For Tabbed Browsing And Other New Tricks, Try Explorer's Rivals
Grok Headline matches for For Tabbed Browsing And Other New Tricks, Try Explorer's Rivals
Explorer's rivals allow for tabbed
browsing
Explorer's rivals allow for tabbed
browsing
01/11/2004 07:12 PMIt 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 ...
Tabbed Browsing
Tabbed Browsing
03/11/2003 09:44 AMI'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."
IE's Tabbed Browsing Embarrassment
IE's Tabbed Browsing Embarrassment
06/17/2005 04:33 PMAsa 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 PMMossberg praises Safari's tabbed
browsing
Mossberg praises Safari's tabbed
browsing
01/08/2004 07:17 PMIn his Personal Technology column for The Wall Street Journal today,
Walt Mossberg discusses "tabbed" browsing on both the Mac and Windows
platforms...
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..."
Macintosh Explorer adds tabbed file
browsing
Macintosh Explorer adds tabbed file
browsing
07/21/2004 02:51 PMRage Software has released Macintosh Explorer 4.1, an update to the
US$15.95 integrated file browser and file management tool...
Tabbed Browsing, Stop Browser Hijackers,
Set Up a Spycam
Tabbed Browsing, Stop Browser Hijackers,
Set Up a Spycam
08/03/2004 04:11 AMG4 Tech TV Aug 3 2004 8:20AM GMT
2004: Internet Explorer's year of shame
2004: Internet Explorer's year of shame
07/09/2004 05:09 AMZDNet UK Jul 9 2004 9:46AM GMT
Bonus Tip: Move Within Internet
Explorer's Address Bar
Bonus Tip: Move Within Internet
Explorer's Address Bar
07/08/2004 08:26 PMG4 Tech TV Jul 9 2004 0:50AM GMT
CSS Support Could Be Internet Explorer's
Weakest Link
CSS Support Could Be Internet Explorer's
Weakest Link
03/19/2005 03:05 AMSources say that Microsoft's pending browser release still won't
provide full compliance with a key Web standard; some developers and
users say they're not pleased.
Crackers Unleash Spyware Tactics on
Internet Explorer's Holes
Crackers Unleash Spyware Tactics on
Internet Explorer's Holes
07/03/2004 05:29 AMNewshub.com - Sat Jul 3, 12:15 am GMT
IE 7 - Tabbed
IE 7 - Tabbed
06/05/2005 11:33 PMMac Tip: Safari Gets Tabbed
Mac Tip: Safari Gets Tabbed
09/25/2004 09:55 AMG4 Tech TV Sep 25 2004 2:17PM GMT
Edward C. Baig: Personal Tech - Tired of
Internet Explorer's risks? Try one of
these browsers (USATODAY.com)
Edward C. Baig: Personal Tech - Tired of
Internet Explorer's risks? Try one of
these browsers (USATODAY.com)
07/08/2004 10:28 AMUSATODAY.com - The Web browser nearly everyone uses has gaping
security holes. That's why security experts are recommending people
ditch Microsoft's Internet Explorer and seek an alternate browser.
Tabbed Window Managers
Tabbed Window Managers
01/10/2003 06:58 PMPWM 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 AMThanks 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...
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."
...
Web Browsing on Your PSP
Web Browsing on Your PSP
03/27/2005 10:46 AM
Browsing for Alternatives
Browsing for Alternatives
08/19/2004 09:51 AM
Direct and Related Links for ' Browsing for
Alternatives'
“Following the discovery that several major financial
institutions’ Web sites were being used to spread an Internet
Explorer exploit, The Register ran the story, “CERT recommends
anything but IE.” CERT’s point is that enterprises and
individual users can reduce their risk exposure by using browsers that
aren’t as susceptible to Web-based exploits. So, why are we
giving malware writers easy targets? Why aren’t we switching to
more secure browsers? When Robert Morris released his famous…
Browsing at Google
Browsing at Google
09/22/2004 09:59 AM
The rumors about Google becoming a Web browser begin to swirl in
earnest.
An Archaeology of Browsing...
An Archaeology of Browsing...
02/17/2004 10:30 PM
So here's a weird sensation. I'm trying to install a Photoshop
upgrade at two in the morning, because i'm jetlagged and can't
concentrate on work but can't sleep either so I'm procrastinating. And
in order to install said upgrade I'm going to have to restart my
browser. So I start the process of closing down windows and tabs and
adding them to a little bookmarks stash and I'm about forty-five tabs
down (and about half-way through the process) when I start finding
clumps of windows that I opened during presentations at ETCon. One
browser window is full tabs stuffed with ubicomp and networked objects
sites, another is full of robot-related material. As I grab the URLs
and stuff them in a folder for later, I start to realise how clearly I
remember navigating to each of the sites and how I'd determined to
keep them for later. Suddenly I'm back in the auditoria, next to Phil and Paul keeping notes and
listening for the hum of the infinity of extension cords that litter
the carpet around us.
If they'd all been hand-outs, I'd have them in my hands - little
grubby bits of paper stacked in piles here and there, clogging up bags
and boxes and bookcases. Every so often I'd glance inside them to find
one thing in particular and a wave of nostalgia and association would
fill my head. That is - at least - until I finally snapped and threw
them all away. Now until this point I'd always assumed that the web
was getting rid of interactions like that - that our relationships to
sites were transitory and fleeting - but now I'm not so sure. The act
of "saving" and the act of "having open" are gradually merging and I
can foresee a time when I haven't closed my browser in months rather
than weeks and in which I've managed to accumulate thousands of open
windows across a whole range of applications. The stuff near the
surface will be the stuff I've been working on recently, but I'll be
able to do an archaeology of my own browsing when I'm bored and filter
through the collected papers, throwing away the things that no longer
have any relevance to my life. Will we start wanting to transfer
documents in their open states between computers when we upgrade? Will
we expect a computer desktop to be as persistent and never-changing as
a wooden one? When someone famous dies, will the biographer go through
their enormous accumulated browser cache to find out what they were
interested in five or ten years ago?
Read the comments
Opera browsing, as seen on TV
Opera browsing, as seen on TV
09/09/2004 08:43 PM
Opera Software releases a new version of its browser, aimed at viewing
Web pages on TV.
Browsing the Web? Not Anymore
Browsing the Web? Not Anymore
07/09/2004 04:50 PM
I can't remember the last time I actually browsed the Web. You know,
just sort of aimlessly following links in the hopes of encountering
something unique or interesting. (I'm also glad that idea of calling
it "surfing" seems to have become less popular.) Between the few sites
I visit daily to get things done, links that come in via e-mail, and
the various weblogs and news feeds I guess I'm spending enough time in
my browser already. It's a far...
The pleasures of browsing
The pleasures of browsing
07/19/2004 09:53 AM
I don't know Debbie Davidson, but I went to her LiveJournal blog
because she dropped me a line about something I'd written. Thumbing
through the entries, you not only get dropped into the stream of her
life, but you find stories like this one about how 9/11 intersected
the lives of several of her friends. We just haven't had anything
quite like this before....
Turn tabbed preference panes into
individual panes
Turn tabbed preference panes into
individual panes
04/15/2004 11:43 AM
Various system preference panes in Panther contain tabs. For example,
the International panel consists of three tabs: Language, Formats,
Input Menu. If you'd find it more convenient to access these panels
separately, you can ...
Python Browsing Probe 0.3.0
Python Browsing Probe 0.3.0
07/07/2004 12:59 AM
A shell-like interpreter/Web browser for creating test scripts.
Google Goes Browsing By Name (PC World)
Google Goes Browsing By Name (PC World)
07/15/2004 08:54 AM
PC World - Toolbar now lets users navigate the Web without using URLs.
Browsing will be nicer under Longhorn --
but how?
Browsing will be nicer under Longhorn --
but how?
12/30/2003 01:32 AM
Robert Scoble: “Using a Web browser on Longhorn will be far nicer
than using it on Windows XP.” How so? This wasn't addressed at
Microsoft's PDC. Robert won't say yet....
Faster Browsing Tips
Faster Browsing Tips
08/12/2004 05:04 PM
WebDevInfo Aug 12 2004 8:01PM GMT
Python Browsing Probe 0.2.0
Python Browsing Probe 0.2.0
05/12/2004 06:45 PM
A shell-like interpreter/Web browser for creating test scripts.
Python Browsing Probe 0.2.1
Python Browsing Probe 0.2.1
05/17/2004 04:36 PM
A shell-like interpreter/Web browser for creating test scripts.
Python Browsing Probe 0.1.0
Python Browsing Probe 0.1.0
05/08/2004 07:35 AM
A shell-like interpreter/Web browser for creating test scripts.
Python Browsing Probe 0.2.2
Python Browsing Probe 0.2.2
05/21/2004 04:06 PM
A shell-like interpreter/Web browser for creating test scripts.
oscommerce 2.2 file_manager.php file
browsing
oscommerce 2.2 file_manager.php file
browsing
05/17/2004 05:58 PM
Rene (May 17 2004)
Amazon Search Bar Will Track Your
Browsing
Amazon Search Bar Will Track Your
Browsing
04/17/2004 11:21 AM
Beyond browsing: Tools for the advanced
Web surfer
Beyond browsing: Tools for the advanced
Web surfer
06/26/2002 01:00 PM
ZDNet Jun 25 2002 0:07AM ET
AOL Testing Mobile Browsing, Search
AOL Testing Mobile Browsing, Search
04/14/2005 03:07 PM
On the heels of Google adding local capabilities to its mobile search,
AOL has begun beta testing its own mobile service that offers full
Internet search queries, information on local interests and shopping
destinations. Users simply add the AOL Mobile Search URL into their
phone and they can begin to browse full Web sites.
Grok Description matches for For Tabbed Browsing And Other New Tricks, Try Explorer's Rivals
GrokA matches for For Tabbed Browsing And Other New Tricks, Try Explorer's Rivals
What's up with Abe Simpson?
What's up with Abe Simpson?
04/14/2005 10:21 AM
For the last few days I've been rotating Abe Simpson through
Scripting News. I've been asked what this means. Here's what it means.
Nothing.
Is it a comment on the post it's next to? No. Is it related?
Only in that it's next to it. Why do you do it? I like it. ";->"
I like to put the picture next to a big post with lots of text
that needs a little visual relief. Since Abe is my favorite Simpson's
character, and I want to see what he looks like from every angle,
that's where I'm going for visual relief, these days, in April 2005. Next month it'll be something else.
The issue of who's my favorite Simpson was raised in a radio interview with Brad Bird, one of the producers, who
said that Krusty the
Clown is his favorite. Krusty's good, but no one is more soulfully pathetic than Grandpa Abe Simpson.
Ashlee Simpson
Ashlee Simpson
03/19/2005 02:56 AM
Can Ashlee Simpson get any
worse? Who knows? But it appears that at least one critic has had it with her lack of talent.
Because this is America, we have dueling petitions seeking to encourage
her to continue or push her
off the stage for good.
Playing favorites?
Playing favorites?
07/28/2004 11:41 AM
USA Today Jul 28 2004 3:47PM GMT
Planet Simpson
Planet Simpson
04/08/2005 05:13 PM
"Bartholomew J. Simpson"
"Bartholomew J. Simpson"
11/14/2003 10:56 PM
7,000 Sources... Or Just A Few
Favorites?
7,000 Sources... Or Just A Few
Favorites?
08/02/2004 05:29 PM
For all the hype about how good Google News is for putting together an
automated snapshot of the news of the day, an analysis of the front
page of Google News found that they
seem to rely on just a few sources for all of their main stories.
Looking at the "top two" placement spots on Google news, Reuters
accounts for 18% of their stories at the top of the list, with the NY
Times in second place with 8% of top stories on Google News. Totaled
up, the top 5 sources account for an astounding 48% of the top two
stories on the front page. The top 10 sources are 66%. Top 25? 83%
Top 100 sources covers 98% of the news you see. So, those other 6,900
sources don't seem to get much play. If you go through the other
(below the top two results), the situation only improves marginally.
The top 100 sources account for 80% of the stories on the front page.
There are, of course, many reasons why this would make sense. The top
sources are (generally) more reliable and trustworthy. Besides,
considering the number of "news" websites out there who only reprint
press releases, Reuters, or Associated Press articles, there really
aren't that many traditional news sources out there any more. Still,
it would be interesting to compare these results to other news
aggregation sites. This weekend, for instance, Microsoft admitted
that their new Newsbot offering has been designed to favor stories from partner MSNBC (and MSNBC does not appear
to make the "top 20" list for Google News). Meanwhile, Topix has relaunched their
own news aggregation service (also with 7,000 sources) and a quick
glance over the front page there
suggests a somewhat wider variety in news sources chosen. So, the
question is whether or not this really matters? Does having a wider
variety of sources highlighted increase, decrease or not impact the
overall quality of the news aggregated?
Kwiki-Favorites-0.10
Kwiki-Favorites-0.10
06/26/2004 10:49 AM
Saving Favorites from Regedit
Saving Favorites from Regedit
07/07/2004 04:44 AM
Tom Waits picks his favorites
Tom Waits picks his favorites
03/22/2005 04:44 PM
20 most cherished albums with characteristically surreal commentary
O.J. Simpson Says Media Convicted Him
(AP)
O.J. Simpson Says Media Convicted Him
(AP)
06/04/2004 05:21 PM
AP - O.J. Simpson complained Friday that the media have convinced the
public he is guilty, and he said he hopes the real killer is found so
that he can have the pleasure of proving people wrong.
O.J. Simpson says media convicted him
O.J. Simpson says media convicted him
06/04/2004 08:18 PM
Homer Simpson Computer Key Car
Homer Simpson Computer Key Car
06/24/2005 06:19 PM
Xeni Jardin:
Following up on
an earlier post about a neat car I spotted in LA covered in a
mosaic of computer keys -- a Boing Boing reader sends better snapshots
of that car, and of other keyboardmobiles by the same creator. One of
them bears Homer Simpson's mug on its front hood.
Link
to flickr gallery. J-Walk blog phonecammed some of these cars in LA,
too: Lin
k. (Thanks, Sean Bonner, and
fattymarmot!).
Previously on Boing Boing:
Car covered in computer keys
Yahoo Plays Favorites
Yahoo Plays Favorites
06/03/2004 05:26 AM
When it comes to blocking intrusive Internet software, Yahoo
Inc.’s new Anti-Spy gives adware the benefit of the doubt. The
beta version of the spyware-fighting toolbar add-on, which Yahoo
released last week, doesn’t default to detect adware—a category
of software in which Yahoo’s paid search division has a
financial stake. Instead, users who want to identify adware in their
systems via Anti-Spy must check a box each time they conduct a
scan.Read more…This article is a eye-opener. I find it really
interesting that Yahoo’s business represents 31% of
Claria’s (the adware/spyware company formerly known as Gator)
income. I think that this speaks volumes about Yahoo’s ethics,
if nothing else.
Top Tip: Cannot delete links from
favorites!
Top Tip: Cannot delete links from
favorites!
06/07/2004 12:29 PM
I all of a suddne noticed about 11 favorites in my favorites drop menu
that I did not put there. They are in generic folders and have
generic names such as: travel, cars, hotels, games,entertainment,
music , healt and fitness, etc. I right click on them and delete them
and they go to the re-cycle bin. After a re-start they are right back
again. Any help will be greatly apreciated
Retrieving the List of IE Favorites
Retrieving the List of IE Favorites
06/13/2004 04:52 PM
For Tabbed Browsing And Other New Tricks, Try Explorer's Rivals
