Okay, I read the articles. Frankly, they didn't address any problems with tabs that I've had. One relates to bookmark groups, which I never use, and the other relates to accidentally closing an entire window when it has, say, half a dozen tabs in it. Requiring you to open a new window and find all your links again to get it back to how it was. But that's not a problem either because command-W closes the tab, and I'm not going to accidentally press command-shift-W or click the window widget.
So basically, the articles contained no arguments against tabs that applied to me. And the proposed solution wasn't great either... basically it said to have multiple windows along with some sort of sidebar that has thumbnails of the various pages, but I wouldn't like that because it would take up lots of screen area, far more than tabs do, and also because a thumbnail of a window would get pretty small and it would be just as hard to find the contents of the page from a tiny thumbnail as it would be to find it from looking at truncated text.
I think it would be cool to have a second dock that contains every window currently open. So, an application dock on the bottom and a window dock on the left maybe. It would be quite complex, though, so maybe not a great feature for new users. However, you could have the window dock hold thumbnail previews of the windows that are currently open, or maybe it would only show windows in the currently selected application and it would dynamically adjust to when you changed apps.
I think it would be cool to have a second dock that contains every window currently open. So, an application dock on the bottom and a window dock on the left maybe. It would be quite complex, though, so maybe not a great feature for new users. However, you could have the window dock hold thumbnail previews of the windows that are currently open, or maybe it would only show windows in the currently selected application and it would dynamically adjust to when you changed apps.
But that's almost exactly my suggestion, except that this "window dock" would only be visible while switching between windows.
The application dock, per default, is usually visible (although it can be hided), because it provides visual feedback (for example, Mail shows the amount of unread messages, and some chat programs "bounce" when a new message arrives). The window dock wouldn't provide such feedback. It would (like the second area of the application dock does with minimized windows) show thumbnails of the windows of the current apps; hovering over one, or selecting it using the window switching shortcuts (Cmd-~ or Cmd-< for international users) would show the title (as is the case with the application dock.
As you pointed out, such a thumbnail doesn't necessarily give enough detail of the windows' contents, but tabs don't either.
There is currently no decent way a computer could summarize the contents (OS X's summarize service isn't that good, in my experience, and it doesn't work for pictures, AFAIK), so the solution of that problem is still to be found.
I think it would be cool to have a second dock that contains every window currently open. So, an application dock on the bottom and a window dock on the left maybe.
I'm not going to accidentally press command-shift-W or click the window widget.
I can understand it being hard to accidently press command-shift-W but why is it so difficult to click the window widget by mistake?
It's what you (meaning people in general) have clicked to close a webpage since ever. It's also what command-W is mapped to in every other application.
I'm just glad Apple had the decency not to reuse the red close widget graphic for tab close, unlike some other tabbed-browsing designs.
I can understand it being hard to accidently press command-shift-W but why is it so difficult to click the window widget by mistake?
It's what you (meaning people in general) have clicked to close a webpage since ever. It's also what command-W is mapped to in every other application.
I'm just glad Apple had the decency not to reuse the red close widget graphic for tab close, unlike some other tabbed-browsing designs.
Well, I've used tabbed browsers since I first discovered Mozilla about a year ago. So I'm used to not clicking the close box. It's pretty far away from the tab-close-button so it would only be a problem if you're not used to it.
Comments
What is tabbed browsing?
Why is it a problem?
Various implementations of tabbed browsing
How can it be solved in a way that makes everyone happy?
So basically, the articles contained no arguments against tabs that applied to me. And the proposed solution wasn't great either... basically it said to have multiple windows along with some sort of sidebar that has thumbnails of the various pages, but I wouldn't like that because it would take up lots of screen area, far more than tabs do, and also because a thumbnail of a window would get pretty small and it would be just as hard to find the contents of the page from a tiny thumbnail as it would be to find it from looking at truncated text.
I think it would be cool to have a second dock that contains every window currently open. So, an application dock on the bottom and a window dock on the left maybe. It would be quite complex, though, so maybe not a great feature for new users. However, you could have the window dock hold thumbnail previews of the windows that are currently open, or maybe it would only show windows in the currently selected application and it would dynamically adjust to when you changed apps.
Originally posted by Luca Rescigno
I think it would be cool to have a second dock that contains every window currently open. So, an application dock on the bottom and a window dock on the left maybe. It would be quite complex, though, so maybe not a great feature for new users. However, you could have the window dock hold thumbnail previews of the windows that are currently open, or maybe it would only show windows in the currently selected application and it would dynamically adjust to when you changed apps.
But that's almost exactly my suggestion, except that this "window dock" would only be visible while switching between windows.
The application dock, per default, is usually visible (although it can be hided), because it provides visual feedback (for example, Mail shows the amount of unread messages, and some chat programs "bounce" when a new message arrives). The window dock wouldn't provide such feedback. It would (like the second area of the application dock does with minimized windows) show thumbnails of the windows of the current apps; hovering over one, or selecting it using the window switching shortcuts (Cmd-~ or Cmd-< for international users) would show the title (as is the case with the application dock.
As you pointed out, such a thumbnail doesn't necessarily give enough detail of the windows' contents, but tabs don't either.
There is currently no decent way a computer could summarize the contents (OS X's summarize service isn't that good, in my experience, and it doesn't work for pictures, AFAIK), so the solution of that problem is still to be found.
Originally posted by Luca Rescigno
I think it would be cool to have a second dock that contains every window currently open. So, an application dock on the bottom and a window dock on the left maybe.
You mean like in NeXTstep and OpenStep?
pic 1
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Originally posted by Luca Rescigno
I'm not going to accidentally press command-shift-W or click the window widget.
I can understand it being hard to accidently press command-shift-W but why is it so difficult to click the window widget by mistake?
It's what you (meaning people in general) have clicked to close a webpage since ever. It's also what command-W is mapped to in every other application.
I'm just glad Apple had the decency not to reuse the red close widget graphic for tab close, unlike some other tabbed-browsing designs.
Originally posted by stupider...likeafox
I can understand it being hard to accidently press command-shift-W but why is it so difficult to click the window widget by mistake?
It's what you (meaning people in general) have clicked to close a webpage since ever. It's also what command-W is mapped to in every other application.
I'm just glad Apple had the decency not to reuse the red close widget graphic for tab close, unlike some other tabbed-browsing designs.
Well, I've used tabbed browsers since I first discovered Mozilla about a year ago. So I'm used to not clicking the close box. It's pretty far away from the tab-close-button so it would only be a problem if you're not used to it.