[dfiler]

In an attempt to appease the anti-tab-ists amongst us, some pro-tabbers have suggested other ways of combining multiple web-pages into a single window. However, these interfaces suffer from the exact same flaws which make tabs a bad idea. Its not that tabs are bad, its that combining multiple workspaces into the same object is an inherently bad idea in most situations.

Viewers, whether for file based documents or for embedded data, are better suited for a tabbed interface. The key here is that the application is a pure viewer and not an editor of multiple documents.

In applications like mail, there is less of a problem using drawers for editing multiple, cognitively-separate 'documents'. This is because mail isn't a document-based app and doesn't have 'save' states. The various workspaces being switched between are stateless, and always saved. On the other hand, web-browsers are not pure viewers. They are frequently used for editing and submitting information. By overloading the window controls with multiple functions based upon state, greater mental load is forced upon the user. They must take care to carefully analyze an object before interacting with it because its functionality is tied to other, unrelated objects.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall apple ever using tabs for multiple documents. The closest to this would be apps like project builder which encapsulate many source code documents into a single project document/application window. In this case, I am all for multiple workspaces in the same window. The alternative would be for developers to have literally dozens if not hundreds of windows open at once. Project file-counts can get truly obscene with modern OO style application architecture. Also, in this case it is important to note who comprises the user-base of Project Builder. It is composed entirely of people who's business, on a daily basis, is to master and tame the complexity of computers.

Web browsers GUIs should definitely not be modeled after developer tool GUIs and vice versa.

Another comparison has been to the play-list sidebar in iTunes. However, this analogy is quite loose. The documents that iTunes deals with are viewed in a mutually exclusive manner. This makes it well suited to the multiple-docs-in-one-window interface. Web pages are definitely not viewed or edited in a mutually exclusive manner. In fact, on some sites, modifications in one window affect the contents of other windows.

Controls and tool pallets are best suited to tabbed interfaces. This is especially true of controls that don't require a confirmation before affecting anything. These can be safely selected or manipulated without having to worry about save states for non-visible objects.

Tabs aren't a new phenomenon and their sparing use is not an accident. The human-computer-interaction jury isn't out on the subject of tabs. It returned over a decade ago with very concrete reasons why the use of tabbing between documents is ill-advised.

[DaedalusDX]

I've been listening to this argument, and I think i'm going to chime in.

I don't dislike tabs, but i can certainly see how one has to be very careful in implementing tabs. From a developers point of view, the most blantant user interface mistakes in history have been made with tabs (MS Office's preference panes). I completely agree with OAW and Guy about that.

However, those various flaws don't take away from the power of tabs... they allow alot of information to be quickly accessable within a single window. And, in my opinion, the tabs in Mozilla and Chimera have been very well thought out and implemented... and I don't think that only 1% of everyone who uses Mozilla and Chimera uses that feature... its got to be more than that.

A concern with tabs is the state of information between tabs... if you make modifications in one tab, how does that reflect in other tabs? How do apply and cancel buttons work across tabs? This is certainly a problem when you're dealing with preference tabs, but web pages do not have any sort of interaction like that.

Web pages and the browser concept are simple enough that using tabs in a browser serves only to save screen space and prevent further spawning of browser windows. For example, if you were looking at 2 different web pages, tabs would simply offer the same functionality as the 2 separate windows in one window.

Its a matter of clutter, really. Tabs aren't a necessity, clearly... instead of using tabs, one could just as easily spawn another browser.

I've done that for a while, but i find that i open a LARGE number of browsers and it gets very hard to keep them organized when they are all layered on top of each other. I use tabs as an another level of grouping of my browsers. I found that after a little while online, I had upwards of 14 or 15 browser open at once. Without tabs, that would be an enormous pain in the a$$ to navigate around... i'd have to look through them all through one enormous Window menu.

Instead of 15 windows, i'd have one window dedicated to my favorite news sites... maybe 4 or 5 tabs there... Another one for tech sites, and another window or two for forums.

I find tabs very useful for browsing forums like this one for example... I go to the Main MacNN forums site here and first spawn new browsers with links to the Mac OS X and Powerbook forums for example, to bring up the topic listings for Mac OS X and Powerbook. In each of those separate topic listing windows, i open each individual topic in tabs in the same window...

The result? Easy to follow and very organized. Every tab in one window has something to do with each other... Powerbook topics... or Mac OS X topics. Much less clutter because i can open up as many forum topics as i want in Mac OS X and i'd never have more than one window open.

For me, tabs, as implemented by chimera, is an incredible time and space saver. It may be different for you, but for me, its a practical metaphor that comes really naturally and fast for me.

You can argue all you want about the correctness of tabs in a UI from a developers point of view, but its DOES have a practical use... Its very hard for me to browse any other way now.

Just out of curiousity... those of you who are anti-tabs... do any of you use Adam Iser's Adium client for instant messaging? Adium has a wonderful implementation of tabs similar to Chimera.

[DaedalusDX]

Originally posted by dfiler:

Viewers, whether for file based documents or for embedded data, are better suited for a tabbed interface. The key here is that the application is a pure viewer and not an editor of multiple documents.

This is what i've been trying to say... Web browser... emphasis on the Browser. The web browser is perhaps the purest viewer that you can get.

For this specific application, tabs can go a long way to significantly reduce clutter... and for Mozilla and Chimera, the tab bar costs a very small amount of space in the window... the problem with a drawer approach is that a drawer to the left or right of a main window would cost quite a bit more screen space.

I dunno... tabs make sense to me. They make me happy. At least I'll always have Chimera which tailors to my needs.

[Bobby]

Anybody consider creating a petition to request that tabbed browsing (or whatever it's called) isn't included???

[dfiler]

Originally posted by DaedalusDX:
...
A concern with tabs is the state of information between tabs... if you make modifications in one tab, how does that reflect in other tabs? How do apply and cancel buttons work across tabs? This is certainly a problem when you're dealing with preference tabs, but web pages do not have any sort of interaction like that.
...
For example, if you were looking at 2 different web pages, tabs would simply offer the same functionality as the 2 separate windows in one window.
...
You can argue all you want about the correctness of tabs in a UI from a developers point of view, but its DOES have a practical use... Its very hard for me to browse any other way now.

Excellent post. I snipped all but what which I wanted to reply.

There is some form of interaction between webpages. One important distinction is that web pages are frequently spawned and closed without direct initiation from user actions. In these situations, a milisecond late toolbar-button-click or content manipulation will result in unintended input. This can be quite disasterous.

The second snippet of your post I included to make a point about the functional domain of a web-'browser'. While it is called a browser, it is actually an editor as well, even if people spend the bulk of their time just viewing. By saying 'looking at 2 different web pages' it implies that you aren't giving much weight to the 'editing' of web pages (form content).

Third snippet: I don't think anyone is arguing 'about the correctness of tabs in a GUI from a developers point of view'. We're all talking about correctness from a user's point of view. Although some people seem to mistake user requests for what is actually best for our user-base.


These points may seem trivial but its this attention to detail that generally make Apple GUIs more intuitive.

[TC]

I don't want tabs but I would like multiple pages in a single window.

I like the idea of putting them into a drawer best. this would work in the same way as the drawer in Preview.

I would also like to see bookmarks accessible via a drawer. The bookmark window is good for organising bookmakrs but it is an extra click.

The other big thing I want to see on the bookmark page is filtering, just like iTunes, Address Book and iCal. I think the iCal way of doing it would work best as it gets around the problem of folders used for bookmarks.
This filter should also work for history + it would be good to have something like this in a bookmark/history drawer, this works really well in the Mozilla sidebar.

[lookmark]

Great discussion. It's a real difference in UI philosophy.

This won't please anyone who's against the idea of browsing multiple pages in a single window, but if you're interested in the concept but find tabbed browsing awkward and not-quite-right, check out my mock-up in this thread:



OAW, a bunch of ideas in there are attributed to you. (Some others are a little different).

Feedback, anyone?

[teszeract]

yesvoteyesvoteyesvoteyesvoteyesvoteyesvoteyesvotey esvoteyesvoteyesvoteyesvoteyesvoteyesvoteyesvoteye svoteyesvote


i don't care about "reasonable and contructive arguments". I would like it!

[OAW]

Originally posted by lookmark:
Great discussion. It's a real difference in UI philosophy.

This won't please anyone who's against the idea of browsing multiple pages in a single window, but if you're interested in the concept but find tabbed browsing awkward and not-quite-right, check out my mock-up in this thread:



OAW, a bunch of ideas in there are attributed to you. (Some others are a little different).

Feedback, anyone?

Lookmark,

I'll give feedback in the thread where the mockup is!

OAW

[EmAn]

Originally posted by curmi:
I'm reposting this from a post I've made on the Apple support forums.

I know a lot of people who have used tabbed browsers really want tabs. I agree - tabs make things a lot easier to work with, and if you don't like them you don't have to use them.

However, I feel OS X can do something better than tabs - something more OS X like, taking advantage of OS X features that aren't available (easily) on other operating systems.

I'd like to propose instead that a "tabbed" system use a drawer with small screen shots - like in Preview. This helps you to visually see the content of the window (maybe even when it is loaded if these are dynamic).

Here is a mockup I've done:

http://homepage.mac.com/curmi/.Pictu...bbedsafari.jpg

If you don't want to use tabbed browsing, don't open the drawer and it behaves like it does now.

The problem with tabs is that they only show text, where the web is both a visual and text tool. Also, they bunch up if you have a half dozen or so open - and you can't read the text anyway. You end up having to either start a new window, or add scrollbars to the tabs which is ugly and not a usual mac UI paradigm.

An interface along these lines would make Safari the most advanced browser around, and show more Apple innovation.

And I'd sign a petition for an innovative feature like this.

That would be cool, but the one problem is I like my browser window to be full screen (well except for where the dock is). Having something like that would prevent me from browsing at full screen. Good idea, though.

[CharlesS]

Uh, guys...

Safari uses a version of KHTML that Apple picked up a year ago and made some modifications to. Of course, since the time Apple started to work on the version of KHTML that they're using, the official version of KHTML has released new versions with new features, and I believe one of them is tabbed browsing. So, when the Apple enhancements are merged into the mainstream version of KHTML, Apple will be free to use the latest version, which will include tabbed browsing. So, Safari will eventually get tabs anyway, making this petition (and this thread) a complete waste of time.

[Guy Incognito]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
Uh, guys...

Safari uses a version of KHTML that Apple picked up a year ago and made some modifications to. Of course, since the time Apple started to work on the version of KHTML that they're using, the official version of KHTML has released new versions with new features, and I believe one of them is tabbed browsing. So, when the Apple enhancements are merged into the mainstream version of KHTML, Apple will be free to use the latest version, which will include tabbed browsing. So, Safari will eventually get tabs anyway, making this petition (and this thread) a complete waste of time.

Apple doesn't need to use any of the new features added to KHTML. What are you smoking?

[passmaster16]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
Uh, guys...

Safari uses a version of KHTML that Apple picked up a year ago and made some modifications to. Of course, since the time Apple started to work on the version of KHTML that they're using, the official version of KHTML has released new versions with new features, and I believe one of them is tabbed browsing. So, when the Apple enhancements are merged into the mainstream version of KHTML, Apple will be free to use the latest version, which will include tabbed browsing. So, Safari will eventually get tabs anyway, making this petition (and this thread) a complete waste of time.

Not exactly. KHTML is the rendering engine used by the Konqueror web browser which tabbed browsing was recently added. Apple does not have to add tabbed browsing because tabbed browsing is not a feature of KHTML.

[Northwind]

Originally posted by curmi:
I'm reposting this from a post I've made on the Apple support forums.

I know a lot of people who have used tabbed browsers really want tabs. I agree - tabs make things a lot easier to work with, and if you don't like them you don't have to use them.

However, I feel OS X can do something better than tabs - something more OS X like, taking advantage of OS X features that aren't available (easily) on other operating systems.

I'd like to propose instead that a "tabbed" system use a drawer with small screen shots - like in Preview. This helps you to visually see the content of the window (maybe even when it is loaded if these are dynamic).

Here is a mockup I've done:

http://homepage.mac.com/curmi/.Pictu...bbedsafari.jpg

If you don't want to use tabbed browsing, don't open the drawer and it behaves like it does now.

The problem with tabs is that they only show text, where the web is both a visual and text tool. Also, they bunch up if you have a half dozen or so open - and you can't read the text anyway. You end up having to either start a new window, or add scrollbars to the tabs which is ugly and not a usual mac UI paradigm.

An interface along these lines would make Safari the most advanced browser around, and show more Apple innovation.

And I'd sign a petition for an innovative feature like this.

While I am personally not particularly impressed with tabbed browsing (I think tabs are extremely overused in UI), I have to admit that this idea is pretty hip.

Unfortuantely, the tabbed browsing folks won't stand for it, because their usual claim is that they need tabs because of lack of screen real estate. A drawer would actually take up more screen space. Perhaps if there was an option to use either drawer or tabs. Then even I would use it. Maybe.