solution. But it works...in a few cases.

Web pages *are* documents. And the future of the internet lies in the ability to manipulate these documents.

At the moment most web pages are very static in nature...read-only if you will. There are a few though that are carving a new path. I won't go into too much details tonight 'cuz I've got class tomorrow at 8:30...but not seeing that we're moving away from the staticness of read-only, text/picture-only pages and into a more dynamic approach where interaction between webpage windows takes place and eventually editable webpages on-the-fly within the browser, would be a very short-sighted of your part Millenium.

Shame on you for having no sense of future directions. You frankly bore me to death with your first post full of...umm...full of nothing.

[wataru]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
Well I'll undo your two last posts with a few words: Any feature that is unnecessary and doable at a lower level is bloat.

You think it's unnecessary. You are clearly in the minority.

Shame on you for having no sense of future directions. You frankly bore me to death with your first post full of...umm...full of nothing.

He tore you apart. Sorry, man, you got nothing.

[khufuu]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
But it works...in a few cases.

Yes. Web browsing is one of them.

[Cipher13]

The tab implementation in Chimera is excellent, GUI wise, regardless of what Guy thinks...

There's no reason NOT to have tabs in Safari.

[real]

I can see it now, Steve Jobs Sitting at home right now reading the fourm and laughing his ass off. It will be 1.1 before we have tabs, remember Steve has a sense of humor. But then again Steve has better things to do then read these fourms. They will come, I cant see why not, its a very mac thing. It works and their cool as hell.
real

[kzmk]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
Well I'll undo your two last posts with a few words: Any feature that is unnecessary and doable at a lower level is bloat.

For the moment, tabs will do because Apple hasn't implemented anything yet for this kind of multi-document switching. They are by no means a good solution though. In fact, it's a downright crappy solution. But it works...in a few cases.

guy, i feel like you're not so much against the concept of tabs but against the use of the widget. so... just some questions:

can we agree that in most cases and in most apps spawning multiple windows has its downsides?

can we then agree that there IS a need for something else than "multiple windows", when dealing with more than one document at once?

can we further agree that what the dock offers us in the form of minimized windows comes close to what tabs have to offer, but isn't nearly as efficient?

and can you agree that the whole idea of tabs, as they are normally used (as in dialogs, etc.) is to "deal with multiple dialogs", "reduce screen clutter", "reduce the need for scrolling", "give a quick overview of what options are available"?

and then: do you see that the the underlying concept of the shortcuts in the finder's toolbar (home, computer, apps) is pretty much the same as the concept of tabs?

and can we, then, finally agree that *right now* tabs are the only ui-element that comes close to what is needed?

i see your point, and i, too, feel that tabs (as they are used by chimera for example) are not ideal (ui-wise). especially given the fact that they seem to be reserved for dialogs and such.
i also understand that it's dangerous to "just agree" with tab-lovers, because tabs are a hack and should be considered one, and instead of accepting them we should strive for a better solution.

but nobody on this forum is in any position to create an alternative widget. i, for one, hope that apple will come up with a new ui-element. one that sets itself apart from tabs AND from toolbar icons. one which allows me wo have one window with multiple documents: just think of a "before/after" view, where "side-by-side" isn't nearly as efficient as "above/below". think of traditional animation. think of layers in photoshop...

just some thoughts.
greetz

[dfiler]

Am I allowed to cut and paste my previous anti-tab rhetoric into this thread?


I don't think the results of this poll are indicative of how typical users feel about tabs. Self selection of participants will make any feature request poll turn out in the affirmative.

This discussion has made me glad that application feature sets aren't chosen in a democratic fashion. The whims of power users lurking in forums don't outway the experience of skilled GUI designers. Dangerous shortcuts aren't in the greater interest or our userbase.

[Guy Incognito]

Originally posted by kzmk:
guy, i feel like you're not so much against the concept of tabs but against the use of the widget. so... just some questions:

can we agree that in most cases and in most apps spawning multiple windows has its downsides?

can we then agree that there IS a need for something else than "multiple windows", when dealing with more than one document at once?

can we further agree that what the dock offers us in the form of minimized windows comes close to what tabs have to offer, but isn't nearly as efficient?

and can you agree that the whole idea of tabs, as they are normally used (as in dialogs, etc.) is to "deal with multiple dialogs", "reduce screen clutter", "reduce the need for scrolling", "give a quick overview of what options are available"?

and then: do you see that the the underlying concept of the shortcuts in the finder's toolbar (home, computer, apps) is pretty much the same as the concept of tabs?

and can we, then, finally agree that *right now* tabs are the only ui-element that comes close to what is needed?

i see your point, and i, too, feel that tabs (as they are used by chimera for example) are not ideal (ui-wise). especially given the fact that they seem to be reserved for dialogs and such.
i also understand that it's dangerous to "just agree" with tab-lovers, because tabs are a hack and should be considered one, and instead of accepting them we should strive for a better solution.

but nobody on this forum is in any position to create an alternative widget. i, for one, hope that apple will come up with a new ui-element. one that sets itself apart from tabs AND from toolbar icons. one which allows me wo have one window with multiple documents: just think of a "before/after" view, where "side-by-side" isn't nearly as efficient as "above/below". think of traditional animation. think of layers in photoshop...

just some thoughts.
greetz

Yes...I can agree on all of those points. I am not against the multi-window grouping concept. I am against the use of 'tabs' in the simplest form (raw system-level tabs that aren't meant to be used in this manner for reasons I've explained and re-explained probably close to 30 times).

The reasoning behind why the use of tabs as bad was very logical. People like Cypher13 are hard-headed and contrarians and will simply blurt out dumb things like "The tab implementation in Chimera is excellent, GUI wise, regardless of what Guy thinks..." without any support as to why the implementation is 'excellent'.

Well it's not for *many, many* reasons:

A person that wants to use tabs and has a small screen is left with few options. Some of them are listed below.

1) users must expand the window to full screen to be able to store as many tabs as possible without severe name truncation
2) cannot have very many tabs until name truncation begins to affect the *only* visual efficiency of tabs; the window title
3) Chimera limits tabs to 15 per window...and there's no form of wrapping...you are left to open a new window to accept more tabs and thus defying the very concept of tabbed-browsing itself
4) there's no organization per se
5) there's no manipulation flexibility without hacking the tab itself (and hacking a system UI like this is a very big no-no)
6) it contributes to a lot of wasted screen estate for what it does (and we all know how you guys *love* screen estate)...other methods could definitely cut down on lost screen estate.
7) the tabbed concept should be left in the hands of the windowserver...

Oh and Millenium? Sorry but 'browser' is really an old name we give to what we're using right now to type up these message in a forum. I find myself looking at a webpage and using pictures and quotes to write my messages up. If this is not a document approach starting to emerge, I don't know what is.

The same old crowd like Wataru and all the other tab-lovers will no doubt disagree with me, but that's only because they have trouble seeing beyond the present.

Sure, tabs may work if you're only working with a few webpages at once...then there's no name truncation etc...but for all other purposes, they don't work.

[mrchin]

Tabs would be great. But what I'd like is an iTunes like resize (green) button. So when you click it, the current window size down to just a small metal navigation showing the web address, nav buttons and google search. Easier for desktop space when multi windowing. Then, If you're in a search, whether in Google or elsewhere, you could have a contextual menu option to open link in new minimized window or perhaps in a full window. And your current search window minimizes down to the mini window which you can later go to again to select your next search result.

[Cipher13]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
Yes...I can agree on all of those points. I am not against the multi-window grouping concept. I am against the use of 'tabs' in the simplest form (raw system-level tabs that aren't meant to be used in this manner for reasons I've explained and re-explained probably close to 30 times).

Why should there be a single rule governing where tabs should be used?

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
The reasoning behind why the use of tabs as bad was very logical. People like Cypher13 are hard-headed and contrarians and will simply blurt out dumb things like "The tab implementation in Chimera is excellent, GUI wise, regardless of what Guy thinks..." without any support as to why the implementation is 'excellent'.

Just like you said before, "as I've explained before" - is that any better?

I believe it is excellent because there are no flaws in it that affect me. Name truncation? I don't care, my good memory makes up for that and thus is of no concern to me. Max of 15 per window? I've never reached said limit, so I don't have a problem with it. I believe the tabs being below the navigation bar and controls are perfect positioning, because the controls are universal, and do not differ from window to window - only their availability does - and makes for a neat, clean interface.

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
Well it's not for *many, many* reasons:

A person that wants to use tabs and has a small screen is left with few options. Some of them are listed below.

1) users must expand the window to full screen to be able to store as many tabs as possible without severe name truncation
2) cannot have very many tabs until name truncation begins to affect the *only* visual efficiency of tabs; the window title
3) Chimera limits tabs to 15 per window...and there's no form of wrapping...you are left to open a new window to accept more tabs and thus defying the very concept of tabbed-browsing itself
4) there's no organization per se
5) there's no manipulation flexibility without hacking the tab itself (and hacking a system UI like this is a very big no-no)
6) it contributes to a lot of wasted screen estate for what it does (and we all know how you guys *love* screen estate)...other methods could definitely cut down on lost screen estate.
7) the tabbed concept should be left in the hands of the windowserver...

1. Do you have any answer to the name truncation issue, without resorting to a treelike navigation structure such as when the Windows start bar gets too packed? I'd rather truncation. Heh.

2. See above.

3. How on earth does that defy the entire concept of tabbed browsing? You can fit 15 times the usual amount in *one* window, yet... the 15 tab limit defies the very purpose? Okay, tell me then, what do you believe *is* the very purpose, and how does the tab limit defy it? If Chimera did not impose a limit, you would be complaining saying that it should. How many people have reached that limit, anyway? How hard is it to open a second window to store some more? Tabs are not intended for permanent storage purposes, y'know...

4. There is a very strict chronological organisation.

5. No, there isn't. A flaw you shouldn't be complaining about unless you did support the idea of tabs in the first place, and simply wanted them improved... right?

6. What other methods? You got a better idea? Once again; you can fit fifteen times the max window area in one window, with a loss of, what, 20 pixels of height? I bet you complain about that, and yet still have the shortcut bar, which uses about 15; and the large nav icons, and the tool names, and...

7. Why?

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
Oh and Millenium? Sorry but 'browser' is really an old name we give to what we're using right now to type up these message in a forum. I find myself looking at a webpage and using pictures and quotes to write my messages up. If this is not a document approach starting to emerge, I don't know what is.

The same old crowd like Wataru and all the other tab-lovers will no doubt disagree with me, but that's only because they have trouble seeing beyond the present.

How ironic, given that the tabbed idea we support in browsing is rather recent; and yet the archaic multi-window mode you support is the elder idea? So... why exactly do we have trouble seeing beyond the present? What the hell does that have to do with anything anyway? Stop trying to be so damn dramatic.

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
Sure, tabs may work if you're only working with a few webpages at once...then there's no name truncation etc...but for all other purposes, they don't work.

Okay, and most people will use them under those conditions! People are not going to open 15 tabs, then move to another window and continue on their way...

[Millennium]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
Well I'll undo your two last posts with a few words: Any feature that is unnecessary and doable at a lower level is bloat.

Yes, but you sti
ll have yet to show that tabs are either unnecessary or doable at a lower level.

Web pages *are* documents. And the future of the internet lies in the ability to manipulate these documents.

No, not in editing Web pages. The future is in editing data using Web pages. If you want to take that to its logical conclusion -which I think is a good idea here- then Web pages are applications, or perhaps mini-apps embedded within the larger app (the browser), not documents. And if you go back to the HI guidelines, you'll see that providing tabs in an app to switch between different areas of functionality (as Web pages are) not only agrees with the guidelines, but makes perfect sense. The only difference between a Web browser's tabs and the tabs in a "traditional" app is the fact that the

At the moment most web pages are very static in nature...read-only if you will. There are a few though that are carving a new path.

As with these forums, I suppose? Surely you're not going to say that we're editing Web pages when we post here.

Shame on you for having no sense of future directions.

Ooh, nice ad hominem attack. Is that the best you can do?

You frankly bore me to death with your first post full of...umm...full of nothing.

Should I take that as an unwillingness to refute my points there?

[Cipher13]

Another point I'd like to add.

For a beginning user, the concept of tabs is much more logical than the concept of multiple windows, which seems like multiple instances of an application.

If the user can't see a second open window, they'll avoid it.

At best, they'll minimise it, use another one, minimise that one, and expand the original; only having one open at any one time. Upon opening a new window, they often get confused and do not go back to the original window.

The tab concept would be easier to pick up, and more logical, as well as being neater, faster, etc.

I believe I'm qualified to speak about such matters given that I live with four computer illiterate people, and work in a high school... I deal with people every day in such matters.

[Guy Incognito]

I see people are just refuting points at random without actually reading my whole post...teh w1nn4r is Cypher13 and Millenium.

I'm not against the concept...I'm against tabs.

I'm not against Carbon...I'm against the Carbon developers.

Stop putting words into my mouth.

Tell me Millenium...what *is* a document. You talk about documents but don't properly explain the abstractness of it. I feel like I could try to explain anything and you'll always tell me "No, that's not a document."

[Guy Incognito]

Originally posted by Cipher13:
Another point I'd like to add.

For a beginning user, the concept of tabs is much more logical than the concept of multiple windows, which seems like multiple instances of an application.

If the user can't see a second open window, they'll avoid it.

At best, they'll minimise it, use another one, minimise that one, and expand the original; only having one open at any one time. Upon opening a new window, they often get confused and do not go back to the original window.

The tab concept would be easier to pick up, and more logical, as well as being neater, faster, etc.

I believe I'm qualified to speak about such matters given that I live with four computer illiterate people, and work in a high school... I deal with people every day in such matters.

Another point I'd like to add...drill this in your head Cypher13, please:

I'm not against the concept of multi-document-in-one-window. I'm against tabs and its flakey implementation.

Get it? No? It's understandable. I wouldn't expect *you* to understand something as simple as this.

[Guy Incognito]

Originally posted by Millennium:
Ooh, nice ad hominem attack. Is that the best you can do?

At least set an example and don't attack back.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
Y1) users must expand the window to full screen to be able to store as many tabs as possible without severe name truncation
2) cannot have very many tabs until name truncation begins to affect the *only* visual efficiency of tabs; the window title

This is also true of the Microsoft MDI approach you seem to love so much. How would you solve this problem?

3) Chimera limits tabs to 15 per window...and there's no form of wrapping...you are left to open a new window to accept more tabs and thus defying the very concept of tabbed-browsing itself

The point of tabbed browsing is not to have a single window for all your Web browsing anyway. The point is to group similar pages -ideally, things on the same site- together. If you can get more than 15 related pages in a single window, you're abusing the feature.

As for wrapping, that would be even worse UI than you claim the tabs to be.

4) there's no organization per se

If I recall correctly, you're one of those who dislikes the OSX filesystem because it "forces" a certain level or organization on the user. But now, you go and complain when someone leaves all organization up to the user. Sorry; I don't buy that. Make up your mind.

5) there's no manipulation flexibility without hacking the tab itself (and hacking a system UI like this is a very big no-no)

Actually, hacking the system UI is more than acceptable with Cocoa, as long as the basic behaviors and look are preserved. A couple of subclasses would be more than sufficient to add drag-and-drop reordering. A little more difficult would be to put an icon proxy into the tab; this could be useful for drag-and-drop, though it's not strictly necessary.

6) it contributes to a lot of wasted screen estate for what it does (and we all know how you guys *love* screen estate)...other methods could definitely cut down on lost screen estate.

Such as?

7) the tabbed concept should be left in the hands of the windowserver...

You have yet to justify this claim.

Here's another example of a feature which is doable at a lower level: bookmarks. Apple already has a Favorites feature, you know, though no one bothers to use it. Are browsers bloating themselves by not using this feature?

Oh and Millenium? Sorry but 'browser' is really an old name we give to what we're using right now to type up these message in a forum. I find myself looking at a webpage and using pictures and quotes to write my messages up. If this is not a document approach starting to emerge, I don't know what is.

I was afraid you'd do this (see my above post).

We are not editing Web pages. We are editing data, using a Web page. Take a look at the buttons, scrolling text areas, and other niceties in these forums: when's the last time you saw these things in a document? No, Guy, this is not a document approach starting to emerge; it's an application approach.

The same old crowd like Wataru and all the other tab-lovers will no doubt disagree with me, but that's only because they have trouble seeing beyond the present.

Again, resorting to ad hominem. And I wonder who's really having trouble seeing beyond the present. I keep my ear very low to the ground on this sort of thing. And it's very interesting: the big backend software and middleware programs all seem to be referring to themselves as "Web Application Servers". I think that's more telling than your theories. These people know where the future lies: Web pages as programs. Not as documents; that's the "old" paradigm, and you're mistaking it for the "new".

Sure, tabs may work if you're only working with a few webpages at once...then there's no name truncation etc...but for all other purposes, they don't work.

The whole point of tabs is for working with a few pages in one window. You seek organization; that's what windows are for in a tabbed paradigm. Tabs transform the window from a single application to a way of organizing applications.

[Guy Incognito]

Originally posted by Millennium:
This is also true of the Microsoft MDI approach you seem to love so much. How would you solve this problem?

Are you on crack? I don't think I've ever written anything about the "Microsoft MDI approach" ever in my life. I'm not even sure *what* it is. You must have me confused with someone else. What does MDI stand for anyways? Multi-document integration?

The point of tabbed browsing is not to have a single window for all your Web browsing anyway. The point is to group similar pages -ideally, things on the same site- together. If you can get more than 15 related pages in a single window, you're abusing the feature.

One can say the same about tabs themselves...if you're going to open too many windows (and tabbing them), you're abusing yourself. Can't anyone have a little self-control and not have more than 2-3 webpage windows open? Why the need of tabs? (This is the Millenium mentality ).

As for wrapping, that would be even worse UI than you claim the tabs to be.

Possibly...but maybe not...it depends how it's implemented. Without seeing how it's implemented how can you claim it to be 'even worse'.

If I recall correctly, you're one of those who dislikes the OSX filesystem because it "forces" a certain level or organization on the user. But now, you go and complain when someone leaves all organization up to the user. Sorry; I don't buy that. Make up your mind.

I never said I dislike the OSX filesystem because...where are you getting your ideas from. If you're refering to my new 'Finder' concept, I was providing a new idea for file-browsing. A concept that will be needed eventually as more and more files will be stored on personal computers and file hierarchies will become harder to manage.

Actually, hacking the system UI is more than acceptable with Cocoa, as long as the basic behaviors and look are preserved. A couple of subclasses would be more than sufficient to add drag-and-drop reordering. A little more difficult would be to put an icon proxy into the tab; this could be useful for drag-and-drop, though it's not strictly necessary.

No...this breaks the consistency expected by the user. As of right now, only Chimera has context menu click for Cocoa tabs. Not many know of its existence unless they are in touch with Chimera's development...why? Tabs don't normally have context menus.

and more files will be stored on personal computers.

Here's another example of a feature which is doable at a lower level: bookmarks. Apple already has a Favorites feature, you know, though no one bothers to use it. Are browsers bloating themselves by not using this feature?

Yes...ideally Apple would have a system-wide database of favorites (using metadata of some sort) and allow any apps to find the 'favorite' bookmarks. You're right...bookmarks are bloat in a sense.

I was afraid you'd do this (see my above post).

We are not editing Web pages. We are editing data, using a Web page. Take a look at the buttons, scrolling text areas, and other niceties in these forums: when's the last time you saw these things in a document? No, Guy, this is not a document approach starting to emerge; it's an application approach.

This is the transition my friend...eventually the browser itself will have to be rebaptised since it won't be just 'a browser' and will allow for editing web pages straight from the 'browser'.

It's not yet possible to do this using HTML but we're not going to be stuck with HTML for the rest of our life.

They may be 'applications' using your definitition...but if you're going to have multiple instances of an 'app' that does the same thing, you might as well call them documents. After all...you're just providing the same interface for 'document' manipulating in multiple-windows.

The whole point of tabs is for working with a few pages in one window. You seek organization; that's what windows are for in a tabbed paradigm. Tabs transform the window from a single application to a way of organizing applications.

So what was wrong with 'single-window-mode' back in the DP3 days? This was *exactly* how it worked. And this was at the windowserver level.

[wataru]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
The same old crowd like Wataru and all the other tab-lovers will no doubt disagree with me, but that's only because they have trouble seeing beyond the present.

Oh, well I'm glad you know exactly what my problem is, Guy, because I've always wanted someone to tell me.

Maybe you can't see past your own anti-tab agenda. People want tabs, and they most likely will get them. I'm just glad you're not on the Safari development team.

[Guy Incognito]

Originally posted by wataru:
Maybe you can't see past your own anti-tab agenda. People want tabs, and they most likely will get them. I'm just glad you're not on the Safari development team.

Most people? Most people use IE6 on Windows. It doesn't have tabs. Most people browse one page at a time in one browser window. Most people are not forum-dwellers like you and I.

Step off that pedestal you like to stand on for a minute and realize that *you* are the minority. You and I are the geeks that needs these so-called 'power features'. This is not Apple's intended market. Apple is letting 3rd-party handle this.

I think Apple is trying to gather as many 'normal-users' as possible. Apple will not gain marketshare by focusing on pro features.

Apple *is* releasing specific pro apps. Safari is not a pro app though.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
Are you on crack? I don't think I've ever written anything about the "Microsoft MDI approach" ever in my life. I'm not even sure *what* it is. You must have me confused with someone else. What does MDI stand for anyways? Multi-document integration?

MDI stands for Multi-Document Interface.

The way it works is that there is one window for the entire application, but it doesn't really do anything except house the menubar (and sometimes a side panel, like the old Windows Explorer). All interaction with documents is handled via "child windows" which cannot go outside the boundaries of the main window. This is why most Windows users have gotten into the habit of running all their windows maximized; under an MDI you have to in order to get any meaningful workspace.

But the similarity comes in the way windows are organized in Microsoft's MDI. When you minimize child windows, they do not go into the Taskbar at the bottom of the screen (or wherever else you've put it). Instead, they go into a kind of mini-taskbar at the bottom of the Window. This mini-taskbar doesn't have a Start menu or a Tray, but otherwise it works just like the "real" Taskbar.

It's a horrible implementation of an interesting idea, and thankfully Microsoft is moving away from it now. But it seems similar to the thing you want.

One can say the same about tabs themselves...if you're going to open too many windows (and tabbing them), you're abusing yourself. Can't anyone have a little self-control and not have more than 2-3 webpage windows open? Why the need of tabs? (This is the Millenium mentality ).

Oh, no, not at all.

Many people work with many Webpages at once. I do it too. The point of tabs is to provide a layer of organization so that screen clutter is reduced. But it's possible to abuse that. Unfortunately, Apple has not provided the best examples of organization in the past, with an /Applications folder but no organization underneath except for Utilities (I made Administration, Games, Internet, Multimedia, and Productivity folders in addition to this). That's exacerbated by an awful Installer that can't even keep track of where you've put stuff.

Possibly...but maybe not...it depends how it's implemented. Without seeing how it's implemented how can you claim it to be 'even worse'.

See above.

No...this breaks the consistency expected by the user. As of right now, only Chimera has context menu click for Cocoa tabs. Not many know of its existence unless they are in touch with Chimera's development...why? Tabs don't normally have context menus.

Hmm. So people shouldn't innovate, is what you're saying? Context-menu click does not come at the expense of the "usual" tab behavior, so what is the harm of it? They look like normal tabs, and they act like normal tabs unless you Control-click on them, and Control-clicking is not in itself a destructive action (yes, you can close tabs from the popup which appears, but a simple Control-click isn't enough to cause that).

This is the transition my friend...eventually the browser itself will have to be rebaptised since it won't be just 'a browser' and will allow for editing web pages straight from the 'browser'.

Hmm... so you're talking about Mozilla's Composer, then? That's been around since the days of Netscape Navigator 2.0 (though it had a different name then).

I'm fully aware that there are certain interface elements which are not currently doable in HTML. But I'd be interested to hear your examples.

It's not yet possible to do this using HTML but we're not going to be stuck with HTML for the rest of our life.

Perhaps, perhaps not. Do you think XUL, or something similar, os going to replace it?

They may be 'applications' using your definitition...but if you're going to have multiple instances of an 'app' that does the same thing, you might as well call them documents. After all...you're just providing the same interface for 'document' manipulating in multiple-windows.

That's the MDI concept rearing its head again.

Ahem. Apple's GUI paradigm doesn't normally allow for one instance of an app to run at the same time (though it's fairly easy to hack around that). However, there are plenty of analogous situations on Macs, all the same. Look at the Terminal. Even you can't possibly say that a Terminal window is a document. It's Apple's own little method of allowing multiple instances of what is normally a standalong app on other platforms, even though they all do the same thing. And it works -sort of- for Terminal windows, because these windows tend to be small.

So what was wrong with 'single-window-mode' back in the DP3 days? This was *exactly* how it worked. And this was at the windowserver level.

Not really. While it's true that SWM put only one window on the screen at once, Apple never found an adequate way to provide window-switching capability. That's why it got cancelled; it was a neat idea, but not implementable in any usable fashion.

And of course it didn't work out; Apple had the idea wrong, by insisting on window-orienting their model. When you go to organize something, you need to have something at a higher level (just as with files into folders), and Apple had nothing higher-level in the UI than the window, so they were stuck. One window onscreen, and... nothing.

Browsers have a chance to get this right. Tabs for individual pages, and windows above the tabs to provide a method of organization.

Do you know how the UI for a PreferencePane (as seen in System Preferences) is implemented? In many ways, they're actually their own independent apps. The developer draws the UI in a nib file, into a window. Then, when the time comes to display it, the contents of this "placeholder window" are taken out and displayed in the main window. Some would say it's an implementation detail, but I'm not so sure about that; it's a shift in the way things are being done. What had been a multitide of different apps in OS9 is now collected into a single grouped UI for OSX. In many ways, the same sort of tabbed UI we see in Chimera, though they don't use actual tabs to achieve the effect. And yet, you have never complained about this.

[Guy Incognito]

Originally posted by wataru:
Maybe you can't see past your own anti-tab agenda. People want tabs, and they most likely will get them. I'm just glad you're not on the Safari development team.

Most people? Most people use IE6 on Windows. It doesn't have tabs. Most people browse one page at a time in one browser window. Most people are not forum-dwellers like you and I. Most people are not computer nerds or geeks.

Step off that pedestal you like to stand on for a minute and realize that *you* are the minority. You and I are the geeks that needs these so-called 'power features'. Realize that the Chimera tab implementation is complex to a normal-user. It uses inconsistant approaches (hacks) for manipulation of tabs. There's no easy way to close a tab without a keyboard shortcut or context-click.

This is not Apple's intended market. Apple is letting 3rd-party handle this.

I think Apple is trying to gather as many 'normal-users' as possible. Apple will not gain marketshare by focusing on pro features for an app as simple as web browsing.

Apple *is* releasing specific pro apps. Safari is not a pro app though.

[Guy Incognito]

Originally posted by Millennium:

Hmm. So people shouldn't innovate, is what you're saying? Context-menu click does not come at the expense of the "usual" tab behavior, so what is the harm of it? They look like normal tabs, and they act like normal tabs unless you Control-click on them, and Control-clicking is not in itself a destructive action (yes, you can close tabs from the popup which appears, but a simple Control-click isn't enough to cause that).

They should innovate...but not by using existing elements and hacking them and causing UI inconsistencies.

Hmm... so you're talking about Mozilla's Composer, then? That's been around since the days of Netscape Navigator 2.0 (though it had a different name then).

I'm fully aware that there are certain interface elements which are not currently doable in HTML. But I'd be interested to hear your examples.

Perhaps, perhaps not. Do you think XUL, or something similar, os going to replace it?

That's the MDI concept rearing its head again.

And the tabs approach is not an MDI concept?

Do you know how the UI for a PreferencePane (as seen in System Preferences) is implemented? In many ways, they're actually their own independent apps. The developer draws the UI in a nib file, into a window. Then, when the time comes to display it, the contents of this "placeholder window" are taken out and displayed in the main window. Some would say it's an implementation detail, but I'm not so sure about that; it's a shift in the way things are being done. What had been a multitide of different apps in OS9 is now collected into a single grouped UI for OSX. In many ways, the same sort of tabbed UI we see in Chimera, though they don't use actual tabs to achieve the effect. And yet, you have never complained about this.

Yeah, but the interface you're talking about isn't dynamic. This is a completely different thing.

But even then, even for a dynamic interface like tabbed-browsing...the Preferences 'collection of different apps' is already a much better approach than the current Chimera tabs approach. Imagine fitting all of the Prefs 'mini-apps' into one single line of tabs. Yikes!

The grid approach + organization of Preferences make it very easy to find what you want out of the many 'mini-apps'. The same could apply to browsers.

Did I mention that I'm not against the multi-window concept? It seems to be slipping people's minds all the time.

Edit: this is getting rather boring. It's getting tedious for me to repeat the same things over and over again and not have anyone understand my actual stance.

Here...I'll write it in bold capital letters:

I'M NOT AGAINST THE MULTI-WINDOW-IN-ONE-WINDOW CONCEPT...I'M AGAINST TABS!

There are numerous better methods than tabs...quit saying it's the best method. It's not!

[Millennium]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
Most people? Most people use IE6 on Windows. It doesn't have tabs. Most people browse one page at a time in one browser window. Most people are not forum-dwellers like you and I. Most people are not computer nerds or geeks.

And most people use Windows. Does that mean Windows is the best out there?

Step off that pedestal you like to stand on for a minute and realize that *you* are the minority. You and I are the geeks that needs these so-called 'power features'.

The original Mac users were a minority in a heavily CLI-oriented world. Does that mean the GUI wasn't as good as the CLI?

All good things start out as being used by the minority.

Realize that the Chimera tab implementation is complex to a normal-user.

That hasn't been my experience.

It uses inconsistant approaches (hacks) for manipulation of tabs. There's no easy way to close a tab without a keyboard shortcut or context-click.

There's a menu item, actually.

And yeah, I do agree that there needs to be a Close Tab button. That's why there's one in the toolbar, if you care to use it.

I think Apple is trying to gather as many 'normal-users' as possible. Apple will not gain marketshare by focusing on pro features for an app as simple as web browsing.

Tabs can become a normal-user feature. While ease of use is always an issue with Apps -even if Apple's the only company that still realizes this- it's also true that users are, by and large, not total idiots. I can explain the concept of tabs to a user in roughly five minutes, the same amount of time it usually takes me to explain concepts such as menus and windows. It's not like multiple mouse buttons, which often confuse users even to this day.

Apple *is* releasing specific pro apps. Safari is not a pro app though.

Not that this is even relevant. Tabs are not a "pro" feature on nearly the scale that, for example, a Web page editor is. And once again, if you don't use tabs they don't even impact the UI at all; I'm not the only one here to have mentioned exactly how much impact tabs have on a user interface if you don't use them (by Chimera's implementation, a total of three menu items, and that could be cut to only one).

[Guy Incognito]

I see we're getting nowhere.

I'll let the tab-lovers use their shoddy implementation just like I've grown to let Windows-lovers use their shoddy OS.

I understand now that some people like Millenium and Wataru are so set in their ways, they can't see that there are better methods than tabs to display this sort of stuff.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
They should innovate...but not by using existing elements and hacking them and causing UI inconsistencies.

So once Apple says that an element Will Work This Way, no one should ever take any steps to improve their functionality ever again, instead conctantly reinventing the whell for every task they have to do?

I disagree. That way lies stagnation, and in stagnation there is only death.

And the tabs approach is not an MDI concept?

No. It tries to solve the same problems that MDI did, but without MDI's limitations.

Among other things, it recognizes that pages are not documents. They are programs. Their UI is laid out in HTML and CSS. Their logic is usually laid out either in some other language on the server, or on the client in JavaScript, or sometimes on a hybrid approach.

Yeah, but the interface you're talking about isn't dynamic. This is a completely different thing.

But even then, even for a dynamic interface like tabbed-browsing...the Preferences 'collection of different apps' is already a much better approach than the current Chimera tabs approach. Imagine fitting all of the Prefs 'mini-apps' into one single line of tabs. Yikes!

And yet one of the biggest criticisms of SystemPreferences from the UI "bigwigs" you love parroting is that it doesn't show all the apps on the screen all the time.

And that's just it. Tabs are good. Maybe they're not the best, but anything better would have to be at least as good. There has to be a way for all the apps -or at least representations of all the apps, as tabs provide- to be constantly on the screen, while taking a minimum of screen real-estate. Nothing has done this better than tabs, just yet. System Preferences doesn't do it either.

The grid approach + organization of Preferences make it very easy to find what you want out of the many 'mini-apps'. The same could apply to browsers.

Yes, but then not everything is within reach. A good UI element can't take more than a single keystroke and a single mouseclick to use, and what you've described will inconsistently retuire either one or two mouseclicks, at the absolute least.

There are numerous better methods than tabs...quit saying it's the best method. It's not!

Then shut us up by finding a better method. You have yet to do that.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
I understand now that some people like Millenium and Wataru are so set in their ways, they can't see that there are better methods than tabs to display this sort of stuff.

I reiterate: I am not set in my ways. But you seem to have blindly railed against the idea of tabbed browsers simply because they improve upon existing tab functionality, and yet you don't provide any viable alternatives.

[kzmk]

Originally posted by Millennium:
I reiterate: I am not set in my ways. But you seem to have blindly railed against the idea of tabbed browsers simply because they improve upon existing tab functionality, and yet you don't provide any viable alternatives.

this is funny: he has not railed against the "idea". he has done so against the widget. am i the only one who gets his point?

look, if chimera - back in the days - came up whith a concept called "button-based document-switching" (as opposed to tabbed browsing), by implementing a button-bar, and creating one button for each opened webpage, they had the idea right, but the widget would be wrong.

i bet all users, who came to rely on the button-based approach, would now DEMAND a button-bar in every browser. guy would come up and scream "are you nuts??? away with the buttons!", and you would come rushing at him saying that it's a great concept, how it fits your needs, how it is vital for your browsing habits.

yet, all guy does is complain about a widget, which he feels is being used in a way it wasn't designed to be used. and there's no point in arguing, because... uhm... he's damn right.

look at one of the posts above yours. there pops up the idea of a "close" button in tabs. if there ever has been a good example of "why tabs suck" - this is it.

developers have to hack the hell into tabs to make them behave the way they want them to behave. and that says what? tabs don't behave the way you'd expect such a widget to behave.

there's no arguing about the concept. it's great. wonderful. it's the widget that sucks.

[Dale Sorel]

How about something like this:



Not my idea, but I like it better than what's in Chimera

[Millennium]

Originally posted by kzmk:
this is funny: he has not railed against the "idea". he has done so against the widget. am i the only one who gets his point?

The fact is, he has not presented a better widget, therefore he is essentially just railing against the idea.

look, if chimera - back in the days - came up whith a concept called "button-based document-switching" (as opposed to tabbed browsing), by implementing a button-bar, and creating one button for each opened webpage, they had the idea right, but the widget would be wrong.

Indeed it wouldn't be. Tabs make more sense than buttons do. That's why Opera's MDI-based switching never caught on, but tabs did; the metaphor makes more sense.

yet, all guy does is complain about a widget, which he feels is being used in a way it wasn't designed to be used. and there's no point in arguing, because... uhm... he's damn right.

Actually, he's not "damn right". I'm trying to point out why, in fact, this is exactly the sort of thing tabs were designed for: switching between different areas of functionality inside an app. Guy's assertion that this isn't what's taking place arises from his sorely mistaken impression that Web pages are documents.

look at one of the posts above yours. there pops up the idea of a "close" button in tabs. if there ever has been a good example of "why tabs suck" - this is it.

Putting a little button inside a big button, essentially. That's even worse UI than plain tabs are. I've seen mockups of this idea before (there's a bug on Bugzilla with a lot of argument about this). Buttons inside buttons, particularly tiny ones like this would have to be, are bad UI. Of course, one could say (quite rightly) that having no easy way of closing tabs is also bad UI. But hacking bad UI on top of bad UI does not make good UI.

developers have to hack the hell into tabs to make them behave the way they want them to behave.

Subclassing a tab is not "hacking" by any stretch of the imagination. It's taking a behavior that people don't normally even use with tabs (namely control-clicking) and making it do something. It in no way interferes with normal tab operation, merely adds a new behavior which improves functionality. Tell me again why this is bad?

and that says what? tabs don't behave the way you'd expect such a widget to behave.

...or that Apple's implementation is inadequate, and can be done better.

Are tabs the perfect widget? No; nothing is perfect. But they're the best solution that anyone has presented so far.

Curmi's screenshot of a drawer doesn't work. Reasons:

• It is in a drawer. Drawers are not constantly onscreen, and therefore there is no constant, consistent reminder of the pages in use.
• When the drawer is onscreen, it wastes far more screen real-estate than a tab bar does: a good 64x120 pixels or so per page.
• Not all of the pages are onscreen at once; scrolling is required.
• This will inconsistently require one click (if the page is onscreen), two clicks (if the drawer is offscreen and the page happens to be brought onscreen when the drawer is activated), or even more clicks (if scrolling is required). Terrible UI, and very inconvenient as well.
• You want to get into "what UI widgets were designed for"? Very well; I'm game. Drawers were designed for supplemental information, not actual controls. Apple breaks this with Mail, but Apple breaks so many of their own UI guidelines anymore that it's not even funny. OmniWeb also breaks this with their bookmarks Drawer. The point is, here you're hacking a Drawer to do something it wasn't designed for, and yet you rail against tabs for doing the same thing. At least keep your arguments consistent. Granted, I don't see this as a valid claim for Tabs or Drawers, but it's a hole in your own logic. If it's OK to hack Drawers, then it's OK to hack Tabs.
• At least from the screenshot, I see no easy way of getting rid of pages, so you still haven't solved the no-close problem you find with Tabs.

Like I said: show me something better than Tabs, and I'll go with it. But this isn't better.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by kzmk:
this is funny: he has not railed against the "idea". he has done so against the widget. am i the only one who gets his point?

The fact is, he has not presented a better widget, therefore he is essentially just railing against the idea.

look, if chimera - back in the days - came up whith a concept called "button-based document-switching" (as opposed to tabbed browsing), by implementing a button-bar, and creating one button for each opened webpage, they had the idea right, but the widget would be wrong.

Indeed it wouldn't be. Tabs make more sense than buttons do. That's why Opera's MDI-based switching never caught on, but tabs did; the metaphor makes more sense.

yet, all guy does is complain about a widget, which he feels is being used in a way it wasn't designed to be used. and there's no point in arguing, because... uhm... he's damn right.

Actually, he's not "damn right". I'm trying to point out why, in fact, this is exactly the sort of thing tabs were designed for: switching between different areas of functionality inside an app. Guy's assertion that this isn't what's taking place arises from his sorely mistaken impression that Web pages are documents.

look at one of the posts above yours. there pops up the idea of a "close" button in tabs. if there ever has been a good example of "why tabs suck" - this is it.

Putting a little button inside a big button, essentially. That's even worse UI than plain tabs are. I've seen mockups of this idea before (there's a bug on Bugzilla with a lot of argument about this). Buttons inside buttons, particularly tiny ones like this would have to be, are bad UI. Of course, one could say (quite rightly) that having no easy way of closing tabs is also bad UI. But hacking bad UI on top of bad UI does not make good UI.

developers have to hack the hell into tabs to make them behave the way they want them to behave.

Subclassing a tab is not "hacking" by any stretch of the imagination. It's taking a behavior that people don't normally even use with tabs (namely control-clicking) and making it do something. It in no way interferes with normal tab operation, merely adds a new behavior which improves functionality. Tell me again why this is bad?

and that says what? tabs don't behave the way you'd expect such a widget to behave.

...or that Apple's implementation is inadequate, and can be done better.

Are tabs the perfect widget? No; nothing is perfect. But they're the best solution that anyone has presented so far.

Curmi's screenshot of a drawer doesn't work. Reasons:

• It is in a drawer. Drawers are not constantly onscreen, and therefore there is no constant, consistent reminder of the pages in use.
• When the drawer is onscreen, it wastes far more screen real-estate than a tab bar does: a good 64x120 pixels or so per page.
• Not all of the pages are onscreen at once; scrolling is required.
• This will inconsistently require one click (if the page is onscreen), two clicks (if the drawer is offscreen and the page happens to be brought onscreen when the drawer is activated), or even more clicks (if scrolling is required). Terrible UI, and very inconvenient as well.
• You want to get into "what UI widgets were designed for"? Very well; I'm game. Drawers were designed for supplemental information, not actual controls. Apple breaks this with Mail, but Apple breaks so many of their own UI guidelines anymore that it's not even funny. OmniWeb also breaks this with their bookmarks Drawer. The point is, here you're hacking a Drawer to do something it wasn't designed for, and yet you rail against tabs for doing the same thing. At least keep your arguments consistent. Granted, I don't see this as a valid claim for Tabs or Drawers, but it's a hole in your own logic. If it's OK to hack Drawers, then it's OK to hack Tabs.
• At least from the screenshot, I see no easy way of getting rid of pages, so you still haven't solved the no-close problem you find with Tabs.

Like I said: show me something better than Tabs, and I'll go with it. But this isn't better. It looks more 31337, but that's not enough.

[Superchicken]

The side bar thingy majiggy from a cocoa app would work better if it were a standard OS X interface...
What I think is more likely is something similar to the way iPhoto and iTunes.... and all the other iApps outside of iChat do things.
IE have a side bar with the other sites you have on some sort of list.

Either that or a tab similar to the way iMovie had last time I looked... although those had icons and junk so that might not work uhh... yeah... Apple will most likely come up with something and it'll work well... not to worry not to worry.

[Guy Incognito]

Originally posted by Millennium:
And that's just it. Tabs are good. Maybe they're not the best, but anything better would have to be at least as good. There has to be a way for all the apps -or at least representations of all the apps, as tabs provide- to be constantly on the screen, while taking a minimum of screen real-estate. Nothing has done this better than tabs, just yet. System Preferences doesn't do it either.

Thanks I've been waiting to hear this.

Although I disagree that "all the apps" should be displayed and a 1-click access away. There has to be some kind of priority when someone is using a great number of these 'apps' or documents or else all hell breaks loose.

So while your views about a "good UI element can't take more than a single keystroke and a single mouseclick to use" is good, but there are limits. Sometimes the better UI makes tradeoffs. Sometimes two-clicks is better in the end.

Imagine if everything was 1-click away...it surely sounds like an amazingly easy and basic interface, but in reality it's not necessarly a easy and basic interface and may even make things more complex to use.

Yes, but then not everything is within reach. A good UI element can't take more than a single keystroke and a single mouseclick to use, and what you've described will inconsistently retuire either one or two mouseclicks, at the absolute least.

The System Preferences app combines both in a sense. A 1-click access to your favorites. And a 2-click access to the others.

Why couldn't the same be applied to web browsing? ...the most recent in some kind of bar (not system widget tabs, for the love of God), and the rest (which are less fresh in ones memory than the most recent) in a System Preference-like setup with thumbnail previews.

[Guy Incognito]

Originally posted by Millennium:
The fact is, he has not presented a better widget, therefore he is essentially just railing against the idea.

I have present dozens of different ways to tackle the problem. And you know it. I've mocked up different ideas on many occasions.

Guy's assertion that this isn't what's taking place arises from his sorely mistaken impression that Web pages are documents.

Subclassing a tab is not "hacking" by any stretch of the imagination. It's taking a behavior that people don't normally even use with tabs (namely control-clicking) and making it do something. It in no way interferes with normal tab operation, merely adds a new behavior which improves functionality. Tell me again why this is bad?

Probably because it's an unexpected result. People will be surprised when the context-click a Chimera tab and see a little menu pop-up and start wondering why other tabs don't do that.

If people started hacking other UI widgets like this, we'd very rapidly find that non of the widgets act the same way. If you don't see this as something bad, go use Linux or something.

Are tabs the perfect widget? No; nothing is perfect. But they're the best solution that anyone has presented so far.

Hardly...you're just not listening to the other ideas. I can't use tabs in its current form in some instances...you're telling me tabs are the best solution anyone has presented? I've present solutions that would satisfy both camps. But noooo, you want your tabs and nothing else because it works for *you* and Damn the rest of the people that can't use it in it's current incarnation.

One thing I agree with is that drawers aren't the solution.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
Thanks I've been waiting to hear this.

Although I disagree that "all the apps" should be displayed and a 1-click access away. There has to be some kind of priority when someone is using a great number of these 'apps' or documents or else all hell breaks loose.

This is what windows are for, as I've tried to tell you over and over again.

Tabbed browsing is not meant to replace separate-window browsing. It's meant to complement it.

So while your views about a "good UI element can't take more than a single keystroke and a single mouseclick to use" is good, but there are limits. Sometimes the better UI makes tradeoffs. Sometimes two-clicks is better in the end.

Examples, please?

The System Preferences app combines both in a sense. A 1-click access to your favorites. And a 2-click access to the others.

Why couldn't the same be applied to web browsing?

Because favorites are a static thing; they don't tend to change very much and when they do change, usually it's just to add a new one onto the end. On the other hand, the most recent tabs one has visited will tend to change very often. That's why it's important to have them all onscreen, so that they more or less stay put, and become easier to find.

...the most recent [pages] in some kind of bar (not system widget tabs, for the love of God), and the rest (which are less fresh in ones memory than the most recent) in a System Preference-like setup with thumbnail previews.

Too complex. UI bigwigs already panned the System Preferences UI for being inconsistent in the way it handles panes, and the problems they mention are only exacerbated when the metaphor is extended to Web pages. The problem the UI bigwigs have is that not everything is visible in the bar, and to see them all, you have to click a specific widget in the bar (which acts differently from everything else in the bar). So there's an inherent inconsistency going on. Or so they say, anyway; I'm not normally one for appeals to authority. I think it's consistent enough as it is, because once a person sets their ffavorites they don't tend to change them very often, and because they set the favorites it's up to them to remember where they are. But the Web throws another wrinkle into the mix which validates the UI designers' complaints.

As I already noted, the most recent pages will always be changing, and therefore what's in the bar will also always be changing. Also, if we go by your chronological ordering, that precludes the user being able to set what goes where. Under those circumstances, it becomes difficult to keep track of what's in the bar and what isn't. The point of adding everything to one bar and inserting new tabs on the end is so that the user can develop a mental map of the order the pages are in; this makes things much easier when name truncation starts to come into play.

I have present dozens of different ways to tackle the problem. And you know it. I've mocked up different ideas on many occasions.

And every time, people have noted why your ideas look good on paper but don't work in reality. You've presented many ideas, but if they won't work then they just plain won't work.

Probably because it's an unexpected result. People will be surprised when the context-click a Chimera tab and see a little menu pop-up and start wondering why other tabs don't do that.

...and what does this matter? The entire point of a one-button mouse comes from the fact that users shouldn't have to right-click. As a result, most users, and particularly those on laptops, don't control-click very often. Those few who do use it will find it on a Chimera tab, and then not find menus on other tabs. They will wonder why other apps' tabs don't do that... for about two seconds, until they remember that no UI element in the entire Aqua framework -or any other GUI framework, for that matter- always has contextual menus. The entire point of contextual menus is that they are contextual; they don't appear over all elements everywhere.

Give the users some credit. Most users aren't Einstein, but neither are they all Homestar Runner.

Hardly...you're just not listening to the other ideas.

Oh, I am. And then I am pointing out, in detail, exactly why they don't work as well as tabs do. Just because I'm listening to the ideas doesn't mean I'll agree with them. Or are you truly so arrogant that you consider yourself The God Of UI Design, and so everything you say must be right because you've read a few of Tog's and Raskin's articles?

I can't use tabs in its current form in some instances...

Because you have this idea that tabs should replace windows, rather than complementing them. If you bothered to try using tabs properly, the limitation would cease to matter.

you're telling me tabs are the best solution anyone has presented? I've present solutions that would satisfy both camps.

Um, no you haven't. You've presented some solutions that you think might satisfy both camps, only to be shot down every time.

So far, tabs are the best viable solution that anyone has presented. There have been plenty of bad but viable alternatives, and some alternatives which look great on paper but just aren't viable in the "real" world. But so far I've seen no proposals that are both good and viable as an alternative to tabs.

It's kind of like HotSauce, the 3-D fly-through Web idea Apple had about seven years ago. Good in concept, incredibly intuitive, and wonderfully executed, but just not viable, because it was too inconvenient to use.

But noooo, you want your tabs and nothing else because it works for *you* and Damn the rest of the people that can't use it in it's current incarnation.

I could accuse you of the same.

One thing I agree with is that drawers aren't the solution.

Good; then we have some common ground. Now, what say you we start building off of that and try to come up with something that's good on paper and in reality? We both agree that it is probably possible to do better than tabs; now, let's find something that really is.

[Guy Incognito]

Ok...I'm sorry, Millenium. Tabs in the tabbed-browsing sense are the best UI design ever. I don't know why I've ever doubted you.

[Cipher13]

Guy, I find it amusing that you didn't respond to me... no doubt because you had no points with which to refute my own?

[Guy Incognito]

Originally posted by Cipher13:
Guy, I find it amusing that you didn't respond to me... no doubt because you had no points with which to refute my own?

Actually...there was nothing worth refuting. I deal with beginners like this all the time too and none of them browse multiple windows. I don't know where you pick up beginners that open multiple windows (or multiple tabs) and start surfing all of them.

[Cipher13]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
Actually...there was nothing worth refuting. I deal with beginners like this all the time too and none of them browse multiple windows. I don't know where you pick up beginners that open multiple windows (or multiple tabs) and start surfing all of them.

Nothing worth refuting? Really? How convenient that is... no? I doubt you have any real clue what you're talking about. Troll.

*

"all the time", do you? May I ask what the circumstances are?

Oh, they don't open themselves. However; confusion ensues when showing them "multiple windows". They grasp the idea of tabs MUCH more easily.

Given that I've asked for your circumstances, mine are a year 7-12 high school (I don't know what system you use, but year 12 is graduation year from high school) with about 1500 students.

[Guy Incognito]

Originally posted by Cipher13:

Given that I've asked for your circumstances, mine are a year 7-12 high school (I don't know what system you use, but year 12 is graduation year from high school) with about 1500 students.

OMG, YOU TOO!? Maybe we work at the same school!