programming and human factors
by Jeff Atwood
Cyrus Najmabadi* hates tabs in web browsers:
Ok, I seriously don't get tabs on Windows. Hell, I don't get tabs on OSX either. In the latter there's a great system called Expos, and in the former the taskbar does the job. Once I start using tabs, things go all to hell. On OSX, I can't tell which FireFox/Safari window has the tab I want (since it's too small). In Windows I find myself scanning the taskbar for a site I was looking at, but I can't find it because the taskbar only lists the currently active tab. This makes it so difficult to actually find the site I want and it ends up being far slower than just having a window available for each site.
Initially I disagreed with Cyrus. However broken tabbed browsing may be, it's still a better solution than any of the existing alternatives. For example, Microsoft's own flagship Office suite, even today, suffers from some highly inconsistent, bizarre pseudo-MDI behavior for multiple documents. I'll take simple, reliable tabs over oddball MDI any day. No contest.
Lately I'm starting to come around to Cyrus' way of thinking. I don't hate tabbed interfaces-- yet-- but I definitely see what Cyrus was talking about. Tabs are increasingly the source of two aggravating mistakes for me:
In a tabbed interface, it's difficult to see anything except the active tab at any given time. Tabbed interfaces obscure as much as they organize. Tabs are great in moderation, but once they become a keystone navigational technique of your core applications, something peculiar happens. As Cyrus so aptly said, "once I start using tabs [extensively], things go all to hell."
Allow me to illustrate with an example. Let's say I want to check my GMail account, which I do frequently throughout the day. It's likely I already have GMail running, somewhere, so job #1 is to find it.
First, I scan the text in the taskbars. I use UltraMon, so each of my three monitors has its own distinct taskbar, summarizing every window on that monitor.
But I don't see the word "GMail" in any of the three taskbars.
Next, I press ALT+TAB-- the poor man's Expos-- and scan through thumbnails of all the windows I have open. Do I see anything that looks like GMail?
No. I don't see the distinctive look of the GMail user interface in any of those thumbnails. I've actually enlarged the Alt+Tab thumbnail size via registry tweaks, so this is as good as it gets for visibility. Squinting doesn't help.
The Alt+Tab dialog only uses the primary monitor, even though I have a three-monitor configuration. But we can harness the entire screen area of all the monitors if we install the amazing Switcher. I have Switcher mapped to Windows+Tab, replacing the incredibly lame Flip3D. This is functionally identical to the OSX Expose that Cyrus mentioned. Now can I find GMail?
No. Even with the additional resolution of Switcher across all three monitors, I don't see GMail in any of the windows. At this point I would usually launch the URL using the keyboard entry area of the Vista Start Menu. I could use the fancy Start++ add-in to make this easier, but the vanilla Vista menu works well enough.
But wait! I actually had GMail open already. I've made a mistake.. again. I have two copies of GMail running now. Did you see it? Here, let me show you:
That muddy, tiny little morass of pixels is the only visual indication that I already had GMail running as a tab in an existing browser instance. It's not in the taskbar, it's hardly visible at all in the small Alt+Tab screenshot, and you'd need the Six Million Dollar Man's bionic eye to see that barely visible tab in Expose, I mean, Switcher.
The depressing thing is that it's usually faster to mindlessly launch a new browser than it is to go through this tedious routine of playing Where's Waldo with (n) browsers and (n) tabs. And that's what I often do. But it bothers me.
Let me be very clear-- I like tabs. I think they're a far better option than the terrible MDI-alike alternatives. But I also think tabbed interfaces present some pretty severe navigational problems of their own. In the above example, if GMail had been in its own browser window, I could have found it instantly by looking in the taskbar, or at worst, by visually selecting it from even a smallish thumbnail image. Because GMail was in a tab, I wasted my time trying to find it, and I wasted even more time needlessly launching another browser. And this isn't an isolated incident. This happens to me every day. More times than I'd care to admit.
So how can we fix this? How can we integrate tabs with the existing navigational features of the operating system, such as the taskbar, and Expose? I keep coming back to search as the dominant computing metaphor. The only thing I can think of is a plain-text search facility where I type "Gmail", and the OS would automatically highlight that tab (or window) and bring it to the front. That presupposes a very high level of integration between the application tabs and the operating system, however.
Despite the undeniable convenience of tabs for grouping and organizing related topics together in a single browser instance, I feel like tabs create as many problems for me as they solve. I wish I could "tear off" tabs into standalone windows on demand, too. That might be a reasonable workaround in the meantime.
* whatever happened to Cyrus? The last entry on his blog is two years old, and I can't find hide nor hair of him via internet searches. It's a shame, because I thoroughly enjoyed his blog.
Listen to the smart people who tell you Opera is the way to go, or wait another 3-5 years until Firefox/IE steal Opera's window+tab management functions and proclaim they were the first to invent it.
I cannot understand people who use something other than Opera (except if it's for debugging stuff, where Firebug comes really handy).
Johnny Guitar on September 7, 2007 2:42 AMOkay, I disagree with your (Jeff's) assessment of the usefulness of tabs because I work differently than he does, but I'll suspend that for a second.
What I don't get is why you make a huge jump to suggest a search-based windowing interface. You've gone from a quick, visual inspection issue to one requiring metadata, indexing, and a host of other issues (SEO?).
Wouldn't it be a better solution to your visual problem to wish for someone to make an extension that busts tabs out ala Expose while you alt-tab? If we're suggesting interfaces why not one that fits to your problem domain (the problem of visually finding what you want when it's hidden)?
Or perhaps someone could produce an extension for Firefox that merely lists the URLs during an alt-tab inspection? But searching as a solution here seems way off.
Josh Peters on September 7, 2007 2:46 AMI use the firefox minimize to tray extension to make certain windows in firefox that are always open go to the tray. That way if I need to open gmail or pandora I know where to look for it. It's in the tray.
Beyond that I think browser windows work best when used to group a certain task. I might have one window where all the tabs are news articles I intend to read, another for documentation on a project, and another for another task. That way It acts almost like a tree format. If I'm looking for one particular page I know what category it's in and start by finding the browser window it fits into then I search the tabs.
And even after firefox and IE copy it, they can only do so at 2x or 4x the load times.
Kevin Nisbet on September 7, 2007 2:48 AMJeff, I totally agree with you. I've run into many of the same problems.
I think that tabs are just a way of overcoming some of the limitations of the overlapping window and taskbar model. Maybe the answer is not to rethink tabs, but to rethink overlapping windows? I wrote a post on my blog about this: http://dubroy.com/blog/2007/09/07/rethinking-overlapping-windows/
Patrick D on September 7, 2007 3:00 AMYou are fundamentally missing the point of tabs. The idea is to do just what you are complaining about: hide the specific list of contents in each window.
The "right" use of tabbed browsing, IMHO, is to separate context. In one window I have all the tabs related to a particular line of thought, in another set of tabs I have blog catchups, etc.
Why isn't gmail in it's own window? Seems like it should be it's own task. Taking part in a forum? Shouldn't that also be it's own window?
In my desktop, I rarely run across the issue you describe, because I have my windows divided (manually). The fly in the ointment is when I open a link from another application: it by default goes as a tab in one of the windows I have open, and most of the time that's the wrong window (simple odds). Thankfully with Safari 3 I can just drag the tab over to the "right" window.
In short, if you frequently finding yourself wondering if you have a particular site open and can not narrow your search down to even a subset of windows, it seems you have a workstyle issue, not a tabs/windows issue. You'd be JUST as lost with 75 tabs in your Windows task bar, where each tab has nothing visible other than the IE icon, or with IE windows all "grouped" into a list with no apparent or logical organization. Tabs can help you, if you use them right!
That all being said: one thing I'd LOVE to see is the ability to LABEL MY WINDOWS. I don't care nearly so much about the specific tab selected in a particular Safari window so much as I do that that window houses my blogs, and the other one is related to a particular forum I'm looking at, and the other one is LaTeX reference materials, and the other one has bug tracking, and the last is the company's development wiki. Instead, I have to guess the window designation based on the TITLE attribute of the particular tab which is frontmost! It's a bit insane and makes tabs less useful than they should be.
Tom Dibble on September 7, 2007 3:12 AMI think initial reports indicated that The Warriors had shot Cyrus.
Heh. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080120/
Switcher 2 -- http://lifehacker.com/software/featured-windows-download/manage-your-windows-with-switcher-2-296324.php
This is truly an excellent link-- looks like Switcher 2.0 will be a big improvement! However, to address the tab issue, the search function has to be extended to work inside the tabs-- or the tabs somehow exploded out temporarily so they are visible and clickable.
http://watchingapple.com/2007/05/more-on-leopard-windows-and-tabs/
Watching Apple, great link. That's *exactly* what I'm talking about. We could postpone this problem when tabs were rare, but now that tabs are everywhere, we definitely need a better way to deal with them.
The "right" use of tabbed browsing, IMHO, is to separate context
I agree. Unlike Visual Studio, there is no strong theme connecting any given browser tab to another. I'm three clicks away from opening a page about Kevin Bacon at any time.
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/the_problem_with_wikipedia.png
Sure, I should have discipline and not have the "wet t-shirt contest" and "william howard taft" pages open as tabs in the same browser, but the very nature of the internet makes this difficult.
Despite their problems, tabs are (usually) easier to deal with than full-blown windows. I'm starting to think the problem is the way windows themselves work..
http://watchingapple.com/2007/05/leopard-could-introduce-a-radical-change/
Jeff Atwood on September 7, 2007 3:12 AMFor some reason, my OS supports folders. Instead of just throwing every document I ever create or download into a simple "Documents" folder, it actually *encourages* me to make sub-folders based on some categorization and throw them there instead!
Logical hierarchies are a critical way the human mind operates. While the case might be made that most objects belong in multiple places in any given hierarchy, organizing and working off that organization can and should be second nature to a functioning adult.
If you have a hard time putting "gmail" into it's own window every time, how often do you lose your car keys? How do you ever find your Christmas decorations the next year? For that matter, how do you manage to dress yourself in the morning without ramsacking the entire house looking for a pair of socks?
It really just comes down to simple, mindless organization. I can guarantee you: if you put your mind to it, then you will be able to do it. I'd also wager that you'd spend less time training yourself to put gmail in its own window and operate with windows-as-tasks/tabs-as-details than you have already spent complaining about tabs!
Tom Dibble on September 7, 2007 3:32 AM"Logical hierarchies are a critical way the human mind operates. While the case might be made that most objects belong in multiple places in any given hierarchy, organizing and working off that organization can and should be second nature to a functioning adult."
Classic bad-UI Stockholm syndrome. Hierarchies are an obsolete artifact of the physical world, where an object can't be in more than one place at the same time. Tags are the future.
Alex Chamberlain on September 7, 2007 3:49 AMJeff, "no self-respecting computer user should EVER have only one monitor." Seriously? And, "the disconnect between Alt+Tab and Ctrl+Tab-- it's highly modal, and users hate modes". Honestly, Give it a try, - it will less than 2 days for your fingers to get used to it (maybe a little more to overcome the mindset). [Tip: Switching between thingies atop your screen (tabs) use Ctrl, switching between thingies at the bottom use Alt.]
Ashish on September 7, 2007 3:51 AMI run dual monitors, and usually group the different tasks I have consistently between the 2 monitors, so I know left is this, right is that.
I don't mind CTRL+TAB that much since I hate ALT+TAB between so many apps. I have developed a hierarchy in my mind as to if something deserves a SHIFT+mouse1 or a mouse3 style click, and I run a vertical taskbar on the widescreen to keep things neat. Here's an image to illustrate:
http://efarchives.com/desktop.jpg
At the time I screen capped that I was encountering a bug with UltraMon where the 2nd monitors bar wasn't wide enough to display text, it was a dated version.
Eventually I will pickup another 4:3 monitor for the other side, but for now, this works.
I just takes practice to keep things clean. If you recall a few years back to how horrid things were before tabs at all, its a worthy compromise at the end of the day.
Good article. =)
Mike on September 7, 2007 4:20 AMSearching is overrated, as it's a seperate process, and URL-based detection relies on the webapp to be constructed in a certain way.
I wonder how you go about opening your GMail, Jeff?
http://tailguard.blogspot.com/2007/09/tabs-hmph.html
Jeff,
After reading all the posts thinking of this today another great way to use tabs is to click the scroll bar on links it opens the link in a new tab. This is good since the original page is still open. All the comments proves how strongly people feel about this topic.
Thx again,
Catto
Again, the disconnect between Alt+Tab and Ctrl+Tab-- it's highly modal, and users hate modes. It's so hard to remember which one you're in at any given time. Is this a tab? Is it a window? Why should *I* have to worry about treating them so differently?
Frankly, I don't have a problem. There is a logical distinction between stuff on the web and stuff on your computer -- if nothing else, there is a certain level of unreliability to stuff on the web. I don't "hate" switching between the modes at all.
Then again, I'm a vim user ;)
Sohum on September 7, 2007 5:28 AMI rarely open more than one browser window, so I just have to check the tabs in one place. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.
If you have tabs, why open multiple browsers?
ChrisL on September 7, 2007 5:38 AMHey Jeff, long time reader first time poster.
Umm... knowing that gmail is a website, wouldn't you first just look for any browsers you had open and see what their tabs say?
At most I have 2 separate browsers open because each one holds several tabs. That pretty much narrows my search down to 2 mouse click.
Samuel on September 7, 2007 5:40 AMLike Chris, I keep only 1 browser open, or 2 at most (ff and IE) so looking for a site is as easy as opening firefox and looking through the tabs.
Another great program that can help is Enso. hold caps-lock and type in the name of the window/tab/program and it will find it and let you switch to it, and thats really only the basic capabilities of that program.
KraigB on September 7, 2007 5:41 AMHey Now Jeff,
Another good post, very interesting topic. Maybe you could followup with the memory usage using one IE window with 5 tabs open vs. 5 windows of IE open. I love tabs and constantly use the hotkeys Ctrl+Tab Ctrl+Tab+Shift also Ctrl+Q to navigate though the tabs. I also really enjoy being able to open a group of tabs at once.
Thx,
Catto
With more than one monitor (and no self-respecting computer user should EVER have only one monitor), you need one instance of the browser per monitor. At least if you want to view things side by side.
I typically have at least 3 browser instances open at any given time. Sometimes many more.
But let's say, for the sake of argument, we only have one browser instance. That means 12+ tabs trapped inside that a single window. Any more and the titles are probably unreadable. And how do you deal with the dissonance between Alt+Tab (switch apps) and Ctrl+Tab (switch tabs within an app)?
Jeff Atwood on September 7, 2007 5:48 AM1. I use TabMix Plus and force single browser working.
2. Why bother searching for an open tab? Just open a new GMail tab and close it when you're finished.
3. If you do insist on having one open, have a system e.g. tab 1 is http:/gmail.com , tab 2 is http://takemystuff.co.uk , tab 3 is http://slashdot.org etc. then protect those tabs to prevent accidental closing. Then you can go to your single browser instance and press alt-1 to get gmail.
I use the same method for screen 'tabs' e.g. tab 5 is mysql etc.
Charles Darke on September 7, 2007 5:52 AMI for one am all for Tabs. In fact I don't know if I can live without tabs!
Rohit on September 7, 2007 6:00 AM1. I couldn't live without tabs. It's much easier to find, say, Visual Studio when I only have to look through 20-30 app windows. If my 10-250 web pages each had their own app window, I'd be *doomed* (yes, I know I have a problem :P).
2. Of course, it would be terrible to look for gmail through 250 tabs, even with an excellently shrunken skin and tabs on the side -- that can typically handle only around 50 tabs (this is with Opera...Firefox and IE have no chance of holding up to my browsing style). Typically I deal with the issue by either closing gmail (or whatever) after each check, it being quick enough to reopen when needed, or by "tearing off" the tab into a separate browser window -- which you can do in Opera.
Sorry, this probably comes off as a fanboy post. I like Firefox, as it's got some fantastic extensions. I use it for my web development. It just can't deal with my (admittedly mental) day-to-day browsing :).
Today, I wanted to compare 2 powerpoint slides on office 2003 (a new fad my company just installed 6 days ago. Yes, that's not a typo, office 2003.). I opened one .ppt, I opened another. I saw two windows in the taskbar. However, when I wanted to compare them, they were one window. Clicking the taskbar did nothing but bring the other window to front in the MDI. However, their MDI is so screwed you can't even unmaximize windows, you'll have to do that via a menu...
IIVQ on September 7, 2007 6:03 AMPerhaps when I'm doing research I should open a special browser window for it or something.
Putting everything in one browser window seems a little crazy to me. Particularly if you have multiple monitors. Right now I have 9 instances of the browser open, a few on each of my 3 monitors-- so I can maximize the amount of the information I see at once.
I use tabs, too. I tend to open task-based browser instances, such that all the tabs in that browser are on a *related topic*. Thus, I'll have my bloglines browser (and related tabs).. my topic X research browser (and related tabs).. my communication browser (with twitter/hotmail/gmail tabs).. etcetera.
Tabs are great for organization, but it's so very hard to manage tabs. :(
Jeff Atwood on September 7, 2007 6:06 AMHow about you *remember* where you put your Gmail tab? Incidentally, even tabbed-browser-deluxe Firefox allows you to open what we in the business call a *new window* allowing you to put your Gmail into. The problem is not with tabs but with how you use 'em.
Incidentally, how about you use a stand-alone email application?
Winsmith on September 7, 2007 6:06 AMEh, sorry — I find it a bit lame.
The advantages of tabs for collecting lots of information far outweigh the disadvantages. Opened up two copies of Gmail? Whoop-dee-doo — not exactly the end of the world.
The only time have 20 different windows opened at once is "easier" is when you use something like Expose. As it is, if you are looking for a webpage, it's usually easier to just Alt-Tab and get to the _browser_, at which point you can usually narrow down the likely place of the page in no problem. Sorting through all of your possible interfaces when you _know_ it is going to be in the domain of only one program is rather inefficient in itself.
In any case, it's not like it's _hard_ to disable tabbed browsing and go back to the old way.
My big MDI-annoyance, if you cared, is the way that different Word documents are handled in OS X. I can't Alt-Tab between them at all -- it jumps me into a different program. This is a pain in the neck, since it _often_ the case that one needs to be looking at more than one Word document at once, and jumping between them. (And Expose is little help either if your documents all look pretty similar as thumbnails; in any case, it certainly isn't very fast in the switch-back-and-forth sort of way). In this response, I wish Word handled a bit more like it did in Windows than it currently does in OS X.
Shmork on September 7, 2007 6:07 AMIt's much easier to find, say, Visual Studio when I only have to look through 20-30 app windows.
There is an important distinction between Visual Studio and web browsers, however.
The advantage of Visual Studio is that all the tabs are BY DEFINITION task-related, eg, they're tabs containing projects and files that are part of the current Visual Studio *solution*. Whereas a browser may have ten completely and utterly unrelated tabs open.
And if you need to open more than one solution.. you use multiple copies of Visual Studio, of course. Nobody would tell you to open five different solutions in one instance of Visual Studio. It's not even possible.
There's a natural container in Visual Studio, the "solution", which has "projects" and "files". There's no such logical grouping for the web browser.. although that is how I try to use my web browser. I group sites (tabs) by function, and per-monitor.
Jeff Atwood on September 7, 2007 6:11 AMI love tabbed browsing. I open links in RSS feeds in new tabs(Strg+Click) and go through them one by one. If I want to get to the GMail tab, i can click on the little arrow button right to the tabs and see all my open tabs or I use Alt+1(hold always GMail) like Charles suggested.
Wieczo on September 7, 2007 6:12 AMExpos for broswer - foXpose extension for Firefox:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1457
I always believed (still do actually) that tabs were invented to reduce taskbar clutter.
If the number of tabs I use for work are reasnoble(sp), then I use a single window.
Otherwise, I tear them off to another window if it grows too large.
I sometimes have as many windows open as I have subjects to research.
But there is one window with my basic windows. GMail, Reader and Calendar, which I can always find.
If you allow Switcher, Flip, Expose to also show tabs, or even let the OS know of them, then you are instantly back to the taskbar clutter from hell.
MLeo on September 7, 2007 6:15 AMfoXpose extension for Firefox:
IE7 has this built in, BTW, but I never use it.
Isn't it odd that we're duplicating what the operating system does inside the browser? (eg, Don't Repeat Yourself?) Isn't that symptomatic of the weird corner case we put ourselves in by relying so heavily on tabbed interface?
Jeff Atwood on September 7, 2007 6:17 AMJeff, I think any solution to this problem would have its scaling limits, since new organization issues would arise at any number of opened applications. Some might argue that the best long term solution is to keep the number of unnecessary open applications and browser instances to a minimum. At times I do have applications running that I really don't *need* running after all.
At times, it may be less productive to have 20 applications running concurrently that need to be found and switched to versus closing an application at the time it's not needed and then opening it again as need be.
Shan on September 7, 2007 6:18 AMI gotta agree with Winsmith--if you want Gmail to show up in the taskbar, open it in a new window. This gives you the flexibility to use tabs for most things and new windows for the few things you want quick access to.
PSzalapski on September 7, 2007 6:19 AMTabs are for grouping of actions.
I have one Chat-Window, One Browser, maybe even One Mailprogram opened. Expose and the Windows Taskbar make it easy to switch the Apps. And the App manages its instances with tabs.
The Problem starts, when you want to use two Browser-Windows. But if you need to do this, the app failed to provide a good experience with tabs. Or you do not use enough of it. Then you need to use no tabs at all.
allo on September 7, 2007 6:19 AMTabs are for grouping of actions.
I have one Chat-Window, One Browser, maybe even One Mailprogram opened. Expose and the Windows Taskbar make it easy to switch the Apps. And the App manages its instances with tabs.
The Problem starts, when you want to use two Browser-Windows. But if you need to do this, the app failed to provide a good experience with tabs. Or you do not use enough of it. Then you need to use no tabs at all.
allo on September 7, 2007 6:20 AMWhy the heck would you need 9 tabbed browsers on 3 monitors? Even if you aren't using maximized browser windows you would need to have seriously crazy resolution and a microscope to view anything worthwhile on all 9 at the same time. I can (barely) see an argument for 1 browser window per monitor but 9 just seems silly. You have tabs, make use of them.
Even when i'm researching something I have 1, maybe 2 browser windows open, if I have to compare 2 sites...after that, things just get opened in tabs.
Mr Najmabadi's contention that the taskbar serves the purpose just as well also baffles me. Grouping kills the taskbar when you have multiple browser windows (or any application for that matter, try finding a particular remote desktop window when they are all grouped up) open since they all collapse into 1 taskbar entry. Turning off grouping just makes them shrink up until you can't read what they are anyway.
I suppose if you resist using tabs for what they are for or have really bad memory, tabs could be a pain.
mark on September 7, 2007 6:21 AMJeff, this post clearly shows that:
1) you multitasking too much
2) you need to find a better way of organizing your work environment
Usually like your posts, but this one is off for me.
P.S. You can install Gmail Notifier from Google - should save you some time.
Andrew R. on September 7, 2007 6:22 AMFYI -- Safari 3.0 (beta) for Mac and Windows allows you to tear off a tab and either drop it on an existing browser window or it creates a new window.
Multiple browser windows aren't too bad in OS X because Expose supports just showing the windows for that particular application. I usually end up with 2-3 browser windows, and I use the 'Show all Windows for this App' hot corner instead of the 'Show all Windows' hot corner. Doing this, the tabs are quite readable in Expose and I can find the tab fairly easily.
Jeremiah on September 7, 2007 6:23 AMI think the complaint about tabs is, whilst partly fair, missing the point.
The point (IMAO etc) is that the OS's application navigation is entirely incapable of managing large numbers of windows (I use XP, I let it occupy two rows of application buttons and above about 15 apps it becomes pretty miserable). Tabs exist largely because opening lots of browsers would not only cripple your ability to find the right web page, but also to find any other application. On XP, for instance, you'd have to either live with lots of taskbar buttons, or the (awful) cascading buttons which not only bring you back to the same navigability as tabbed browsing, but add the issue of finding hidden windows to *every* application, not just the web browser.
Browsers have been forced to take the law into their own hands, and the way in which they've done so is still little more than a nascent design: it doesn't, for instance, retain any semantic value from understanding links and domains, which could give a much richer structure to navigating the pages you have open.
As you suggest, the OS needs a more usable means of managing its applications (perhaps with features like search, reordering, renaming etc). Until then, tabs are a sensible response to an inadequate platform.
"Incidentally, how about you use a stand-alone email application?"
Because that only makes sense if you use one computer exclusively?
Stewart Pratt on September 7, 2007 6:25 AMAnother take on the "why would you EVER need more than one web browser" question, via comments on Cyrus' blog:
--
Because that's how I work. I'm often working on multiple tasks simultaneously, many of which need access to the web. For example, I might be browsing specifications on our intranet. I might be reading documentation on the internet. And I might just be reading news elsewhere around the net. These are three different tasks that i do *not* want one app holding onto.
--
(I agree-- the idea that there should only be The One Browser To Rule Them All seems faintly ridiculous to me)
If you allow Switcher, Flip, Expose to also show tabs, or even let the OS know of them, then you are instantly back to the taskbar clutter from hell.
I'd argue we need a better/smarter taskbar then.
Or more/bigger monitors. :)
You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much desktop display area! More and bigger (preferably both) monitors is an investment that pays off.
Jeff Atwood on September 7, 2007 6:25 AMI seriously can't understand why you would want to have several browsers open at the same time even if you have 3 monitors. It's the whole point of tabbed interfaces. Just one browser for all the web-sites you have open. I normally have about 35 sites open and all is in one browser-window. I never have any trouble in finding one specific tab.
Jens on September 7, 2007 6:26 AMJeff,
I don't see where the peculiarities of your browser usage warrant the kind of integration between the web-browser and window manager you're talking about. One browser per monitor is a defensible proposition, yes, but how hard can it be to switch focus to each instance and look, on your (presumably maximized) window for the gmail tab? If you have multiple browsers open, then I've got to question whether you're doing everything YOU, as a savvy user, can to avoid this problem (which is unlikely to occur for a less skilled user). This is not to say that tabbed interfaces are perfect - I, for one, would love to see tab drag-and-drop functionality between multiple instances of the same browser (I drag one tab from my left monitor's instance of Firefox to the right - especially easy since Firefox shares session info already). However, I think separation of concerns is the hallmark of effective software, and blowing that away just to make a highly unusual edge use case easier seems a poor trade.
if you want Gmail to show up in the taskbar, open it in a new window. This gives you the flexibility to use tabs for most things and new windows for the few things you want quick access to.
I agree, but I have to remember to do this, every time. Sometimes I slip or forget.
Again, the disconnect between Alt+Tab and Ctrl+Tab-- it's highly modal, and users hate modes. It's so hard to remember which one you're in at any given time. Is this a tab? Is it a window? Why should *I* have to worry about treating them so differently?
Jeff Atwood on September 7, 2007 6:31 AM... on the other hand, you could not use the browser tabs at all. If you consider the system taskbar as a tab-engine itself, then you could just open many windows as you need and still see it's contents.
Pablo on September 7, 2007 6:35 AM(I agree-- the idea that there should only be The One Browser To Rule Them All seems faintly ridiculous to me)
Ok, but then you willfully choose to destroy the whole point of tabs-in-browsers and would probably be better off without any tab-support at all. Use either one or the other. Not a mix. That just have to become a mess.
9 tabbed browsers on 3 monitors is not just faintly ridiculous but totally laughable...
Jens on September 7, 2007 6:36 AMHello. My name is Peter and I'm a tabbing addict...
I always setup my browsing windows by topic, tabs then being the subtopics. For instance I've got gmail, work's web-mail, slashdot and this site open in one window, and some python/perl cruft open in a separate window, etc.
This can become a problem in the default Firefox without the TabMixPlus extension because of the "tab mash" as I call it. With the TabMixPlus extension you can modify how the tabs work in a number of different ways. I prefer multiple rows of tabs, so thats what I use.
This completely fails with Expose Friends, but then I don't tend to use those methods very much - probably for that very reason. The best implementation of tabs I've seen is on Linux using the window manager Flux Box which allows you to take any individual window and stick it into a tab - aka system wide tabs. Then Firefox, or any program for that matter, can be tabbed and the individual program tabbing can be ditched. Flux Box is a light-weight window manager based of Black Box and therefore off of Window Maker and inherits that history.
I would really like to see this feature ported to other systems, it might be possible with OSX - at least for Aqua based programs, and should be easy for Gnome/KDE. No idea how flexible Windows is about such modification.
Petri on September 7, 2007 6:38 AMAlternately, Cyrus proposed this solution, which is intriguing too:
--
New idea: If I Expos my windows then all browser tabs should fly out and be shown in the Exposd view. I can then select a web page that I want, which will brought to focus with the appropriate tab selected. That would be *awesome*
--
Indeed, that would be awesome! But it'd have to somehow work for EVERY app that has a tabbed interface. Otherwise you'd be hard-coding this Expose / Switcher behavior in for specific apps.
Jeff Atwood on September 7, 2007 6:39 AMFor me, tabs are not a way to view a ton of web pages I have open at once, they're a queue. Usually only the first tab is something that is a long-running thing I want to look at (like GMail). Anything else is stuff that is "pending" my attention.
I start out in the morning reading through NetNewsWire; anything that looks interesting, I hit enter (to open in Safari) and then switch back to NNW to continue scanning the day's news.
When I have time, I start at tab #2 in my browser. (#1 is GMail), and then I read the stuff that interested me, hitting command+w to close the tab when I'm done.
Solution is simple: don't mix tabs with multiple browser windows. I only have 1 browser window.
Sean on September 7, 2007 6:41 AMtabs are to windows as threads are to processes.
You need a system where tabbed interface elements show up in your task switcher- basically, the default task switcher is operating at the wrong level of abstraction. It's switching between applications, and you need it to switch between tasks.
Is there a way to register individual aspects of a program on the task bar? Otherwise, you'd need to a) create a standard way for apps to register their tasks, b) convince some app developers to implement it, and c) write / improve a better task switcher to implement it. This level of innovation typically requires the platform vendor to drive it- anyone at MS want to fix the task manager in a way that blows doors off of OS X?
Tim Howland on September 7, 2007 6:45 AMI'd like to second what David said. Stick to one browser window. If you need lots of tabs open, get Opera and move the tabbar off to the left side.
Leons Petrazickis on September 7, 2007 6:45 AMI use the tab bar as a 'tab stack' new tabs get pushed onto the right and popped off the right side. I have tabbar expandable to 3 rows (although you can still navigate to tabs which overflow via keyboard).
Close all right tabs option is great for clearing off a whole branch of a tab research session (you just need to remember to do a depth first search using this method).
If you really want to organise tabs, you can load and save your tab sessions into the bookmark. Or use tab groups: http://paranoid-androids.com/tabgroups/
If you have no system, and open multiple browsers, multiple tabs, don't order/structure your tabs and windows, it isn't entirely surprising you end up in a mess.
Tabs are powerful enough to provide order as long as you apply a systematic way of using them.
Charles Darke on September 7, 2007 6:57 AMJeff, Opera does exactly what you want.
First, Opera, unlike Firefox, does scale the tabs down to favicon-size, and doesn't hide them when there are too many. This way, if you had 1 window open with all your tabs you could have easily found the GMail favicon. It also lessens the need to use multiple windows.
Second, Opera already has what you describe - the "tab finder". It shows a list of all the tabs in all Opera windows you have open, and has a quicksearch-box at the top. Type "GM" and it will show any tabs that have "GM" in the title, which you can then click to directly go to the tab.
Check the screenies for how it works: http://img.crowdway.com/opera_windows_all.png and http://img.crowdway.com/opera_windows_gmail.png
Third. If you did close a window, you can make it come back at any time using the trash-feature. It saves everything you ever closed, including "back" and "forward" history. Even a quick CTRL-Z will undo your close.
David V. on September 7, 2007 6:58 AMHo - those are the same reasons I'm starting to dislike tabs! Generally I open 20'ish tabs in each window, however tab management has however become a less complicated issue for me:
1. I use enso launcher, which lets you switch between windows and tabs by typing "go [any part of name]" of the webpage/window title you want. So you'd just type "go gmail"..
2. Quick Tabs is actually helpful. Its previews are not, but I read the titles beneath every tile and if two or more have same title, the preview helps a bit in differentiating them.
Leaf on September 7, 2007 7:04 AMSo, unsurprisingly we have come to the conclusion that we all use tabs in browsers, IDEs, email clients and so on in different ways.
For me, I have one monitor and many browsers, each with several tabs. It's the way I work. There, let's accept we all use them differently and have done with it (and stop saying "if you used them this way you wouldn't have the problem". I don't use them that way and I'm unlikely to change, I'm sorry).
If I'm browsing to a site I'll tend to open a new browser window, whether as I'll usually open links in a new tab. Each window thus becomes a "subject group" of tabs. Accordingly, it's generally easy to find the right window to look in.
It's interesting to see the multitude of different ways people are using tabs -- and a fine example of the problems designing a decent task switching UI will come across, as frankly they are all rubbish right now. That the verb "hunt" comes up when we're talking is very telling.
As an aside, for a lot of *websites* this point is moot. Sites are mostly stateless, so it doesn't matter whether you use an existing tab or a new one. For example, Gmail's auto-refresh means that the windows don't fall out of sync with each other. So, open as many windows as you like :)
Michael Rhodes on September 7, 2007 7:09 AMThe reason that there are tabs is that the windowing systems of all major OSs suck so bad that workarounds needed to be found.
If there was a reasonable way in Windows to have lots of windows open, then people would use it; since there isn't (wasn't?), tabs had to function as a workaround.
Bill Mill on September 7, 2007 7:13 AMYour search idea is interesting... it sounds like something that Quicksilver would do already on the Mac (but it might not -- I'm not all the way through the learning curve yet).
Check out http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/ and look at the screencasts, as it's tricky to understand from just text-based description. Basically you hit a shortcut key combo and type in the name of what you're looking for (often files, but extensions allow it to address everything, including menu items) then you type in what you want to do with it (or just press enter to activate the default action, which is usually 'open' or 'run').
Pete on September 7, 2007 7:13 AMAs to Cyrus whereabouts: apparently he's working on the C# compiler team. Eric Lippert mentioned him on his blog a couple of days ago: http://blogs.msdn.com/ericlippert/archive/2007/09/05/psychic-debugging-part-one.aspx. Maybe Eric can give him a nudge for you!
Sam Jack on September 7, 2007 7:16 AMThis article isn't documenting a failure of the tabbed window paradigm. It's documenting the failure of operating system GUIs to deal effectively with tabbed windows. The two are definitely not the same.
Just my twocents.
Dan L on September 7, 2007 7:17 AMIt's only available for OS X, but Omniweb http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omniweb/ features a drawer with resizable thumbnail graphics of all open tabs. Very easy to scan and pick which window you're seeking.
Geof Harries on September 7, 2007 7:18 AMOn the topic of tabs... I think the point is to only have one window of the tabbed app open. Then you aren't looking for gmail, you're looking for the browser (much easier to find).
A compromise would be to have things you *keep* open (such as web-based email or rss clients) in separate windows and *everything* else in ONE tabbed window. Best of both worlds?
Pete on September 7, 2007 7:27 AMJeff, I get the feeling you'd be organizationally challenged whatever tool/solution you happened to be using. Some people are like that...
Giant1 on September 7, 2007 7:27 AMI've got a bit of a problem with this - I don't see why you need more than one browser/text editor/whatever window, if you have tabs? Surely if you had one browser window with some tabs open, you could just alt-tab to your browser and check the tabs?
The reason that this problem exists, is because you're not managing your windows/tabs effectively. This is not a problem that can be solved by any UI or tool, it can only be solved by mending your ways...
Johan Pretoriua on September 7, 2007 7:28 AM"Otherwise you'd be hard-coding this Expose / Switcher behavior in for specific apps."
Well, IE7 has this feature built-in, and Firefox can be expanded with it via Addons.
More than that, to check your Google (or other e-)mail there are desktop apps for this task, and Firefox addons that can show the inbox status on the status bar of your browser.
Of course, this is a data mining problem, and I assume your example of checking your mail was just an example. But still, I believe this is just a problem related to disorganization.
Stay consistent and organized in how you do things (always open your e-mail -tab in a browser on the same screen etc) and life will smile on you a little more every day.
Nikke on September 7, 2007 7:30 AMI'm going to agree with the "Just don't open more than one browser window" camp. Isn't that kind of the whole point of tabs? The only time I use more than one window is to separate a reading list from work related resources, so i can skim through closing tabs quicker, or if my Wife's machine is broken and we are sharing a desktop.
Calvin Spealman on September 7, 2007 7:32 AMJeff -
I have a gmail account as well - assuming that you also use Outlook - why not setup outlook to check your gmail account as another pop account.
I would also recommend using the IE7 Expose like feature - alt-tab to the correct browser and CTRL + Q and you should be able to see your gmail if you prefer opening it in a web browser instead of outlook.
Cheers
Jordan on September 7, 2007 7:35 AMSeparate windows (thus taskbar items) or Tabs? Why not both?
Why not let the user cluster windows/apps into either tab groups or into single windows with tabs?
It would require the windowing and organization aspect of apps to be moved into a basic OS feature, and the ability to over-customize would be a rather strong productivity loss for some, but sounds like the right way to go.
Letting the applications manage their own windows and decoration seems to have led to inconsistent and jarring user interfaces (particularly in the audio player space). I'd rather have more consistency thru the base OS windowing system (and, of course, central and consistent CONTROL at the same time).
You should just use tabs the sane way, keep stuff you're researching that's actually _related_ in one tabbed window, but do other stuff elsewhere. you can't go round blaming tabbed interfaces for your own incompetence keeping your tabs organised... :p
P.S. i obviously have the same problem
Kris on September 7, 2007 7:37 AMSo the sequence is
Win 3.1
The tasks you are running are windows switch with Alt-Tab or find the window
Problem : Alt-Tab is uninformative and it's hard to move the windows to find the one I want
Windows 95 The tasks you are running are Windows and on the taskbar switch with Alt-Tab or by selecting the program on the taskbar
Problem : Alt-Tab is still uninformative and the taskbar is cluttered and so the window names are hidden
Windows XP The tasks you are running are Windows and grouped on the taskbar switch with alt-tab or by selecting the group and then the window on the taskbar
Problem : Alt-Tab is still no better and the most of my taskbar consists of groups so I cannot see any window names
One Solution get the apps to have their own taskbars (tabs) rather than separate windows
Windows Vista The tasks you are running are Windows and grouped on the taskbar switch with alt-tab or by selecting the group and then the window on the taskbar
Problem : Alt-Tab is now much better but now the apps have their own tabbars you can't see them in the preview
It seems that the problem is task switching is broken and always has been so ad-hoc partial solutions were put in place that break the solution when it finally arrives .... Sounds familiar
From my experience I use tabs in browsers so that I don't have multiple browser windows all different sizes scattered all over the screen .. tabs are tidier
Well, I use 2 monitors on my workstation and I've came to realize that having one browser instance for each monitor is the best solution for me (Like Jeff's). I group similar tabs in the same browser instance and can do some comparisons quickly. As for getting lost... I've gotten used to my setup and I'm very picky about where I put my windows and tabs. This allows me to quickly know that on the left monitor is my "researching" browser with Tabs open to all the open source websites, search results, and so on. I usually keep one instance of FireFox open also for comparison when building a web application. Gotta be compatible, right?;) As far as the aggrivation, I can see where it comes from, but if you're as organized as you lead on to be, you shouldn't have any problem finding the window you want. You know that you have one window for communication, therefore, wouldn't GMail be in that browser window? And you know that in your communication browser you keep hotmail, twitter, ect. This makes it even easier, you could scan the taskbar for one of the "common communication" sites and when you see it, you know that that's the browser instance with the tab for your GMail. This method has worked for me since I made the jump into Tabbed browsing. Great post, Jeff. Keep 'em comin'!
Matt on September 7, 2007 7:40 AMwhatever happened to Cyrus?
I think initial reports indicated that The Warriors had shot Cyrus. But that was later found to be incorrect and one of The Rogues was identified as the shooter. In fact, it was The Rogues that spread the false accusation from the beginning.
Chris Patterson on September 7, 2007 7:41 AMI've never had a problem finding just exactly where i have put my gmail tabs before, and i usually run 2-3 Firefox instances at once. I usually put gmail as the first or second tab, and then i just remember which window i had open, if you're not using the group-task feature, you can usually remember which window had the gmail page up for you. While i dont use multiple monitors, I do use multiple desktops. It is for me a lot better than a multiple monitor setup, especially because I'm poor, and I dont have a lot of deskspace. Expose and all the other utilities i've seen for window management aren't really effective if you ask me, if anything its for the rediculously small nature of the thumbnails. If you work with half the programs open that i do, when you tile all your windows on your screens to tell what you're doing, you'll be looking at 250x250 pixel representations of the windows.
Honestly i've always hated expose and all of its clones, such as your registry hack, and the strangely done version in beryl. Though iirc beryl is the only one that will zoom in on the window when you move over it. At any rate, i find it very hard to effectively use. Since if i have my taskbar, and my virtual desktops set the way i want them, everything is organized quite well.
I've enjoyed the small touches of the Firebox sibling SeaMonkey. They have a nice feature where if you hover over a tab heading you get a mini-preview image of what the tab looks like. Great for knowing what is there, but also for checking on a slow loading website.
Sean on September 7, 2007 7:52 AMhttp://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?ctx=%67mailhl=enanswer=6594
First of all, let me say that I really love the tabbed interface. However, what I find frustrating is that so far I have run across 3 separate tabbing paradigms that require me to change how my mind thinks of them.
1. Early Firefox/VS 2003 model.
The X is to the right of all tabs and static. To close a tab, click the X.
New tabs appear to the right of all previously opened tabs.
I can see how this annoyed people that wanted to close a tab in the middle: click the tab to activate, then move the mouse all the way to the right to close.
2. Firefox 2.x/IE7(?)
The X is on the tab itself. Click to activate the tab itself, and the X is right there.
New tabs open to the right of existing tabs.
I found that having the X on the tab itself difficult to get used to, because the tabs resize, and when I found myself wanting to close tabs quickly, I found myself searching for the X, because the tabs resize as more or less of them appear.
3. The Visual Studio/SQL Server 2005 model.
Single X to the right of the tabs.
New tabs appear to the LEFT of existing tabs, and push all existing tabs to the right. For some reason, I found this behavior very very confusing.
4. Any others???
So in 4 pieces of software that I use on a regular basis (sometimes all in the same day!), I have to force myself to remember what kind of tabs I'm working with.
What are your experiences with this? Which tabbing model do you prefer?
My biggest complaint to firefox's tab handling is that if you have 2 windows, you cannot drag a tab from one window to another one : it behaves like if it was a completely different browser.
Opera does this the right way though.
Steve Schnepp on September 7, 2007 7:57 AMEnso (http://www.humanized.com/) is an application launcher. One if it's features is a task switcher, so you can use its CLI to "go Word" etc. A nice extension of this is that it understands Firefox tabs, so you can type "go Gmail" and you would find it instantly.
[ICR] on September 7, 2007 7:57 AMOne important thing is: *either* use tabs *or* windows on Firefox. It's useless and inscrutable to me why one would mix them together. So I have only one Firefox window will some tabs in it, where I need to hunt for a certain open page. And one should use an add-in like "Firefox Showcase" to see all opened tabs at a glance, so switching to the correct tab is done in a sec.
I also hate tabs in the web browser (which is why I turn them off immediately). On the other hand, I like the tabbed MDI interface in Visual Studio (and SQL Management Studio) because, there, I'm thinking about a collection of things that belong to a common project.
@Jeff "Cliff's Notes" Atwood:
I don't think this is a scalability problem with tabs so much as it's a scalability problem with you.
I think you're simply opening far too many Windows. If you have so many that (a) you're not totally sure if you have GMail open and (b) it takes a significant investment of time to find out if you do, I think the bottleneck is your forgetful, squishy human brain.
One app that really helps me manage the complexity is TaskSwitchXP. It allows one to right click on the minimize button to send any window to the tray. Great for windows that basically act as background services (such as PuTTY for SSH) or when you're trying to hide something (such as porn). Doing this has become second nature to me, and it's always a bit jarring to use computers without TaskSwitchXP installed.
On another note, I think the argument for tabs (and the associated ctrl+tab shortcut) is essentially the same as the argument for search trees. You don't want to search linearly through 20 windows when you can pick "Internet" or "Visual Studio" out of a small number of top-level choices. Also note that because I have so many code files in my project, I can never remember which Visual Studio tabs I have open.
Eam on September 7, 2007 8:06 AM3 instances of firefox with multiple tabs in each. What are you some kind of super human web crawler? Maybe you should stack three more monitors on top and setup another box just to run all your web browsers.
Joe Beam on September 7, 2007 8:11 AMThis post is just silly. Why have multiple browser instances when you can have tabs? If you have multiple instances for logical grouping, then you'd know where your email accounts are. Hard as I try, I can't see the problem.
Brad on September 7, 2007 8:11 AMIn Gnome I use gmail-notify to provide Outlook style alerts for incoming e-mail. Clicking the alert opens a new tabbed instance of GMail. When I'm done reading, I close the tab. I know this type of alert can be annoying, but it helps me keep my Firefox tabs to a minimum. Perhaps an Exposeish extension for Firefox would be a good idea? Hovering over an area on the browser could provide a icons (favicon) of each of the tabs?
Ryan Baxter on September 7, 2007 8:14 AMI have to agree with quite a few of the comments here. I think that you're a bit too disorganized. Learn how to work with two monitors before you rush into losing yourself with 3.
If you can't find where you left something on your computer desktop then shame on you. What hope for the mess of your real desktop?
You don't need 3 browsers - one of them is just giving you distractions anyway. Sure you want to compare things side by side. Open a new window and close it when you're done. Move the browser from screen to screen if need be (you can find with Alt-tab).
Forgetting to open your email account is another cop out. (Dog ate your homework as well at some stage). Set it as a homepage so it starts when the browser does (this is a new feature in some browsers).
You can be too thin! I guess that you can have too much desktop as well.
I use two monitors and two browsers (different ones). Both with tabs. No pages identical in either (unless I'm testing how things work on each browser).
Maybe you need a PA? Could be a little animated one that would tap on the screen when you're trying to find something. "It's looks like you're trying to find your shoes."
I agree with everything else you said.
@Alex Chamberlain:
"Classic bad-UI Stockholm syndrome. Hierarchies are an obsolete artifact of the physical world, where an object can't be in more than one place at the same time. Tags are the future."
Excuse me if you're being sarcastic here, but I'm going to have to assume you're serious...
...are you serious?!
Sure hierarchies are often misapplied in user interfaces, and the Windows TreeView control is clearly the result of a drunken bet between spastics, but hierarchies are in no way an "obsolete artifact".
Browser tabs are an example of a hierarchical organization (OS handles the browser window, browser window handles the separate tubes) that has been immensely successful. Before IE7, the Mozilla/Opera/whatever crowd were (I assume literally) wetting themselves over how much more tabby their browsers were, and with good reason I think. Tags definitely work well with e-mails, blog posts, and other items of the sort, but beyond that they're just "a polite way of helicopter peeing" (to quote the great Hani Suleiman).
Eam on September 7, 2007 8:21 AMTerrible article, Jeff, I'm disappointed in you. Why would you open multiple browsers? The problem is you're still trying to use the OLD paradigm of multiple windows and half-ass integrate tabs. One browser window, multiple tabs, get with the new paradigm.
Mattkins on September 7, 2007 8:23 AMWould I be right in guessing that the several respondents who seem incredulous that side-by-side browsing could ever be useful are people who use single monitors?
There are many times when it's useful to view information in one application whilst typing into another. Often these are two different applications, but if they're web-based then they'll both reside in web browsers. I can fully understand the requirement (or desire, at least) to manage tabs across multiple browser windows.
On a single screen, this style of working is almost prohibited by the lack of real estate, but once you have multiple screens this sort of thing suddenly becomes a no-cost option.
The use of big multiple screens is what windowing operating systems have been waiting for since whenever it was they were invented :)
Stewart Pratt on September 7, 2007 8:26 AMAs far as not being able to see the tabs, it's not a problem in Firefox. There is a drop-down at the far-right of the tabs. Click it and you get a select list of all tabs with favicons.
ChrisL on September 7, 2007 8:28 AM---- Jeff wrote ----
The only thing I can think of is a plain-text search facility where I type "Gmail", and the OS would automatically highlight that tab (or window) and bring it to the front. That presupposes a very high level of integration between the application tabs and the operating system, however.
----
There is an application out there that already has this kind of functionality, namely you hit a short-cut key (CAPS in this case) and then type 'go' and then part of the name of the tab/window you're looking for, instantly on screen a complete list of windows/tabs that match your search are listed on screen. If the tab/window you're looking for is already selected you just release the short-cut key and the window is automatically focused, you don't even need to type the full name!
They have some other nice features as well, like searching google using the same mechanism of the short-cut key to search interface.
Check it out here (warning the product is not free but is low-cost, they have a 30-day free trial):
P.S. I have no links with this company, I just found the software recently myself and have been finding it quite useful.
Cyrus isn't dead, he's just sleeping.
And posting over on Ars Technica's programming forums as Metasyntactic. ( http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve?a=profileu=5880993965 )
If you want to find him, just player hate on IntelliSense in VS 2005 and *he will appear*.
Nominally back on-subject, I hated tabs when I started using tabbed browsers for the same reason - I'd be using multiple browser instances and finding the tab I wanted became an infuriating game of hide-and-seek. When I cut back to a single browser and oodles of tabs, I started to see the point of them.
That said, tabs can be used for evil - VS 2005's "open new tabs on the left instead of the right like everyone else in the world" and "let me show you the directory name instead of the file name" tab handling leave me wanting to throttle whoever made the call on that all.
Umm, I either didnt get a point with multiple browsers if you have a tabs, but its up to your own work style. In your case Ctrl+Q can help - leave your browser window in "Quick Tabs" mode before switch and I think you can easily fing Gmail window even in tabs :)
Alexey on September 7, 2007 8:38 AMI would rename this article.
The Problem With Tabbed Interfaces ON THREE MONITORS
Most people run one browser with many tabs, on one screen.
That is 95% or more of users out there.
Umm, I either didnt get a point with multiple browsers if you have a tabs, but its up to your own work style. In your case Ctrl+Q can help - leave your browser window in "Quick Tabs" mode before switch and I think you can easily find Gmail window even in tabs :)
Alexey on September 7, 2007 8:39 AMIf it hasn't already been mentioned, 'Tab to Window' is lighter weight than tabmixplus and provides you with 'Move to New Window', 'Copy to new Window', and 'Join to Window' when you right click on a tab.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2062
sorry for doublepost - I thought my browser didnt send first time =( (and fixed typo :) )
Alexey on September 7, 2007 8:44 AMWould I be right in guessing that the several respondents who seem incredulous that side-by-side browsing could ever be useful are people who use single monitors?
Side-by-side browsing is one thing, 9 browser windows on 3 monitors is something entirely different. I use 3 monitors myself and find that thought of having 9 browsers open across them terribly inefficient.
mark on September 7, 2007 8:45 AMYou mean you can't navigate tabs using window navigation techniques? Ummm.... OK.
Website? Browser window.
Brianary on September 7, 2007 8:52 AMsounds like someone should write an extension for launchy which indexes any open browser window tabs.
I use launchy at the moment to index all the .cs files in the branch I am working on. Rather than scrolling through the horrific solution explorer, i just think of the source file, ctrl-alt and voila!
Harry M on September 7, 2007 8:55 AMI guess I'm wondering what the problem is.
In IE 7:
Tools Internet Options Tabs Settings button
Uncheck "Enabled Tabbed Browsing"
Restart IE
In Firefox it looks like this is the closest you can come:
Tools Options Tabs
Select "New pages should be opened in a new window"
Uncheck "Always show the tab bar"
Click OK
Unfortunately even with these changes if you hit CTRL+T in Firefox (but not IE 7) you still get a new tab. There may be some way in about:config to completely disable tabs, but I was too lazy to Google for it.
But honestly, if tabbed browsing doesn't suit your work style, then simply TURN IT OFF.
I doubt Jeff's work style is typical of most computer users and so as an atypical computer user, he should expect that, from time-to-time, the default options in software (such as tabbed browsing being enabled) will not suit him and he should expect to have to modify those settings.
To all the debate about whether tabbed browser is the greatest thing since sliced bread, or the spawn of Satan I say DO WHATEVER YOU WANT. The two most popular web browsers provide a way to (mostly) disable the feature, or enable it, or even customize the behaviour. So set it up the way that suits your work style and let everyone else do the same.
Grant on September 7, 2007 8:57 AMI saw Cyrus back in April. He is doing well. =) Great guy.
Nicholas Paldino [.NET/C# MVP] on September 7, 2007 8:58 AMThe comments to this entry are closed.
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