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.
I think you're just a little disorganised :)
I never have less than 30 web pages open, along with all the other crap I need constantly, and I always know exactly where everything is due to having a very simple and easy "filing" system regarding where windows and tabs go. Firefox's Ctrl-{1,2,3,etc} for fast tab negotiating also really helps. For example, my Gmail is always open at Ctrl-3.
Tabs have truly helped me organise my busy desktop, but only because I keep things organised.
Mark on September 7, 2007 9:02 AMUhhh, Jeff, just like you should never try to juggle more balls than you can handle (in my case 2), you should never open more windows than your mind can easily cope with.
I love FF tabs. If I try to close a FF browser window with 1 tab, it warns me.
Steve on September 7, 2007 9:05 AMHow do you lose a tab in multiple windows? I mean - why do you even HAVE multiple windows? That's what tabs are for.
People who complain about not understanding tabs are no different than people who complain about how they "don't understand" cell phones or cable television. Just because your brain is stuck in 1976 doesn't mean technology or the rest of its users are.
no on September 7, 2007 9:08 AMSwitcher 2 has some searching capabilities built in. Check out the video.
Brandon on September 7, 2007 9:13 AMIndeed, Cyrus is one of my coworkers. I will tell him that you miss him. (And yeah, I wish he would blog more too.)
Eric Lippert on September 7, 2007 9:27 AMHey, for what it's worth, I think a lot of posters are missing the forest for the trees. Whether Jeff's way of working makes sense to you or not, tabs are great but have some problems. What should we do about them? I think the idea of a search capability has the potential to solve a much larger class of problems. I'll also bet money Google's got people working on it. :)
A. Lloyd Flanagan on September 7, 2007 9:29 AMThe tabbed browsing feature should only be used by those more comfortable with computers. It would be a nightmare explaining tabbed browsing to a first time internet user.
What I do so that my browsing does not get out of control, is only open one copy of my favorite browser (Firefox) at a time. That way, I know all my browsing is done in one place. So, to look for my G-mail I open that window and find the right tab. Doing this limits the amount of windows listed on the taskbar (making it easier to find other windows as well as my browser).
Jeff on September 7, 2007 9:36 AM"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."
Jeff - Why the need for more complexity for the OS. At what point does the search madness end. If we start having searches for everything, we're just adding more complexity to the OS.
I propose a much simpler solution. Tooltips! Currently, when a user positions their mouse over the browser (IE/Firefox/Opera/etc) in the taskbar, it generally shows the name of the webpage that is active. Why not have the tooltip enumerate the tabs open such as:
1. Coding Horror: The Problem With Tabbed Interfaces
2. Welcome to Gmail - Windows Internet Explorer.
The simplicity of this is that now, if you have a number of browser windows open, its just a matter of looking at the tooltip text with a mouse over. Not only that, but the tooltip can now be managed by the browser itself rather than the OS. I would prefer my OS to delegate this task to the browsers.
Sushant Bhatia on September 7, 2007 9:36 AMThere seems to be something missing that would solve this. If in windows, I can hover my mouse cursor over the taskbar and get the title of the window. How hard would it be to extend that for browsers, etc., that have tabs.
Instead of just seeing the title of the main window, how about seeing the title of the tabs each on their own line, and the active one in bold?
Something like this (one window- five tabs):
Internet Explorer-
-IGoogle
-CNN.com
-BCoding Horror: The Problem.../B
-Yahoo.com
-etc.
Instead of this (one window- five tabs):
Coding Horror: The Problem...
To each his own but I LOVE tabs. I HATE 8,000 open windows all over the place.
Kai Tain on September 7, 2007 9:39 AMWhile I don't seem to have such a hard time remembering where things are, I think the search idea is a good one. Why couldn't Vista search also include running processes, and/or select attributes such as the title of a browser tabs, and include them in its result set. That way the search would become the alt+tab functionality if the result selected is already a running process.
james on September 7, 2007 9:39 AMI really don't see what the big deal is. Forget about finding GMail in the tabs. Just open a new instance of GMail in a browser somewhere, read your email, then close it when done. There's nothing wrong with having multiple instances open.
Kamil Kisiel on September 7, 2007 9:48 AMDefinitely don't get your point here. How can you have a need for 9 open browsers? Don't you close things when you're done with them? They'll still be there, you know, if you need to get back to it later...
Like my grandma used to say, sometimes it's not the car, it's the nut behind the wheel.
John Radke on September 7, 2007 9:49 AMJeff, tabs aren't the problem. The taskbar is; the only time everything goes all to hell is when you start becoming dependent on the taskbar for your navigation.
I rarely maximize my windows. I prefer to leave them cascaded - they're much easier to find that way. The screen looks more "cluttered", but so what? If you want to use one app without distraction, then maximize it while using it, and restore it when finished. I typically leave certain apps in the same place on the screen all the time, and I develop patterns. If I have to re-arrange my windows for some reason, alt-tab is a much faster way to find what I'm looking for than tabs are. I only occasionally go to the task bar.
aggieben on September 7, 2007 9:51 AMI wish I could "tear off" tabs into standalone windows on demand, too. That might be a reasonable workaround in the meantime.
Safari 3.0 has a "Move Tab to New Window" context menu on each tab that does exactly what you want. In Firefox, you can open a new window and drag a single tab to it, accomplishing the same thing in 2 steps.
You could try being a little more organized with your windows. Each morning on computer 1 I launch Outlook, Firefox, then my QA directory. Then from there any programs, docs I'll be working on throughout the day that will be constantly closed and re-opened, yet never touching the first 3 that I opened. In Firefox, in tab 1 I launch our internal website then our issue traking system, once again never touching those two tabs and opening/closing new tabs throughout the day. I'm a bit obsessive compulsive and like things in order. I've found it works for me and that's it's easier to find what I need quickly and I'm more efficient. I used to do this working in a manufacturing environment. All my tools were lined up in the order I would be using them and I just applied that concept to working on a computer. But I do like your idea of being able to tear off a tab into a standalone browser. That could come in handy.
Sarah on September 7, 2007 10:23 AMOh gosh and golly, people sure are good at making problems. I mean i can understand people whose computer experiences are some what limited, but i'd expect people who deal with computers on this level to be able to form some kind of consensus with the surrounding they're "living" in. Sorry for lashing out, but come on! You gotta say when sometime.
Jazz on September 7, 2007 10:26 AMthe problem you outline has me wondering about a related question:
why is launching an application any different from finding it on your screen? why should opening gmail be any different from finding your open gmail application?
i think the notion of starting up applications is a quaint architectural compromise. if you start something already launched, you should just be directed to that window. if you close an application, opening it again should be the same as "minimizing" it. there isn't any reason to make these separate actions.
Alan Post on September 7, 2007 10:32 AMMy own two cents: Jeff seems to be able to work with 12+ different "documents" open at the same time. Having worked with a Mac a few years ago, I know that 7 or 8 is the max number of windows for which Expos is the quicker solution. Above that, I just stare blankly at a crowd of rectangular figures, and it's Where's Waldo all over again.
GMail is in a tab, which is in a browser. 3 browsers, that's at most two clicks to know in which browser GMail is. It's like a search tree: above 8 documents, it's quicker for me to first go to the browsers and look through the tabs than to just linearly scan all the windows. Your mileage may vary.
Jeff, in the grand tradition of Context Switching Considered Harmful, may I suggest you took it as an exercise in mental focusing, and tried to only have documents related to the task you're currently dealing with open. That should reduce your tabbing problems.
Cheers!
Carl
Carl Seleborg on September 7, 2007 10:34 AMFor Windows, at least, it seems like it might be a nice feature if each browser instance in the taskbar expanded to show all of its tabs (a la the Start Menu). This way, a tab could be found AND selected from the task bar.
Mike on September 7, 2007 10:34 AM"If we start having searches for everything, we're just adding more complexity to the OS."
Or, if you're from the Jef Raskin school of thought, having *a* search for everything removes complexity from both the OS and the applications that run on it :)
"i think the notion of starting up applications is a quaint architectural compromise. if you start something already launched, you should just be directed to that window. if you close an application, opening it again should be the same as "minimizing" it. there isn't any reason to make these separate actions."
Spot on.
Stewart Pratt on September 7, 2007 10:42 AMmy jaw has dropped from reading how you, jeff, as well as many others who have posted here work on their pc. i have 2 monitors and i always know where every single window is that i have open. this is because i only keep open the essentials at any given time.
visual studio is open and maximized on the left monitor. thunderbird is open on the right monitor as the first application (always the left most task on ultramon's smart taskbar). firefox is the second, ie is the third, and foobar2000 is the fourth.
taking it one step further, gmail is always the first tab open in firefox, so it's always the left most tab. the second tab is the webpage i am currently working on, and any additional tabs are used for research (w3schools is pretty much always the third tab), general browsing, whatever.
all applications on the right monitor are pseudo-maximized in that they are the full window height but only about 80% of the width. the remaining width holds all my yahoo widgets and my im contact list. all my im chats are also tabbed and are in the top right corner of the right monitor. if my company would allow me a third monitor, i could put all the widgets, im windows, and email on the third monitor so the second could be used for just firefox and ie (foobar2000 is always minimized since i just use global hotkeys for all its functions).
if i have to do any other task, like open a word document or browse the file system, i can do that on top of visual studio and then close it when i'm done.
i can't recall a single instance of using alt-tab after getting my second monitor.
am i alone here?
cowgod on September 7, 2007 10:44 AM"The only thing I can think of is a plain-text search facility where I type "Gmail" .... That presupposes a very high level of integration between the application tabs and the operating system, however."
This may be a dumb question from a non-tech person, but why do you have to go under the information to re-index and create a search function? Couldn't you write a plug in display type of thing which points at specified info (or the action of starting/opening something) in the browsers and the Task Manager(s)? It might be a little clumsy visually with several levels of location info, but maybe it could be viewed in a collapsible horizontal bar at the top of one screen rather than a sidebar. Kinda like a personal feed aggregator offline.
If this can't be done in Windows or Vista, I'm interested in understanding why. :)
Tim Howland's comment talks about a new level of abstraction in the task switcher, but this seems (to me) halfway between the first and second above. Also it seems to me that you'd actually have to plug into the different browsers themselves to identify tab location by layer. Once you had a basic protocol might it be easier to adapt to any browser?
Yeah Jeff, I'll be like the tenth guy with the same idea...
Don't open multiple browsers. If you have a tabbed browser and then open a new browser, you're defeating the whole Tabbed (or MDI) paradigm. At least the office MDIs forced you into one "application", but IE/Firefox don't do that.
Of course, Office lets you see multiple "tabs" as if they were actually separate apps. T
Gates VP on September 7, 2007 10:57 AMI've created a two browser approach to managing my life. I love Firefox and the extensions it provides, so I use Firefox for my main browsing tasks and checking Google Reader. But then I also have a single instance of IE7 running, with Meebo, GMail and Yahoo Mail open in tabs. This IE7 instance is my home base when I want to read IMs or catch up on emails. There are still some issues (links sent from friends open up in IE7, rather than where I want them in Firefox), but overall this system has been working quite well for me! I go into the reasons why I like Meebo over traditional IM clients here:
http://www.xanga.com/monsur/610344631/i-have-been-assimilated.html
monsur on September 7, 2007 11:04 AMHow can we integrate tabs with the existing navigational features of the operating system, such as the taskbar, and Expos?
One elegant solution: web browsers (and other software which support tabs) could go automatically into their internal expos mode whenever they are minimized or goes to background. This way, when a user is searching for the right tab using the OS level Expos (or similar), they could see the thumbnails of the tabs inside the thumbnails of each window.
Of course the thumbnails would be very small, but big screen sizes and multiple monitors are becoming more popular, and one don't need to actually read what is in each thumbnail: just a small representation of the page will be enough to recognize the page you are looking for in most cases (that's what I think).
Just another observation: for me, pages like Gmail are different than traditionally 'surfing' the web.. I always leave a browser window dedicated to gmail, and uses other different windows to surf the web opening multiple tabs. This way I always have the Gmail entry in my taskbar (showing the new email count).. When I need to find it, it is not like "looking for the gmail page that is opened somewhere", but it is "looking for my mail application", with the only subtle difference that it is hosted by my web browser. This difference will fade away even more in the coming years when the web apps really become part of the desktop.
Sometimes I feel some people make their lives unnecessarily more complicated.
If you can't find out which browser window and which tab has gmail, you just have too many of them open. You should mentally also be more organized.
- My task bar has two lines so that I can see all my taskbar buttons clearly at all times.
- grouping similar buttons is off. Grouping them makes it harder to find a window.
- There should be a way to program a hotkey to get the gmail tab to pop infront on demand. I use slickrun and I probably can program it so that whenever I hit 'G' in it, I get gmail instantly.
There are many ways to be creative to be more productive. Life shouldn't be that hard. If you have 3 monitors and still get stressed over little things, think about the millions of people who walk miles to get drinking water.
It's sad that the more technology we use, the less tolerant we become in our lives.
Abdu on September 7, 2007 11:07 AM
Another thought is a better taskbar. The technology is over a decade old and the best Microsoft can do is throw worthless crap in there that most people don't use (DoD disables the advanced Start Menu by default anyway). Not only is the advanced Start Menu less than helpful, it actually pushes the traditional start menu down one more click, so to get to an app that I don't use that often, which for someone with diverse computing needs is a common occurence, I have to click one more time to get to all of my stuff. The "Start" button itself is totally deprecated. I'm sure in the old days coming from DOS and 3.1 the idea of a button that leads you to everything on your computer was a great idea, but our capabilities and screen-space have grown beyond the original constraints of a 640x480 13" monitor. I have tons of wasted space on my desktop because I'm anal about the icons on it, I usually only allow the Recycle Bin. This isn't because I think the desktop should be empty by nature, but because I HATE the way the icons look, it's cluttered and annoying. Maybe if there were a more attractive way to present the desktop and organize it other than "alright we'll have icons with text below them and we'll snap them to a grid, oh and if the text is too much we'll abbreviate it until the user clicks on it and it will annoyingly overlap other icons," then I would actually use my desktop. The personal computing GUI is in desperate need of a rethinking.
Mattkins on September 7, 2007 11:11 AM(to continue)...The problem is two-fold: you're using the tabbed browser incorrectly AND the OS doesn't mesh correctly with the Tabbed/MDI concept.
It should be "easy" for the OS to provide an implementable interface that can allow "tabs" to appear as separate apps when "alt-tabbing", which is really the "solution" he's talking about.
It hasn't been done yet, b/c the tabbed vs. MDI paradigm is still in flux here, Word doesn't implement tabs but VS and IE do. Even SQL server 2005 has tabs, and Excel has had a different kind of "tab" for years.
I'm sure that these differences will be resolved in the next couple of years (though Mac will likely figure out the answer first).
Gates VP on September 7, 2007 11:22 AMThis sort of thing is why QuickSilver is extremely popular on the Mac.
Michael Terry on September 7, 2007 11:34 AMI switched to Mozilla quite a while ago and never will go back to IE. Mozilla has a drop down menu on the right listing all open pages. Two mouse clicks to go anywhere.
robert mcbean on September 7, 2007 11:35 AMRegarding tabs on Mac OS X, some of these issues were covered here:
http://watchingapple.com/2007/05/more-on-leopard-windows-and-tabs/
Basically, at some point the OS will need to adopt a new paradigm entirely, now that tabs have become so popular.
Watching Apple on September 7, 2007 11:36 AMI wish I could "tear off" tabs into standalone windows on demand, too.
While it doesn't solve the problem everywhere, if you use Firefox, then you have that option with the "Tab Mix Plus" add-on.
Derek Parnell on September 7, 2007 11:41 AMWithout reading other people's comments, I must ask how many tabs to you usually have open within one browser (say Firefox). Maybe I'm just *really* used to using my browser tabs, but I think they are invaluable to my daily tasks, at work and at home.
I can't stand having things in the taskbar at the bottom of the screen. I usually don't have dozens of tabs open so I can see at least 70% of the page title and the little favicon. In the taskbar, as I have more apps open - which I usually have more apps than tabs - the taskbar gets completely obscured.
You only need one browser instance open at a time. So anything that is web-based *will be* in that instance if it's on a tab. No need to Alt+Tab because everything is in the browser. If you have more than one browser instance running then you're not using tabs well anyway.
Brian on September 7, 2007 11:45 AMIt helps if you have the right technology to assist you. I use KDE with Konqueror so I have multiple desktops (on a single monitor) with which I can group tasks logically. Admin tasks I do on desktop 1, media players live on desktop 4, programming is done on 2 and the rest on desktop 3.
Konqueror is an internet and filesystem browser so I basically have an (one) instance open all the time. That's more tabs in a single application since it's basically 'explorer' and 'internet explorer' in one but it's easy to find the tab I'm looking for and reorganize tabs if things get too complicated. Konqueror has the ability to 'split screen', next to and/or above eachother, regardless whether I'm looking at the local system or a website. Launch a tab in a separate instance is just as easy and instances can be dragged to other desktops.
As far as I'm concerned, most of the browsers are still in their infancy and simply inadequate for power users, Konqueror is an example of what a browser can be(come).
Still around Jeff :)
My post was probably more inflamattory than it needed to be. I've come to accept tabs, and only be mildly disgusted with them ;-)
If you want to chat, drop me a line. Cyrus.Najmbadi@microsoft.com.
Cyrus Najmabadi on September 7, 2007 12:10 PMMy solution is to close stuff I'm not using.
It works really well. Even uses less memory. :)
I don't want to keep my email open all the time regardless because it is a time sink.
I'll keep up to 10 tabs for things I'm working on in parallel, but I'm religious about hitting Ctrl-W when I'm done with something.
I also try not to keep multiple windows of the same app open, so it isn't as big of a problem.
engtech @ IDT on September 7, 2007 12:20 PMWow. I use taskbarshuffle and always keep my gmail window in the same exact place on my taskbar (far left position, second row). If gmail is open, it's there. If it's not open, I know instantly to launch a browser window.
Ben on September 7, 2007 12:22 PMClient apps can enforce cardinality through mutexes, etc. so that you only end up with, for example, 1 instance of Photoshop.
Web apps just can't enforce cardinality, or even provide a facility for configuring it. Sounds like a good feature for the next version of all the browsers :)
Rick Brewster on September 7, 2007 12:23 PMYou're blaming the computer for your lack of organization.
I use tabs extensively (in Opera). Heck, I've got 12 open right now. Sure, the labels on those tabs are getting too small to read as more and more of them pop up. But I can quickly see what tabs I've got by hitting CTRL-TAB, I get a little list of all open tabs in the browser window.
And guess what? This is my only open browser window. That's the entire point of having tabs? Why would I want multiple tabs AND multiple windows? That's disorganized.
And like you, I've got 3 "desktops" ("workspaces" in Linux land). I know that my web browser is always on workspace 2 (in the center), my email app is always on workspace 3, and my terminal windows are always on workspace 1. Organized. Easy to find.
You can't rely on the tool doing the entire job for you. It's a tool, not a worker. You have to use the tool correctly in order for it to be helpful.
Mike K. on September 7, 2007 12:26 PMGotta say, I could not disagree more. 1 browser and CTRL+TAB. When I just wanna check something out I shift click to spawn the new browser and prompty kill it when I'm done. Having said that I would like to be able to drag a tab off and drop it on the desktop to make its own window and vice versa.
Jminadeo on September 7, 2007 12:49 PMYou seem to think that because you've got a powerful computer and three screens you're entitled to have a magic solution to juggling dozens of web pages open in the background. I hesitate to sound hostile but I think you're being a bit concieted.
I never find myself hunting for GMail like that because I have the page closed by default. Opening a new page is so quick it isn't an issue.
An industry speaker came to my university last year to talk about managing large software projects, he said (and I paraphrase):
"If someone offered my a five year project with a twenty million pound budget and a hundred staff in three countries I wouldn't take it. Some other idiot can try to manage THAT. Give me ten staff in one room for a year with a 100,000 and I'll consider it."
I would do the same. The basic point is that you can't arbitrarily increase organisational complexity and throw technology at it and expect a happy ending. You seem to be suffering a similar effect.
Remove the problem. Close your tabs.
Gomez on September 7, 2007 12:55 PMWeb apps just can't enforce cardinality, or even provide a facility for configuring it. Sounds like a good feature for the next version of all the browsers :)
No No No - then you cant run two webapps side by side ....
there are reasons to use tabs, reasons to use multiple browser windows, but stopping users doing what they want is evil ...
Try comparing 2 spreadsheets in Excel you have to use the broken Excel MDI windows and not the operating systems perfectly ok system ...!
Jaster on September 7, 2007 12:55 PMWow! You clearly touched something here! (c:
Personally I think (as it seems seem you do to) quicksilver alikes are the best option to this kind of problem. Imagine just having to type "expose gmail" or "exp g" and bam it is selected! Still needs integration though. Now imagine the plugin can read the content of each screen, it could know at least that gmail is present here and there without showing you the specific tab.
This solution would expose two problems though, user need to remember the command name and know what he is searching for exactly. Brings back to the CLI problems for users that are only uses their computer once in a while.
loki.jf on September 7, 2007 1:12 PMIsn't it odd that we're duplicating what the operating system does inside the browser?
No. It's *unfortunate*, but not odd. Window management in Windows has always been terrible, and there's been precious little effort on the part of Microsoft to actually improve it. So you end up with 3rd-party tools like your Expose clone, but with a few exceptions app writers can't depend on them or even take advantage of them.
Think about it: the last major improvement to window management was the task bar. A system-wide tab bar that has almost all the faults of app-specific tab bars, without the advantage of being tailored to the specific needs of any given app. When it became clear that many users kept so many windows open that the task-bar tabs were reduced to little icons in a *scrolling* tab bar, we got "grouped" tabs - now you've got the worst of both worlds, you can't see all of your windows at a glance anymore (you have to expand the group) but they're still all together in a big jumble at the bottom of your screen (or whereever...)
Imagine this: window *and* session management managed in a consistent fashion for all apps. Group the windows you want together, show / hide / close / re-open them with a single operation. Now, *that* would be something worth having...
Shog9 on September 7, 2007 1:14 PMAnother good solution would be to force the closing of unused tabs with maybe a warning...
Another simple one: do not allow to mix tabs and windows for the same application. Easy to configure, removes a lot of pain. Then you can use extensions like expose for Firefox to continue on in the same way you currently do your stuff.
A combination of the two above + textual search would be the best thing. I think.
loki.jf on September 7, 2007 1:17 PMAnother one again...
MacOS uses the same icons to lunch and bring to front. No need for a task bar with dozens of buttons.
Finally, I think you try to eat the microsoft food here, where plenty of good solutions already exists out there.
Windows UI is kind of fundamentally broken when trying to multitask. Have you ever tried using wmii or ion? Have a look and come back. Task switching can actually be quite easy. Windows is not made to multitask.
loki.jf on September 7, 2007 1:25 PMTen years from now, all the nay-sayers here will say Jeff's and Cyrus's concerns and solutions are reasonable and obvious. Mark my words. This is how all significant innovations are treated.
I'm in favor of OS-level support for multi-document thumbnail rendering for any app, multi-tabbed or even MDI (ick!), perhaps with an optional stacking metaphor for tabbed items. This way any app can participate in visual discovery in a consistent way with the rest of the OS, and you can customize the look and feel in a consistent way for all apps if you so choose.
Safari lets you drag tabs between windows, and it would be nice to be able to drag tabs/documents between windows from a higher-level view as well.
Heck, why not make a generic tabbed document shell that lets you put a browser, a command line, an RDP session, a C# file, and anything else within the same window? We've already got multi-tabbed hosts for all of these... It'll be the new alternative to virtual desktops!
Oran on September 7, 2007 1:29 PMEven with today's fancy browser's AJAX and WebTwoDotZero features, the Web itself has become obsolete. HTML it's OK for STATIC content, and to some extent some cool website effects.
But let's be honest: GMail sucks.
I'd love to se real push on some 21st century standards like XUL and alike, so we developers can leave the ancient "web developing" ritual and start coding some internet based applications.
Something in between Java Applets and DHTML/AJAX/etc. will really solve your "browser tabs" problems.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4086
There can be only one... ...tab for each url!
When you click a link to an url that's already open in another tab then you'll switch to that tab instead of actually opening the link. However, some sites using heavy javascript may not work correctly with this, so the extension also offers a whitelist of urls not affected and the ability to disable the extension at the click of a button. The whitelist supports wildcards, * is the wildcard character and will be interpreted as any character zero or more times.
Sorry, don't have time to read every comment right now, but would love to contribute...
It was mentioned atleast once above, Opera already has most if not all of these features your looking for, you just need to learn how to use them. I'm still learning myself... but as a user who generally keeps 50 - 100 web pages open at any one time, I think Opera is the king, since each tab shows the favicon for the page.
I find it's fairly easy to find stuff based on this premise and a little remembering the order of things. Secondly, I did not know this but posted above said that Opera has a seach for tab names. I know there is a way to preview the tabs, but I have too many for it to be of use, the favicon is enough for me.
Secondly, for your multiple instances, no problem, you can have several, and even drag tabs between the multiple instances. Aint that sweet? Close a tab by accident and ctrl-z will bring it back... or you can go dumpster diving to find one closed awhile ago.
And my all time favourite feature from an unstable laptop, when you close the browser (or crash your laptop) it remembers what tabs you had open, so if your system crashes or you want to reboot, next time you load opera it can reaload everything you previously had open.
I can't stress enough, I use this browser for all of my web viewing with the exception of IE for any intranet sites (automaticly use domain login) and firefox solely for javascript debugging.
Also, there is speed dial... so for those 9 most used site's, a simple ctrl-t then ctrl-{1-9} opens the corresponding speed dial site. Also saw on slashdot today, it's about 50% faster then firefox out the gate, but on occasion there are rending problems on sites that don't care about opera.
Opera is a great browser, skinnable (minimalistic interface anybody?) with all the features a power user wants, give it a try.
*sorry for my ramblings, had to be quick.
Sorry if some of the below has already been said, too many comments to take in!
While I think that those saying "Jeff, you're over-multitasking" are correct, I do think we should consider this as a design problem that's going to become more and more common. We're all having to juggle more and more data at any given time and soon coping with this amount of information will be the norm. It was only a few years ago that I couldn't imagine a tabbed browser, much less having 5-15 tabs open in one.
Amazon.com infamously had a flurry of navigation tabs for every product category until they reached a sort of tab critical mass and have now scaled down to only 3 tabs in the top nav - one of which simply says "See all 41 product categories". On hover, this reveals a box of neatly arranged categories.
This is just one solution. But I'm worried our interfaces are not catching up with the amount of data we're generating and consuming.
It baffles me how so many people seem to think having everything in tabs in one window is an appropriate use of tabs.
If you rarely change the size and location of the window (e.g. keep it maximised) then there is no difference (other than accessibility of other tabs and memory consumption, the second of which is only theoretical) to separate instances. If you do, then you're probably micromanaging your windows too much.
Once you have more than a dozen tabs open, the accessibility bonus is more or less gone. It's very difficult to scan the tabs for an open one without some other aid, all of which could also be implemented for non-tabbed multiple instances.
To me the benefit of tabs is that you can, as Jeff does, group related tasks and manipulate them as one. I'm working on a project, I have a browser instance open with documentation and the likes. I go on a break, so I open up a new instance and generally browse. I'm finished with that so I close that instance and switch back to the documentation and resume working. While I am generally browsing I come across and interesting series of articles, so I open that up in a new instance so I can read it later on. It's not cluttering up my current browser instance and the tabs I have open there, which means I can find what I want much easier.
The biggest problem with this method is the one Jeff described, finding a specific ambiguous (in that it's difficult to pinpoint the exact task it relates to) tab. There are many solutions which would benefit both Jeff and I's way of working, as well as the "lump everything together" methodology, namely the search he suggests. I've been using it in Enso for a while and it works well.
[ICR] on September 8, 2007 2:27 AMI suppose I should quantify that with the fact I've never really needed to have more than two dozen tabs open max split between 3 browser instances. And that's a rarity. Why do you people have so many websites open at a time?
[ICR] on September 8, 2007 2:30 AMUhm... I'd miss a point...
If going through tabs is difficult, why you don't simply use the little down arrow on the most right of the tabs? By clicking it you can select the tab on the fly, with a good visibility of what you're seeking...
Blackstorm on September 8, 2007 2:51 AMI certainly agree with the search option you propose. I think that having a mechanism by which you can search the active user interface space would be fantastic. Regarding the taskbar, window grouping is enabled by default in XP (Vista too if i recollect correctly) and most users would have this enabled (lets not forget that the tabbed browsing is designed to solve certain UI problems for the majority of users (who happen to be standard users)), making your argument about looking in the taskbar redundant (as web pages would be grouped into one item). Clumping related objects together is a great way of avoiding information overload, tho it does involve changing the way you approach the collections, previously operating systems were not overly focused on UI and hence we were presented with pretty, albeit cluttered workspaces. Event os x i find tends to clutter up easily.
great article, you highlight that the UI of an OS is still quite lacking and does not provide a very natural method of interaction, yet.
Sabeau on September 8, 2007 3:11 AMQUOTE:
1. I inadvertently open multiple copies of a web site, because I can't see that I already had that web site open in an obscured tab of an existing browser window.
2. I accidentally close a browser window containing information that I needed, because the information was in an obscured tab of that particular browser window.
END QUOTE
That's simply because:
1. You don't look at the tabs before opening a new one, don't blame it on the tab system.
2. Again, you don't look at the tabs before closing the window.
If you are not used to tabs, don't blame it on them.
Marc on September 8, 2007 5:47 AMWhat you want is the correct solution in my opinion. You **almost** get it for free on OS X with Quicksilver, but not quite (not yet). But I agree, search should be the dominant UI metaphor on desktops as well as on the Internet.
Giles Bowkett on September 8, 2007 5:59 AMTo some extent this is request for solutions to a largely artificial problem.
Why not just use a standard e-mail program such as Mail or Outlook - you're gauranteed a single instance and new e-mail notifications come at you and find/open that instance in one go as soon as you click on the notification - no searching whatsoever.
Gaurav Sharma on September 8, 2007 6:06 AMAs mentioned, the solution would be to extend the search functionality to search active windows/tabs it really suprises me when I think about it that Microsoft didn't realise this.
This would be a great feature enhancement to put into the all mighty Vista SP1 but they have already said that there wont be any new features so I guess not.
PL on September 8, 2007 6:28 AMSome original tabbed apps like Opera for example will not allow you to open a secound instance. There for, when you search a webpage you will switch to the big red O and then switch to the right page.
Perhaps the real problem with tabbed browsers is, that most of them allow multiple instances!?
Hinek on September 8, 2007 7:27 AMIt's a question of minimizing pain. Is it more painful to have many windows and fight with the primitive overlapping window systems that most GUIs insist on, or to get your windows listed in a predictable, fixed place for at least some of them?
The task bar is not a valid alternative, because when you change tabs, the window can have a completely different shape and position. Tabs garantee no surprise about location.
I think a variation on larswm offers the only sensible way of out this. Dedicate part of your screen, usually the left half, to the active window, and line up the others on the right half la Expos. For side by side comparison, add zoom-on-mouseover to the inactive windows.
Fred Ross on September 8, 2007 7:34 AMI've been using a vertical task bar in auto-hide mode for probably 10 years now. It makes finding applications much easier when you have a lot of applications because the buttons don't get shortened, and you can always read the labels. (I'm sure there's a number of windows at which a vertical taskbar will run out of room, but at a vertical resolution of 1200, I've never run into it.
The whole point of tabs as an organizational paradigm is that you only need one browser open for any number of websites you'd like to view. Looking for Gmail? Don't look at your taskbar, look at your web browser. Why on earth would you be scanning three desktops and any number of thumbnails when you know it's in your browser? And if you have multiple browsers open... well, why?
That said, your idea of the search paradigm, along with Alan Post's comment about direction above, could eliminate the problem if searching could find tabs. Still...
Tom on September 8, 2007 8:34 AMGood post Jeff. I think this will be development into more a nuisance as more and more apps switch to tabbed interfaces.
I always find it funny how so many users react to blog posts like this saying "OMG Why don't YOU remember ...". Realistically Jeff shouldn't have to remember jack-shit about his UI layout while working away. It's all unnecessary excise.
All that say, I use the permanent tab feature in Firefox, and set GMail to be the permanent in position one. That way I can flick to any browser, press Ctrl 1, and Bongo! I'm in email. Unnecessary duplication? Waste of bandwidth, memory, and processor time? Sure, tell someone who cares though :)
Des Traynor on September 8, 2007 8:47 AMCyrusN posts regularly in the programmer's area of a forum I frequent. He uses a different alias there, though.
Andrew on September 8, 2007 9:13 AMI think your argument against tabs is flawed. You are caliming that the fact that you dont know which browser your Gmail tab might be in. the thing is, you shouldnt be browsing with more hten one browser open any way, it defeats the idea behind having tabs in the first place.
I do know what you are on about, I have taken to leaving tabs open rather then book marking. Im sure this is not the best of ideas, but thanks to opera I have been aloud to get lazy like this. It can always restore my last use of the browser. so if i close opera by accident, dosent matter.
And what makes opera even better for browsing, is a feature called speed dial. when you make a new tab (ctrl+t) you get 9 panels you can click to take you to a super favorate of yours. or you can be in any tab you want and ust whack ctrl+(1 to 9) and it will go that speed dial page.
This means that I very rarely keep certain tabs open, such as gmail. I open it up, look at my mail, then clsoe it up again.
Dan Cosh on September 8, 2007 9:52 AMWhile multi-tasking is a great skill to possess, having 3 browsers open with 20 tabs each - along with IM, email, development, and document programs, should be a highly inefficient way to work or play. You preach that Applications should 'Do one thing' to keep things simple, yet you seem to be making things very complex for yourself.
I'm aware that this system probably works for you fairly well - but the majority of 'tab users' would not be running into the same problems you may encounter.
No wonder you love search so much. My advice would be to close at least one of the browsers.. and only maintain a maximum of 10 (or a number that allows you to read the title of each tab) tabs in each at any one time. One browser for news sites that can be read at leisure, and another browser for sites that you'll be accessing regularly.
A drop down vertical list of tabs would be highly beneficial for you - haven't seen it done yet but I'm guessing firefox has an extension that'd do it. There's an extension for everything..
Another way that application and tab management could be improved? Custom titles in the taskbar and tab-bar for each app and tab. Name your browsers as 'News' and 'Work', and have your work bookmarks customly identifiable. Allows you to access resources in no more than 2 clicks, after a very quick scan of the taskbar and tab-bar.
`Josh on September 8, 2007 10:00 AM
In relation to previous post
I am an idiot. Forgot about tab drop down list in latest versions.. But still my main point is custom names of app/tab bar items.
`Josh on September 8, 2007 11:26 AMMaybe I'm being thick here, but if you get confused by tabs, why not abandon them? IE and FF will work just fine with one tab per browser instance?
Personally, I like tabs because I have only one browser instance open at a time. Yes, I know this is not maximizing my two monitors' real estate, but I don't mind, as I rarely am comparing two web pages. More often, I'm comparing a web page with code in Visual Studio, or a web page or Visual Studio with a Word document.
My point is, some people prefer tabs, some people don't like 'em. Rather than trying to create a single solution that makes everybody happy, why not just let us tab-loving people love our tabs, and non-tab loving people can live with having a bajillion windows in the task bar?
Scott Mitchell on September 8, 2007 11:41 AM..just when you thought Jeff had already complained about EVERYTHING..
No, seriously, I enjoy the technical posts much more than the "here's a random thing that I have decided to hate and a list of halfass reasons why" articles. Of all the things going on in the technosphere, this is the best topic that came to mind today? Tabs suck? Just get rid of them and move on, don't bore everyone that can google for a plugin that quickly and silently disables tabs:
http://piro.sakura.ne.jp/xul/xpi/confirm.cgi?tabkiller_en.xpi
Yuri on September 8, 2007 12:36 PMGood grief Jeff, the long and short of this comes down to too much desktop has convinced you that productivity comes from being scattered to the winds.
Ask anyone about context switching costs and you will find that having this much going on at once is simply reducing your productivity... searching for tabs or not. We all like to think we can multi-task far better than we actually can.
Closing a few windows and refocus on the task at hand. The costs of opening a task up later is far lower than the lost productivity caused by switching at a high rate.
Wesley Shephard on September 8, 2007 1:29 PMHi Jeff. I didn't read all the comments (toooooooo many :)), so forgive me if I repeat a concept...
I tipically use one instance of FF, with something like about 20 tabs or more. I have only one monitor, so it may be a different case from you, but whzt I mean is that I usually know were the tab I need is. I have a standard tab positioning, so I can retrive the tab i need really quickly. It become, however, a little confusing when I open some other tabs, 'cause I don't want open a link in te same tab. But the concept is that I know were are my first 20 tabs...
Blackstorm on September 8, 2007 1:38 PMthis might have promise for you... maybe you (or one of the many reading this, or even myself) could chip in to bring about some launchy+tab goodness.
https://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=1702810forum_id=677087
mattflo on September 8, 2007 1:59 PMI think you chose a bad example with GMail Jeff. Those who suggest use a separate email client, fine. Now how about finding the tab for an article you were reading earlier?
[ICR] on September 9, 2007 2:28 AMSo, in the near future we'll be opening a web browser so we can use google (well, what dinosaur would write an application that doesn't run in a web browser?) in order to search our open web browsers for the website we know we were looking at but have lost?
Wonko The Sane had it right all along.
Bob on September 9, 2007 3:21 AMOne of the few times I have to disagree with you. It just seems to me that your very unorganized
"I have 9 instances of the browser open"
That is your issue I don't see why you would want more then one firefox open per monitor. I almost said one browser but you might want an IE open and a firefox for some testing reason.
As another user said I use tab mix plus, so if i have to many tabs open I get a second row of tabs. I normally stick with one firefox instance and have anywhere from 10-15 tabs open in it. I only have a second instance open when I'm comparing something.
You either need to use tabs more and have less browser windows or use tabs less with more specific organization.
Your very much nit picking get yourself organized.
Shane on September 9, 2007 5:28 AMAll you really need is for a window with multiple tabs to change its display style in alt+tab mode (or expose, switcher, etc.). If the browser window showed tiled icon of each open website - just the icon and not the page - you'd see a relatively large gmail icon when you alt+tabbed and could avoid the problem.
Not perfect, but it's better
Joe on September 9, 2007 5:44 AMEchoes my thoughts from awhile back (not as long ago as Cyrus, though :) ) regarding the annoyance of having applications hidden amongst the tabs of your web browser. I look forward to platforms like AIR enabling these applications which are replacing some of our desktop apps to rejoin their older cousins on the desktop :
http://blog.wioota.com/2007/08/08/is-tabbed-browsing-working-against-us/
Oh and as others have suggested - try Enso.
wioota on September 9, 2007 7:28 AMMy brother absolutely refuses to upgrade to IE7 or use Firefox because it has tabs in it. I think that is a pretty silly standpoint, they are a feature which you don't really have to use if you don't want to.
I also find that having task-related browser windows open is the best bet so I tend to have Twitter, GMail, Facebook, Meebo and Google open in one browser and then launch into a new browser whenever I start wandering off on a tangent.
One thing which annoys me doing this is organizing Tabs. In Firefox I can drag a tab from one instance of the browser to another allowing me to group a disparate collection of tabs together. In IE7 I can't do this. Unfortunately when doing it in FF the page is reloaded (new session and all) rather than transferring context around. This is no doubt for security reasons but damn if it wouldn't be useful.
Also, isn't the TaskBar just a tabbed interface? Do you really want 150 windows in your alt-tab list? Wouldn't it be heaps better to be able to name items in an Alt-Tab list somehow (ie. Firefox (Comms), Firefox (Research))?
Mike Minutillo on September 9, 2007 7:29 AMWhy didn't you open gmail in a new tab? There's nothing wrong with having more than one gmail open. It works perfectly fine.
Tomer Chachamu on September 9, 2007 8:32 AMI always have one browser window for personal websites, as opposed to all the other browser instances that are for "actual" internet browsing (most of the time, only one or two windows).
So anytime I need to go check my gmail accout, I just need to find my browser that says things like "gmail", "google reader", "google docs", "facebook", "hotmail", and other personal stuff like that. I know it's going to be there, because I don't mix internet browsing with personal websites.
lordabdul on September 9, 2007 10:35 AMUsing tabbed browsing in Firefox, I limit my browser to just a few windows with related tabs in each. The very first window's first tab is always GMail, followed by other sites I keep open throughout the day.
I do agree that at a certain point, as you open more tabs, you actually end up reopening sites that are already in a tab in another window, or even in the same window! Of course, there are Firefox extensions to manage these things, though it doesn't hold true for all apps using tabbed UIs.
And just like you Jeff, I'll take tabs over MDI for almost everything.
markku on September 9, 2007 11:44 AMAre you saying I am disrespecting myself because I only have one monitor? That's so 1337...
1332 on September 9, 2007 1:23 PM"I tend to open task-based browser instances, such that all the tabs in that browser are on a *related topic*."
Tab Groups [http://paranoid-androids.com/tabgroups/] is an amazing extension for that. No more needing to guess which browser had what content, since you can name each tab group.
Tomi on September 9, 2007 1:36 PMThere *is* a partial fix to this problem that I've found. The firefox add-on "Tab Catalog" shows a graphical display of all your tabs open in every browser window you have open.
Griff on September 9, 2007 1:57 PMUse convention.
Tab #1 of my FIRST browswer window is ALWAYS yahoo mail. Tab #2 is ALWAYS netvibes.com. If a second browser window is open, I *know* that it won't have either of those in it because of my convention.
Its like always putting your keys in the same pocket so you don't have to search every single pocket for them.
holmes on September 10, 2007 3:41 AMHi there,
I've read through most of the comments and don't have a solution to the problem discussed, but have realised no ones mentioned one of the most useful applications - using the list of tabs as a queue.
E.g scanning down the comments in this article I middle clicked on 4 or 5 links opening in new tabs to read later. Once I finish on this page I can Ctrl+W to close this tab and move onto the next one, opening more links as I need to and closing pages when I finish.
Obviously, browsing habits can't stray too far from this or the pattern breaks down - e.g I can't place links I consider more important higher in the queue and I can't open a link in a new tab and focus on it immediately, but the system works very well when just browsing blogs or doing research.
Also if anyone's interested, I first saw tabs being used like this in Dungeon Keeper, though they probably weren't the first!
Tom on September 10, 2007 3:44 AMEvery time Jeff endorses maximizing, I ask how he switches tasks. The answer is even grimmer than I thought.
I never use tabbed browsing or maximize. I just have a double-row taskbar, I make use of the screen edges, and I don't reboot so that I can remember where all my stuff is.
It ain't the greatest system you could imagine, but it's the best way I've found with the tools that exist.
Patrick on September 10, 2007 10:35 AMJeff,
Long time reader, first time poster.
I use Firefox. When I'm working on multi-monitor systems, I keep one browser open for personal stuff, one browser open for work stuff like research, and additional browser windows for other task groupings. Within each browser I have multiple tabs.
This allows me a) to take advantage of all the extra screen space, and b) to use tabs while still being able to find what I'm looking for.
It's just one approach.
I'll note that every "suggestion" of how to avoid this problem all really boil down to one thing: Modifying your behavior to work around the limitations of the technology.
The worst part is, it becomes hard to figure out what the alternative would be.
Patrick (a different one) on September 10, 2007 10:47 AMOkay, I've encountered this problem before, and it can be really annoying. But I've discovered a really simple solution:
1. Remember that you already had GMail open
2. Go to your fucking browser, dumbass.
3. Click on the GMail tab and stop bitching about it.
How many browsers do you use at one time? When I look at your taskbar, I see only one. Since you're using the web interface, the obvious place to go (whether you already have GMail open or not) is to your browser. There you should be able to locate the tab if it's visible.
Hey, look at that. It turns out that just fucking looking for it takes half as long as wanking around with every stupid gadget you've got. I wonder why!
WurdBendur on September 10, 2007 11:28 AMI've never been a fan of tabbed browsing.
All of your complaints are certainly valid but I don't think there is any way to escape tabbed browsing.
IMHO tabbed browsing is forced on users of the current browsers because opening a new window takes a noticeable longer time than opening a new tab.
In fact no tabbed browsing is why I (almost) prefer IE6 to IE7. IE6 has a noticeably faster load time when it comes to opening a new window; It's pretty much instant or about as fast as opening a new tab in IE7. Both IE7 and firefox(which I currently use) take over one second to load fully when creating a new window. Tabs are instant and so I use them. Some obvious reasons I don't use IE6 is because it doesn't have any security or support for extensions.
Jace on September 10, 2007 12:44 PMold_guy_alert
I'm so used to the old days where OSes weren't good at multitasking applications. The old days were so bad that if you were dumb enough to have more than one application running then your whole computer ground to a halt and you had to press the reset button to get back to work.
From that time I have the habit of only ever having one application up at a time. It's such a strong habit that I actually shutdown Visual Studio in the process of launching email. I know that it's crazy but this habit was force on me during my informative years. It's a habit that I struggle to break.
I just can't get used to these new computers. No matter how much ram I have I still have the instincts that computers work poorly at multitasking and limit the tasks that I have running.
What this meahs is that in the end I only have a few windows open at the most. I can even arrange them such that I can see enough of all of them at once so that I can see at a glance what I have running.
I have no need of the task bar - it is hidden and doesn't clutter my vision. And I have no need of alt-tabbing as it's quicker to bump the mouse a little distance and click.
I'm so old and senile that I can't seem to multitask better than the old computers that I used all those many many years ago.
/old_guy_alert
And what about Do One Thing? I guess that only applies to programs and not programmers :)
The problem with not tidying up is that it's a vicious circle - the more windows/tabs you have open, the more likely you are to open the same thing twice - as it will be quicker than scanning for the existing instance.
People also have differing list scanning speeds. I can usually locate the three existing instances in my colleagues 3-layer task bar before he has had time to click on the Start menu to open the 4th.
Even so, I am an aggressive closer. With browser history, 'undo close tab', Recent Documents and 'save before close' dialogs, I'm very rarely caught out. (The only frequent exception being pre-2007 Excel, where it closes all your windows when you just want to close one, and you click 'No' thinking it's asking you about the one you closed - ARRRGGHHH!!!)
Ben on September 11, 2007 2:19 AMI always like the "You are doing it wrong.... Do it this way only.." style of posts. The point isn't how you managed to get around this issue, it is that the issue exists at all. I don't use tabbed anything if I can avoid it because of these issues.
Craig on September 11, 2007 2:30 AMIt is fascinating how many people employ what Jeff called 'The One Browser To Rule Them All' mentality. Tabs and windows are two different ways of orgaizing your information, and to me it seems limiting to choose to ignore one method in favor of the other all the time.
I use multiple browser windows, each with a series of tabs to represent a single train of thought. One window collects the digg/slashdot/reddit pages that I am looking at (15 tabs), one acts as an inteface to mail (3 tabs), and another is used for my Wikipedia search trail(10 tabs). If I have a new thought, say, I want to find the best way of doing something strange in php. I will open a new window and perform my search, the whole time leaving tabs open like bread-crumbs to follow back on. When I have found what I was looking for, I close the entire window in one keystroke.
I see no reason that these different tasks should be gathered together into one window simply because they all require The Internet. That seems to me like wanting your Text Editor and your mp3 player to share a window. My organization theory is that different tasks deserve different windows, whereas different thoughts require different tabs.
Matthew on September 11, 2007 2:42 AMHave one browser open and u are sorted all your tabs are housed under one browser. U can simply close the tabs your not using and if u do need to reopen a site its not like the internet is slow - the page will load quickly. I would also advise u to ditch windows and go for linux. Install beryl or compiz and u can easliy flick between 4 different desktops all on one screen. Beryl also so provides many other useful functions for screen previewing windows. Oh and i completly disagree with oune of your comments that any self respecting computer user needs more than one monitor. An organised linux user would have none of these problems using only one monitor.
Mitch on September 11, 2007 3:33 AMHey there..
What are you doing with browser? Sit down and write code :))
Savas on September 11, 2007 7:51 AMOne window collects the digg/slashdot/reddit pages that I am looking at (15 tabs), one acts as an inteface to mail (3 tabs), and another is used for my Wikipedia search trail(10 tabs).
Exactly.
Not that this is the "correct" way, mind you. However, I definitely think the logic of "you must limit yourself to only one window for tabs to work properly" is incredibly limiting. That can't be true. It certainly isn't true for Visual Studio.
Jeff Atwood on September 11, 2007 11:12 AMI can understand having one browser instance per monitor for comparing things. But how hard would it be to keep gmail open in the one on your main (or left, or right) monitor? I always have a quick tab order in my main browser instance. Gmail first, then a text game I play, then any open tabs, etc. Then I just know where gmail is.
Despite having multiple monitors, I usually only have more than one browser open if I need to be using firefox instead of opera (for tor, or for testing something) or to make sure IE hasn't managed to mangle my code somehow. Any comparisons I make are usually between a desktop app and the web, not from one site to another.
And for the accidental closure issue, your solution is to use opera. The tab trash can lets you recall any recently closed tab from the cache, so you can reopen sites even offline.
Ryan on September 11, 2007 1:46 PMThe comments to this entry are closed.
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