However, do realize that Lundy's scenarios are flawed beyond belief. He seems to be creating them only to be defiant. The second scenario doesn't even revolve around anything we've been talking about in the thread.
Addict: That strip of icons on the ... let's see, that's Leroy's machine and he keeps his Dock on the right, so... the strip of icons running up the right side of the screen.
N00b: Which one of these pictures is for Safari?
Addict: The one that looks blue, circular, and like a compass with a red needle.
N00b: I can't find it.
Addict: It's about ... let's see, that's Leroy's machine and he keeps Safari about the fourth icon down from the top.... It's about the fourth one down from the top.
N00b: The fourth one says "Fetch 4.0.3".
Addict: {Sigh}.....Leroy's running Fetch to get build 7C107.... OK check the ones below that one. Does it say "Safari" when you scrub it with the mouse?
N00b: No, it just made a little puff of smoke. It doesn't say anything.
Addict:
you should write articles for macworld like this i find it really funny
Ok, suppose there were no tabs, as such. Suppose instead each browser page had its own window, but when you selected a different window it automatically positioned itself directly on top of the previous window. And suppose that each window contained a list of all other open windows, which you could select by clicking on them. This would look exactly the same as a tabbed interface, and now Cmd-W would really be closing a window, but effectively closing a tab.
Think about this for a moment. If each windows contained a list of all other open windows, how does this scenario work ?
Open a window, load cnn.com. open a new tab with nbc.com. Open a new window with apple.com. open a new tab with microsoft.com.
What's the result ? Two windows with two tabs each, so as you can see, the tab is the *child* to its *parent* window. Otherwise, each window would have a list of four tabs.
Even worse is the fact that if you are looking at cnn.com and want's to switch to your loaded version of microsoft.com you need to first change windows (clicking on it, or using the 'window' menu-bar), and THEN click on the 'microsoft.com' tab.
So what have you created ? A way to hide information so that it isn't easily accessable any more. "Now where did I put that window that holds the tab for xxx ?". Not even Expose will tell you that!
That being said, I must admit that the way browsers are built, I kinnda like the tabs. But I guess that's mainly because that's because I like opening up a handfull of websites and then browsing through them once at a time. On the other hand, I kinnda found the "open behind this window" option in OmniWeb just as useful, as I usually read through a website completely and then close it. There's hardly any "tabbing" between them.
Tabs are only useful when they cannot be created, destroyed, or duplicated without limits...Where they are constant, such as with in set Preference Panels and palettes. Tabs are not useful as the lobotomized window you describe.
They are useful to me, and several million other Safari/Camino/Mozilla users. Again, experience beats theory. The usage patterns of web browsers are very different from document-based applications, so it shouldn't be surprising that different interfaces can be effective.
Quote:
If it's really just a set of windows, then how can you have two sets of windows with tabs? That is proof of a hierarchy. The window is the parent to the tab.
Of course there's not really a set of windows. That's just the metaphor I use, and it's useful and intuitive. (And I normally don't use more than one window, unless I have a whole lot of pages open, in which case I'd rather manage 2 windows with 6 tabs each than 12 windows).
Quote:
If we did everything according to casual appeal and not according to greater deliberation, then the world would be a terrible place.
As I said, there was a great deal of considered discussion on the Camino mailing list. Just because you don't like a decision doesn't mean it was made without thought.
I remember when I got my first mac, back in 97, I was a bit confused as too why the menubar still displayed the application after the last window was closed, and I didn't even come from a windows background.
However, it didn't take long to realize the difference between the two, and now I fully agree with Eugene. It was better the old way IMO,
I only use windows at the moment, (though not for long :-)...) and i do get thoroughly PO when I close the last window in an app and the app shuts down, ie QT, IE, Netscape, when all I wanted to do was start afresh in the same app.
I suspect thats why windows has TSR, as a workaround to loading up the same appeach time
They are useful to me, and several million other Safari/Camino/Mozilla users. Again, experience beats theory. The usage patterns of web browsers are very different from document-based applications, so it shouldn't be surprising that different interfaces can be effective.
Exactly, though I am starting to want the option to have tabs in a word processor. I often have many documents open and would love to be able to switch back and forth between than like I can with tabs in a browser. I can see exactly which pages is where and can zip over to it. It's much cleaner and much more convenient that a bunch of stacked hidden windows.
Right now, I have 8 tabs open. 2 are different forums. The rest are info I saw when browsing but haven't had time to read yet. Before tabs, I used to have a gazillion windows open. Now it's all together and convenient.
Like I said, a true newbie has no preconceptions of what an app is or isn't. As a computer illiterate first-timer, I have no reason to believe an app isn't still running just because it is out of view. Something doesn't cease to exist just because you can't see it. When I load an app, I will expect an equal and opposite procedure to unload the app. When I open a document, I see that it doesn't spawn a new application process. When I close a window I would expect to see no application process shutdown.
In your example, both people are retards. The newbie isn't listening, and the Mac fool doesn't even know how to use Command-Tab or the Dock.
CAn anyone tell me if Eugene is normally this abusive towards people who hold different opinions than he does?
This is not a religion. This is no, in the grand scheme of things, important.
And yes, I have many brilliant friends who hated their time on my Macs precisely because they would close all the windows in a program, then go to launch another program and be told they were out of memory, because they hadn't quit Word/Excel/Photoshop/Netscape/etc, they'd just closed all the windows. These were not stupid people, these were just people who were very experienced with Windows. I'm not saying Windows' interface is proper, just that you're being a real jerk about all of this. Calm the hell down and stop berating people for thinking differently than you.
Yes, tabs are by far the best new user interface model to come to the web browser in a long, long time. Religious objections to the contrary, they work because the web browser doesn't actually deal in documents, but simply in viewer windows.
I have seen this debate rage many times, about what keyboard shortcut should close a tab versus close a window. Everytime control/command-W has won out. Why? Because while it does mean "close a window" it means more instinctively "make what I'm looking at right now go away." It's not a broken interface, it's a flexible interface. If the anti-tab bigots want, they can turn off tabs completely, and be happy with their less efficient browsers.
Now comes the part where Eugene berates me and castigates me for daring to have a different opinion that his, which of course is gospel. All bow before Eugene, haver of the golden cow.
This wasn't even originally about how sucky tabs were, but obviously it's a contentious issue. Aside from the fact that now we somehw have to bend the rules just for a web browser, tabs ARE a flawed interface.
Here's how *I* would do things. I would add the ability to enable a palette that shows all open windows in an app. I would put this menu option in... the Window Menu. This eliminates SEVERAL problems.
There is no equality problem. There are no child or parent windows. Every window is just that, a plain window.
Command-W vs another Command-key combo is no longer an issue.
Instead of the flawed logic in arranging the tabs in one row, they would be in a column. The problems with the titles being obscured by bunching would disappear.
The detached Window palette, it would float on top of all windows. All your "tabs" would be visible all the time, unlike with two parent windows that each have tabs.
You can now reposition your "tabs" because they're really just windows. You can access your tab just as easily, but now you can actually view two pages side-by-side.
Of course I mentioned all this before. Doesn't it make sense? This is why the existing window paradigm is so much more powerful. Tabs are just crippled windows. Why would you want crippled interfaces?
Tabs aren't new. Tabs have been in applications forever, but they had a specific purpose. You couldn't create them before. They were stationary objects, which made them easier to navigate with motor memory. You can't say tabs are an innovation with respect to web browsing because of the simple fact they're just crippled windows.
I want tabs because they cut down on clutter. I'm currently visiting eight web pages. I have one window open. That's efficiency, that's a major improvement over having eight windows open.
The first thing I do when I get to work in the morning is click on a special item on my bookmark bar which opens four different websites in one window. No clutter, only one step, couldn't be easier. Please explain to me how this interface, which makes my web usage so much easier and more enjoyable, is "crippled."
If you don't like tabs, don't use them. Everyone else seems to think they're just peachy, and seems to have no problem recognizing that a web browser, as just a viewer, is a different beast than a program that actually creates documents, so having slightly different window-management behavior is not a cardinal sin.
Yes, this is MDI. But this is perhaps the one place where MDI works. I have MDI as much as the next person for Photoshop, Word and so on. Because those are document-creation programs, and MDI generally requires that the programs be maximized to work efficiently, and I hate maximized programs. A web browser with a tabs-based MDI, however, is a major improvement over a single window/single page browser. Precisely because it does the opposite of what MDI in Word does -- it frees my screen real estate, it makes the program take up less room.
Tabs are optional. If you want a crippled, inefficient web experience without tabs, go right ahead. But don't condemn others for finding useful a tool you despise. Your opinion is not gospel.
I agree that tear-off menus would be a good thing. I wish that all OS X menubar menus could be torn off into floating palettes, actually. That would eliminate another one of the common Windows user gripes about Macs, the need to mouse all over the screen to get to the menubar. I don't consider it a particularly weighty complaint, but a lot of Windows people continue to bring it up.
I've already changed my mind about tear-off menus. Tear-off menus wouldn't work as well switching from app to app as a simple window switcher. Menus all differ from app to app. A Window switcher would be a constant in all apps. Merely the context, not the options would change.
Why would torn off menus need to endure from app to app? If they were implemented as palettes the menus torn off in Program A would vanish when you switched to Program B, like all palettes do.
Please explain to me how this interface, which makes my web usage so much easier and more enjoyable, is "crippled."
Browsing the web with one window is not efficient at all. Web browsing isn't serial by design. It's the world-wide-web for a reason. You're tangled in it. To get the fullest experience, you don't view one page at a time.
Tabs promote serialization when technology has clearly propelled us into a parallel mindset. We're supposed to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Mac OS X wants you to do more than one task at a time. Viewing one thing at a time is a draconian MS philosophy. It is so ingrained in their OS, the maximize button truly means maximize. Windows users tend to only work in one app at a time, with the windows maximized. I don't. Even when I'm IRCing in Windows, I have 4 separate chat windows all visible at once. Not only does this make me have to click less to read a conversation, the entire body of the window is a big-ass tab I can click on...it's not a tiny sliver of a clickable target near the top of my screen.
If your problem really is with clutter, then how about this...a selectable option to stack browser windows... a pile of windows as it turns out. If you drag that pile, all the windows are dragged. If you resize it, all the windows are resized.
As long as I never have to see Windows WITHIN Windows on OS X.
Why would torn off menus need to endure from app to app? If they were implemented as palettes the menus torn off in Program A would vanish when you switched to Program B, like all palettes do.
The palette would probably be the best option. As is the case, not all apps have a X menu anyway. It would just be bad to have menus from one app endure to the next.
Tear-off menus as palettes...I'd have to see where it goes in actual usage to make up my mind about that one.
Browsing the web with one window is not efficient at all. Web browsing isn't serial by design. It's the world-wide-web for a reason. You're tangled in it. To get the fullest experience, you don't view one page at a time.
No, I read one window at a time. I don't jump between windows, or if I do, I can do that easily with tabs.
Quote:
We're supposed to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Mac OS X wants you to do more than one task at a time. Viewing one thing at a time is a draconian MS philosophy.
Where the hell did you get the idea that I'm only doing one thing at a time? At any given time I tend to have one web window with multiple tabs, several IM conversations, my novel, a screenwriting project, a DVD, NetNewsWire, Mail, iJournal and often iTunes rolling at the same time (though obviously not iTunes and a DVD at the same time). That's another reason I like tabs -- it lets me have more of those windows on screen, less space wasted on pages I'm not reading at the moment. I only have 1.3 million pixels to divvy out, after all.
Quote:
If your problem really is with clutter, then how about this...a selectable option to stack browser windows... a pile of windows as it turns out. If you drag that pile, all the windows are dragged. If you resize it, all the windows are resized.
Where's my one click button to switch to that other window, as in tabs with my tab?
Ugh, no, that would be horrible. I don't want to have to go hunting through a menu. Tabs work perfectly for how I work in a web browser. I'm sorry that you can't accept that the tabbed-window paradigm might be more efficient for some users. It's a sad case of arrogant myopia that you think that the way you work should be good enough for everyone.
Comments
Originally posted by Eugene
However, do realize that Lundy's scenarios are flawed beyond belief. He seems to be creating them only to be defiant. The second scenario doesn't even revolve around anything we've been talking about in the thread.
Geez, this is a tough crowd.
Originally posted by lundy
(continued)
N00b: I wanna surf the Web.
Addict: You need to go to Safari.
N00b: OK how do I get Safari?
Addict: Click the Safari icon in the Dock.
N00b: What's the Dock?
Addict: That strip of icons on the ... let's see, that's Leroy's machine and he keeps his Dock on the right, so... the strip of icons running up the right side of the screen.
N00b: Which one of these pictures is for Safari?
Addict: The one that looks blue, circular, and like a compass with a red needle.
N00b: I can't find it.
Addict: It's about ... let's see, that's Leroy's machine and he keeps Safari about the fourth icon down from the top.... It's about the fourth one down from the top.
N00b: The fourth one says "Fetch 4.0.3".
Addict: {Sigh}.....Leroy's running Fetch to get build 7C107.... OK check the ones below that one. Does it say "Safari" when you scrub it with the mouse?
N00b: No, it just made a little puff of smoke. It doesn't say anything.
Addict:
you should write articles for macworld like this i find it really funny
Originally posted by 3.1416
Ok, suppose there were no tabs, as such. Suppose instead each browser page had its own window, but when you selected a different window it automatically positioned itself directly on top of the previous window. And suppose that each window contained a list of all other open windows, which you could select by clicking on them. This would look exactly the same as a tabbed interface, and now Cmd-W would really be closing a window, but effectively closing a tab.
Think about this for a moment. If each windows contained a list of all other open windows, how does this scenario work ?
Open a window, load cnn.com. open a new tab with nbc.com. Open a new window with apple.com. open a new tab with microsoft.com.
What's the result ? Two windows with two tabs each, so as you can see, the tab is the *child* to its *parent* window. Otherwise, each window would have a list of four tabs.
Even worse is the fact that if you are looking at cnn.com and want's to switch to your loaded version of microsoft.com you need to first change windows (clicking on it, or using the 'window' menu-bar), and THEN click on the 'microsoft.com' tab.
So what have you created ? A way to hide information so that it isn't easily accessable any more. "Now where did I put that window that holds the tab for xxx ?". Not even Expose will tell you that!
That being said, I must admit that the way browsers are built, I kinnda like the tabs. But I guess that's mainly because that's because I like opening up a handfull of websites and then browsing through them once at a time. On the other hand, I kinnda found the "open behind this window" option in OmniWeb just as useful, as I usually read through a website completely and then close it. There's hardly any "tabbing" between them.
.:BoeManE:.
Quote:
Tabs are only useful when they cannot be created, destroyed, or duplicated without limits...Where they are constant, such as with in set Preference Panels and palettes. Tabs are not useful as the lobotomized window you describe.
They are useful to me, and several million other Safari/Camino/Mozilla users. Again, experience beats theory. The usage patterns of web browsers are very different from document-based applications, so it shouldn't be surprising that different interfaces can be effective.
If it's really just a set of windows, then how can you have two sets of windows with tabs? That is proof of a hierarchy. The window is the parent to the tab.
Of course there's not really a set of windows. That's just the metaphor I use, and it's useful and intuitive. (And I normally don't use more than one window, unless I have a whole lot of pages open, in which case I'd rather manage 2 windows with 6 tabs each than 12 windows).
If we did everything according to casual appeal and not according to greater deliberation, then the world would be a terrible place.
As I said, there was a great deal of considered discussion on the Camino mailing list. Just because you don't like a decision doesn't mean it was made without thought.
Originally posted by BoeManE
That being said, I must admit that the way browsers are built, I kinnda like the tabs.
Exactly my point. Despite the theoretical objections, in practice they are useful, largely because of the unique usage patterns of web browing.
However, it didn't take long to realize the difference between the two, and now I fully agree with Eugene. It was better the old way IMO,
I only use windows at the moment, (though not for long :-)...) and i do get thoroughly PO when I close the last window in an app and the app shuts down, ie QT, IE, Netscape, when all I wanted to do was start afresh in the same app.
I suspect thats why windows has TSR, as a workaround to loading up the same appeach time
Go Eugene
Originally posted by 3.1416
They are useful to me, and several million other Safari/Camino/Mozilla users. Again, experience beats theory. The usage patterns of web browsers are very different from document-based applications, so it shouldn't be surprising that different interfaces can be effective.
Exactly, though I am starting to want the option to have tabs in a word processor. I often have many documents open and would love to be able to switch back and forth between than like I can with tabs in a browser. I can see exactly which pages is where and can zip over to it. It's much cleaner and much more convenient that a bunch of stacked hidden windows.
Right now, I have 8 tabs open. 2 are different forums. The rest are info I saw when browsing but haven't had time to read yet. Before tabs, I used to have a gazillion windows open. Now it's all together and convenient.
Originally posted by Eugene
Like I said, a true newbie has no preconceptions of what an app is or isn't. As a computer illiterate first-timer, I have no reason to believe an app isn't still running just because it is out of view. Something doesn't cease to exist just because you can't see it. When I load an app, I will expect an equal and opposite procedure to unload the app. When I open a document, I see that it doesn't spawn a new application process. When I close a window I would expect to see no application process shutdown.
In your example, both people are retards. The newbie isn't listening, and the Mac fool doesn't even know how to use Command-Tab or the Dock.
CAn anyone tell me if Eugene is normally this abusive towards people who hold different opinions than he does?
This is not a religion. This is no, in the grand scheme of things, important.
And yes, I have many brilliant friends who hated their time on my Macs precisely because they would close all the windows in a program, then go to launch another program and be told they were out of memory, because they hadn't quit Word/Excel/Photoshop/Netscape/etc, they'd just closed all the windows. These were not stupid people, these were just people who were very experienced with Windows. I'm not saying Windows' interface is proper, just that you're being a real jerk about all of this. Calm the hell down and stop berating people for thinking differently than you.
I have seen this debate rage many times, about what keyboard shortcut should close a tab versus close a window. Everytime control/command-W has won out. Why? Because while it does mean "close a window" it means more instinctively "make what I'm looking at right now go away." It's not a broken interface, it's a flexible interface. If the anti-tab bigots want, they can turn off tabs completely, and be happy with their less efficient browsers.
Now comes the part where Eugene berates me and castigates me for daring to have a different opinion that his, which of course is gospel. All bow before Eugene, haver of the golden cow.
Here's how *I* would do things. I would add the ability to enable a palette that shows all open windows in an app. I would put this menu option in... the Window Menu. This eliminates SEVERAL problems.
There is no equality problem. There are no child or parent windows. Every window is just that, a plain window.
Command-W vs another Command-key combo is no longer an issue.
Instead of the flawed logic in arranging the tabs in one row, they would be in a column. The problems with the titles being obscured by bunching would disappear.
The detached Window palette, it would float on top of all windows. All your "tabs" would be visible all the time, unlike with two parent windows that each have tabs.
You can now reposition your "tabs" because they're really just windows. You can access your tab just as easily, but now you can actually view two pages side-by-side.
Of course I mentioned all this before. Doesn't it make sense? This is why the existing window paradigm is so much more powerful. Tabs are just crippled windows. Why would you want crippled interfaces?
Tabs aren't new. Tabs have been in applications forever, but they had a specific purpose. You couldn't create them before. They were stationary objects, which made them easier to navigate with motor memory. You can't say tabs are an innovation with respect to web browsing because of the simple fact they're just crippled windows.
The first thing I do when I get to work in the morning is click on a special item on my bookmark bar which opens four different websites in one window. No clutter, only one step, couldn't be easier. Please explain to me how this interface, which makes my web usage so much easier and more enjoyable, is "crippled."
If you don't like tabs, don't use them. Everyone else seems to think they're just peachy, and seems to have no problem recognizing that a web browser, as just a viewer, is a different beast than a program that actually creates documents, so having slightly different window-management behavior is not a cardinal sin.
Yes, this is MDI. But this is perhaps the one place where MDI works. I have MDI as much as the next person for Photoshop, Word and so on. Because those are document-creation programs, and MDI generally requires that the programs be maximized to work efficiently, and I hate maximized programs. A web browser with a tabs-based MDI, however, is a major improvement over a single window/single page browser. Precisely because it does the opposite of what MDI in Word does -- it frees my screen real estate, it makes the program take up less room.
Tabs are optional. If you want a crippled, inefficient web experience without tabs, go right ahead. But don't condemn others for finding useful a tool you despise. Your opinion is not gospel.
I agree that tear-off menus would be a good thing. I wish that all OS X menubar menus could be torn off into floating palettes, actually. That would eliminate another one of the common Windows user gripes about Macs, the need to mouse all over the screen to get to the menubar. I don't consider it a particularly weighty complaint, but a lot of Windows people continue to bring it up.
Originally posted by Kirkland
CAn anyone tell me if Eugene is normally this abusive towards people who hold different opinions than he does?
Hell if I know. I even said twice that I agreed with him and he still went atomic on me.
Please explain to me how this interface, which makes my web usage so much easier and more enjoyable, is "crippled."
Browsing the web with one window is not efficient at all. Web browsing isn't serial by design. It's the world-wide-web for a reason. You're tangled in it. To get the fullest experience, you don't view one page at a time.
Tabs promote serialization when technology has clearly propelled us into a parallel mindset. We're supposed to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Mac OS X wants you to do more than one task at a time. Viewing one thing at a time is a draconian MS philosophy. It is so ingrained in their OS, the maximize button truly means maximize. Windows users tend to only work in one app at a time, with the windows maximized. I don't. Even when I'm IRCing in Windows, I have 4 separate chat windows all visible at once. Not only does this make me have to click less to read a conversation, the entire body of the window is a big-ass tab I can click on...it's not a tiny sliver of a clickable target near the top of my screen.
If your problem really is with clutter, then how about this...a selectable option to stack browser windows... a pile of windows as it turns out. If you drag that pile, all the windows are dragged. If you resize it, all the windows are resized.
As long as I never have to see Windows WITHIN Windows on OS X.
Originally posted by Kirkland
Why would torn off menus need to endure from app to app? If they were implemented as palettes the menus torn off in Program A would vanish when you switched to Program B, like all palettes do.
The palette would probably be the best option. As is the case, not all apps have a X menu anyway. It would just be bad to have menus from one app endure to the next.
Tear-off menus as palettes...I'd have to see where it goes in actual usage to make up my mind about that one.
Originally posted by Eugene
Browsing the web with one window is not efficient at all. Web browsing isn't serial by design. It's the world-wide-web for a reason. You're tangled in it. To get the fullest experience, you don't view one page at a time.
No, I read one window at a time. I don't jump between windows, or if I do, I can do that easily with tabs.
We're supposed to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Mac OS X wants you to do more than one task at a time. Viewing one thing at a time is a draconian MS philosophy.
Where the hell did you get the idea that I'm only doing one thing at a time? At any given time I tend to have one web window with multiple tabs, several IM conversations, my novel, a screenwriting project, a DVD, NetNewsWire, Mail, iJournal and often iTunes rolling at the same time (though obviously not iTunes and a DVD at the same time). That's another reason I like tabs -- it lets me have more of those windows on screen, less space wasted on pages I'm not reading at the moment. I only have 1.3 million pixels to divvy out, after all.
If your problem really is with clutter, then how about this...a selectable option to stack browser windows... a pile of windows as it turns out. If you drag that pile, all the windows are dragged. If you resize it, all the windows are resized.
Where's my one click button to switch to that other window, as in tabs with my tab?
Where's my one click button to switch to that other window, as in tabs with my tab?
This:
It leads to:
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~ceugene/adm/switcher2.png
Except in your case the windows would be stacked and not cascading.
EDITED for clarity.