Mossberg praises Safari's tabbed browsing

Grok Headline matches for Mossberg praises Safari's tabbed browsing

Tabbed Browsing

Tabbed Browsing 03/11/2003 09:44 AM

I've seen a lot of comments in various Mac forums where people have claimed that "Dave Hyatt said he doesn't like tabbed browsing!" or "Dave Hyatt hates tabbed browsing!" I find these posts perplexing, because I never said any such thing, and of course the opposite is true. I love tabbed browsing. I implemented tabbrowser in the Mozilla trunk. I implemented tabbed browsing in Chimera. I implemented the version used in Phoenix. Given how many times I've implemented it, I'm amazed that people would think that I am not a tabbed browsing devotee.

That said, I wanted to express some of my thoughts about the various UI decisions one has to make when designing a tabbed browsing system.

Target Audience

I think the most important question you have to answer before designing a multi-page system is "Who is my target audience?" In the case of Phoenix the target audience is experts and power users. I do not believe that tabs serve any useful purpose for novice users, because novice users don't ever use multiple views of Web data. They just browse from page to page.

The classic novice user Web setup is to have Windows IE maximized with the sidebar open. That kind of user simply doesn't need tabs. Tabs are total overkill for what that person wants to do with his/her Web browser.

That is why I think ideas like this, although extremely pretty, seem to be targeting an audience that IMO doesn't exist. A power user doesn't want thumbnails, since they wouldn't be easily distinguishable anyway once you opened several tabs, the overflow mechanism for such a system would be clumsy (or would use too much space, scrollbar anyone?), and you lose too much horizontal real estate. Sure, it's got a neat initial "whizzy" factor to it, but it's simply not as usable or as scalable as the classic tab strip model.

Bookmark Groups vs. Folder Options

This is something I've implemented three different ways in Phoenix, Mozilla, and Chimera. In both Chimera and Mozilla the bookmark group is a special entity that you have to make by taking a tab snapshot. I now hate this idea. The implementation is to just have a tagged special folder that when clicked loads all the bookmarks in tabs, a sort of one-click clustered loading. This complicates bookmark management and viewing, since you now have this third kind of entity along with regular folders and bookmarks.

I much prefer the system we came up with for Phoenix, which is borrowed somewhat from Opera. In this system, folder submenus pick up an extra "Open in Tabs" menu item, and you can just load any folder's children in tabs. No special new kind of bookmark group, and no special means required for creating bookmark groups. You just work with folders and can now load a single page of a group by drilling into a folder, or load all the pages in a group.

With the Chimera way, you'd end up having a Blogs group, and then you'd also have to bookmark individual blogs for when you didn't want to load the group. You had needless replication that is avoided by just making the operation available on folders instead.

Replace vs. Append?

When doing clustered loading, we took two approaches. One can be seen in Mozilla, and I personally hate it. The other can be seen in Phoenix and is my favorite choice. Mozilla actually appends the tabs loaded by a bookmark group to the end of the tabbed list. This means that if you click first on a News group and load tabs 1-5 and then click on a Blogs group, you'll end up with new tabs 6-10.

In Phoenix, you replace instead, so the News tabs go away and are replaced by tabs 6-10. The argument for append is basically that you end up with potential data loss in that you may lose access to the previous tabs by closing up some of the ones you replaced, e.g., if the second group has fewer tabs than the first. This is of course a solvable problem, though, and doesn't justify changing the default behavior to append.

Position of Tabs inside the Tab Strip

Chimera centers tabs within the tab strip. Everyone else puts them on the left. The only reason Chimera does this is because I couldn't figure out how to use the normal tab widget to make the tabs be left-aligned. Center-alignment for a dynamic tab system is of course awful, since for every tab you open, all of the tabs move.

It's much better to avoid moving all of the tabs around when a single new tab opens, and left-aligning the tabs inside the tab strip makes for a much less jarring experience.

Where do new tabs open?

A highly debated issue with tabs is "Where should new tabs open?" NetCaptor and the old Chimera (in early versions) use the following model. If you click to open a link in a new tab, then the new page will open just to the right of the current tab. Links will continue to open to the right if you keep opening them, so you may have a setup like this:

1 2 3 4

where 2 is the active tab, and you then open three more links from 2 and end up with:

1 2 7 6 5 3 4

The advantage of this approach is that similar pages stay together. The disadvantage is that the opening of new tabs is more jarring, since you do an insertion in many cases rather than an append.

A disadvantage is that you have to read the pages from right to left in order to preserve the original order. Because of this, when you *close* tabs, this model dictates that you move to the left.

You do have the advantage that when you finish with the child links, you conveniently end up back at the original document as you close up tabs.

The second model, and the one I favor (used in Phoenix, Chimera, and Mozilla now) is to always open new tabs on the far right. Usability testing at AOL showed that this was far and away what users expected to happen, and it lends a smoothness to the tab opening process, since you never move any other tabs.

You also get to read links from left to right instead of right to left, e.g., the previous example would result in:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

In this model, in order to be able to browse the links you open effectively, when tabs are closed you need to move to the right. Note that when you finish with child links, you don't end up back at the previous page in this case, but in the common case, you do. Note that by far the common case is to simply have:

1

and that you'll open a few links, end up with:

1 2 3 4

and still end up back at 1 once you close up. The ability to easily read left to right, and to not shuffle the tabs around on the tab strip when you open new links more than makes up for the edge case where you may not end up back at the parent tab.

Close Boxes

I actually prefer Galeon's behavior here. Phoenix and Mozilla offer close boxes for the tab strip, but this UI frankly stinks, because the user expectation is that clicking on the X will actually close up the entire tab strip. In effect, the X should map to the "Close Other Tabs" command, but instead it maps to "Close Selected Tab." This is utterly confusing, and at least Chimera avoids the problem by not having a close box at all.

The right way IMO to do this is to have a close box for closing up the tab strip itself in the same place Phoenix and Mozilla have it, but to also have close boxes on the tabs themselves (the way Galeon does it). With this model, it's clear what the different close metaphors are, and you don't end up with user (even power user) confusion.

Background vs. Foreground

Despite the inconsistency with opening links in new windows, I strongly support the default in Phoenix, which is to open links in new tabs in the background by default. This option should be overridable with a modifier key (SHIFT in Phoenix) and also the default should be controllable via a pref. Phoenix, Moz and Chimera all have the same pref and modifier key, but only Phoenix defaults to background loading by default.

It's really interesting just how many different choices have been made by tabbed browsing implementers. Pick the browser that implements the system you like best I guess. :)

New MSN toolbar with tabbed browsing

New MSN toolbar with tabbed browsing 06/17/2005 05:11 PM
"Want to keep more than one website open at a time, but tired of managing multiple Internet Explorer windows? Tabbed browsing lets you have multiple pages open in a single Internet Explorer window."

Explorer's rivals allow for tabbed
browsing

Explorer's rivals allow for tabbed
browsing 01/11/2004 07:12 PM
It has a built-in popup blocker and a built-in Google search box that spares you the need to navigate to the Google Web site. There's ...

IE's Tabbed Browsing Embarrassment

IE's Tabbed Browsing Embarrassment 06/17/2005 04:33 PM
Asa is smacking someone on the IE team pretty hard today: It's obviously a hack that's actually based on new windows for each tab. I can crash it at will. It's so flickery as to be completely unusable. It's filled with serious dataloss bugs. It's just crap, plain and simple. Anyone that makes any excuse for this embarrassment, please trackback me because I'm very interested in hearing how anyone can defend it. Yikes. At least there's a semi-amusing trail of...

"Homer Simpson uses tabbed browsing"

"Homer Simpson uses tabbed browsing" 12/19/2004 03:21 PM

IE7 Leaks Talk of Tabbed Browsing and
RSS Aggregator

IE7 Leaks Talk of Tabbed Browsing and
RSS Aggregator 03/19/2005 02:43 AM
"... tabbed browsing, an integrated news aggregator, full PNG transparency support..."

For Tabbed Browsing And Other New
Tricks, Try Explorer's Rivals

For Tabbed Browsing And Other New
Tricks, Try Explorer's Rivals 01/09/2004 09:57 PM
By Walter S. Mossberg (Wall Street Journal via MyAppleMenu)

Tabbed Browsing, Stop Browser Hijackers,
Set Up a Spycam

Tabbed Browsing, Stop Browser Hijackers,
Set Up a Spycam 08/03/2004 04:11 AM
G4 Tech TV Aug 3 2004 8:20AM GMT

Macintosh Explorer adds tabbed file
browsing

Macintosh Explorer adds tabbed file
browsing 07/21/2004 02:51 PM
Rage Software has released Macintosh Explorer 4.1, an update to the US$15.95 integrated file browser and file management tool...

IE 7 - Tabbed

IE 7 - Tabbed 06/05/2005 11:33 PM

Mac Tip: Safari Gets Tabbed

Mac Tip: Safari Gets Tabbed 09/25/2004 09:55 AM
G4 Tech TV Sep 25 2004 2:17PM GMT

Tabbed Window Managers

Tabbed Window Managers 01/10/2003 06:58 PM
PWM and Fluxbox are tabbed window managers for X11. I kinda like Fluxbox, need to play with it some more......

MSN Bookmark Manager & Tabbed MSN
Search Coming Soon?

MSN Bookmark Manager & Tabbed MSN
Search Coming Soon? 03/17/2005 03:44 AM
Thanks to Sam1504 for the heads up

MSN is currently working on "MSN Favorites" allowing users to do the following:

HTML and IE based service for roaming favorites

Drag & Drop Favorites link from almost any page, link or URL

Word Wheeling through favorites

‘Suggest More’ searches from Favorites and Word Wheeling

Tabbed Search results

Saved Searches as Favorites

Roaming favorites is a great addition to Microsoft's MSN Services and will allow users to fully store and reference search queries and favorite sites anywhere and easily.

View: MSN Favorites

It seems Microsoft's MSN department is busy developing a tabbed version of MSN Search for use inside web browsers.

With the tabbed interface becoming more popular Microsoft are clearly considering its uses across a range of products. Later this summer Microsoft will release Internet Explorer 7 with tabbed browsing and it's expected that MSN Search with the tabbed interface will be launched later this year too.

View: MSN Tabbed Search
News source: Neowin's BPN

Read full story...

"Safari's new RSS reader"

"Safari's new RSS reader" 06/28/2004 08:15 PM

Mac OS X Hints: Open Safari to multiple
tabbed pages

Mac OS X Hints: Open Safari to multiple
tabbed pages 10/29/2003 02:19 AM
skatz13: "I wrote this script to allow the opening of multiple pages in tabs as the startup homepage. It may not be pretty, but it works." ...

" Walt Mossberg: Get a Mac"

" Walt Mossberg: Get a Mac" 09/18/2004 08:51 AM

Safari's cookie bug fixed

Safari's cookie bug fixed 03/19/2003 10:25 PM
Dave Hyatt reports: Maciej fixed the infamous cookie bug last night, so PHP-Nuke sites will now work properly. Quoting Maciej... I have a fix for the infamous PHP-Nuke login bug. It should be in the next release. Here's the short version: the Netscape cookie spec says when a cookie comes from a URL like "http://www.foo.com/user.php" and no path is explicitly specified, then the path should default to "/user.php". However, it actually needs to default to "/", because that's what all real browsers do. Don't you love the web? (from Surfin' Safari)

Walt Mossberg is down on the new
Smartphones

Walt Mossberg is down on the new
Smartphones 12/12/2003 11:34 AM
There have plenty of positive reviews of these elsewhere, but the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg doesn't have many good things to say about Samsung's...

Mossberg: To avoid viruses, get a Mac

Mossberg: To avoid viruses, get a Mac 09/16/2004 07:27 AM
Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal has written a column for Windows users today explaining how to protect themselves against the plethora of computer viruses going around these days...

Mac Night Owl interviews Mossberg

Mac Night Owl interviews Mossberg 09/24/2004 02:05 PM
The Wall Street Journal's Personal Technology columnist Walter S. Mossberg often muses on the Macintosh, iPod and Apple's latest doings -- recently he declared the iMac G5 "the most elegant desktop computer I've ever used." This week, The Mac Night Owl radio show will interview Mossberg. Also scheduled are Mac critic David Biedny and XM Satellite Radio VP Chance Patterson. The show is Webcast from 6:00PM to 8:00PM Pacific Time, 9:00 PM to 11:00 PM Eastern.

Mossberg on Wireless Audio

Mossberg on Wireless Audio 01/16/2004 11:01 AM
The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg reviews the Creative Technology Sound Blaster Wireless music system: Mossberg is very up on the device, which avoids some of the weaknesses of similar Wi-Fi-to-audio adapters by having its display built right into the remote control. (Mossberg complains about having to enter a hexadecimal encryption key into the Sound Blaster software to attach it to his protected network. He speaks for all home users when he writes, No normal consumer knows what "Hex" is, and companies should stop expecting them to use it. On the other hand, when he says that the key is rendered in an arcane and obscure kind of techie code called "Hexadecimal" he's just being crotchety. Hexadecimal is just base 16: 0 to 9 and the letters A to F. Fortunately, WPA will replace the hex-interfaced WEP system eventually.) I saw a similar device, Slim Devices's Squeezebox, at Macworld Expo last week. The Squeezebox has wired and wireless interfaces, a nice remote control, and a two-line bright LED display. It plays MP3, Ogg Vorbis, and WMA (among other formats) with the jukebox running on a Linux, Windows, or Mac system....

Mossberg: Seggin' With the Oldies

Mossberg: Seggin' With the Oldies 05/04/2004 03:12 PM
I wonder who Walter Mossberg had to metaphorically, orally copulate with to get this glistening, oral copulation metaphor of a piece in the latest Wired Magazine. Did you know that Mossberg once dined with Kings and Presidents, but gave it all up to review dork watches and TurboTax? Did you...

Create eparators for Safari's Bookmarks
bar

Create eparators for Safari's Bookmarks
bar 07/20/2004 09:42 AM
If you've customized the toolbars in Cocoa applications such as Apple Mail, you're probably familiar with the separator item that you can place on the toolbar to divide it into categories. It would be great to have a similar ...

A URL shortcut to Safari's bookmark
manager

A URL shortcut to Safari's bookmark
manager 09/23/2004 11:08 AM
I'm using Safari 1.2 (v125) on Mac OS X Version 10.3.5. If I type bookmarks: (include the colon!) in the address bar, I'm taken to Safari's bookmark manager. Without the colon, I'm taken to http://www.bookmarks.com.

Create separators for Safari's Bookmarks
bar

Create separators for Safari's Bookmarks
bar 07/20/2004 11:25 PM
If you've customized the toolbars in Cocoa applications such as Apple Mail, you're probably familiar with the separator item that you can place on the toolbar to divide it into categories. It would be great to have a similar ...

Safari's Table-Copying Behavior

Safari's Table-Copying Behavior 04/10/2005 12:18 PM

Safari's table-copying sucks. By Erik J. Barzeski, NSLog();

Yet another way to close Safari's
Preferences panel

Yet another way to close Safari's
Preferences panel 06/04/2004 10:50 AM
According to Safari's included keyboard shortcut list (in the Debug menu if you have it enabled, or via /Applications -> Safari.app -> (Control-click and Show Package Contents) Contents -> Resources -> Shortcuts.html), Comman...

Walt Mossberg: Gadget kingmaker

Walt Mossberg: Gadget kingmaker 05/04/2004 05:14 AM
Great Wired Mag profile of the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg, the granddaddy of gadget reviewers, who can snap your company's neck like a twig with one twitch of his mighty keyboard.

...when it debuted on October 17, 1991, "Personal Technology" was an immediate hit. Mossberg's voice, amplified by the power of the Journal, resonated like no other. In 1992, he recommended America Online, an also-ran with only 200,000 subscribers, over Prodigy, the leader with 1.8 million subscribers and powerful backers, including Sears and IBM. "Prodigy tried to get me fired," he recalls. Mossberg's endorsement "really helped put AOL on the map," admits founder Steve Case. "It turbocharged our growth."

Mossberg's proudest moment came in 2001, when he objected to Smart Tags, a feature he tested in a beta version of Windows XP. Smart Tags could turn any word on a Web page into a link to a Microsoft property or sponsor's site without consent from the site's author.

Link

Mossberg On iPod Imitators: Cheaper?
Yes. Better? No.

Mossberg On iPod Imitators: Cheaper?
Yes. Better? No. 02/12/2004 12:45 PM

Walt Mossberg like the iPod Mini

Walt Mossberg like the iPod Mini 02/11/2004 12:07 PM
Walt Mossbertg, the technology columnist at a little paper called the Wall Street Journal reviews the new iPo mini, and over all he likes it. Of course, he would like it a lot more if it were $50 cheaper, a common complaint and one I am sure Apple will address as for price of those cute Mini harddrives goes down. Of particular note is this little tidbit:

In fact, the latest version of iTunes even senses if you have a Mini, and if your song collection exceeds its capacity, the software can optionally auto-choose a selection of songs that will fit. It builds this selection, in part, based on which songs you've played most often or most recently, and which you've rated highest in iTunes.

This is the first I have heard of this feature, and I must say it is pretty cool.

Mossberg weighs in on iPod clones

Mossberg weighs in on iPod clones 10/29/2003 10:17 AM
Popular technology columnist Walt Mossberg has written an interesting article today about the overwhelming success of Apple's iPod, and how some recently released "clones" stack up against the most popular portable music player on the market...

Mossberg on Apple's iPod Mini

Mossberg on Apple's iPod Mini 02/11/2004 09:37 AM
Walt Mossberg, columnist for The Wall Street Journal, has written an article today largely praising Apple's new iPod Mini...

Avoid a bug in Safari's downloaded file
handling

Avoid a bug in Safari's downloaded file
handling 07/20/2004 09:42 AM
This is not so much a hint as it is a bug in Safari. When you option click a link in Safari, the browser starts to download that link. I use this well-known method to download images from my family members' websites. Safari h...

A script to close Safari's Downloads
window

A script to close Safari's Downloads
window 07/16/2004 11:50 AM
Here's a simple script to tell Safari's downloads window to close: tell application "Safari" repeat with w in windows if name of w is "Downloads" then set isdocument to true try set d to document of ...

Download items from Safari's Activity
window

Download items from Safari's Activity
window 04/16/2004 10:24 AM
After reading FunkDaddy's hint about using Option and Return for downloading files from the Safari address bar, I thought I'd try it with the Activity window. When I tried holding Option and double clicking an item in the Act...

10.4: Open Safari's WhereFrom URLs in
the Finder

10.4: Open Safari's WhereFrom URLs in
the Finder 06/22/2005 02:23 AM
As noted in an earlier hint, Tiger has added the "Where From:" field to downloaded files. Unfortunately there is no easy way to open these unselectable URLs in Safari. This script solves that problem by popping up a window ...

Increase Safari's page loading speed

Increase Safari's page loading speed 05/19/2004 10:30 AM
Dave Hyatt made a post on his blog that describes a timer that Safari uses before it starts displaying any content. Supposedly the algorithm will be changed with the next release of Safari, but for now, you can still decrease...

Changing Safari's default search engine

Changing Safari's default search engine 05/04/2004 09:13 PM
Hi Mac fans,

I just released a new version of SockhoEasyFind 1.5.

Replace text with icons on Safari's
bookmark bar

Replace text with icons on Safari's
bookmark bar 03/13/2003 10:23 AM
The following hint was emailed to me by macosxhints reader close2me, and I found it interesting enough to write up and post with additional detail. Want to get more sites on your Safari bookmark bar? Or are you more of an i...
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Mossberg praises Safari's tabbed browsing

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