Tabs are a bad habit. It's like smoking. You can like tabs, but it doesn't mean it's good for you.
Tabs a solution in search of a problem.</strong><hr></blockquote>
What really annoys me about the anti-tab rhetoric is just how pious and self-righteous it is. It reminds of the self-styled interface gurus insisting why the Dock was evil UI even though I had been waiting impatiently for the Dock for years, and it's actually (mostly) excellent UI.
Tabs are a decent -- and, IMO, also somewhat flawed -- solution to a real problem: the clutter created when managing and switching between a large number of web pages open at the same time.
At this point, using the Window menu, command-~, and minimizing windows to the Dock is another solution. But this can get awfully untidy, and doesn't allow one to see all of one's open windows at a glance. Maybe an enhanced Minimize-in-Place in 10.3 and an improved Dock will help. Maybe not. We're not there yet.
And incidentally, comparing tabbed browsing to the Windows MDI paradigm seems to me a little...extreme. Yes, a single Safari v62 window can hold multiple pages, but what other solution is there? (And if you don't feel there's a problem, I suggest you're in the minority -- most people who discover tabbed browsed get hooked for a reason.) I find tabbed browsing (for all it's minuses) a pretty far cry from the MS windows-within-windows paradigm.
<strong>It keeps things much cleaner than having windows all over the place.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Nothing's stopping you from stacking Safari windows on top of each other. If you really need to see what's behind your Safari windows, you can option-click out of Safari.
The problem isn't really the existence of tabs, but the fact that people are using them the wrong way. I'm sure there are rare instances where tabs are better, but nobody has really pointed one out so far.
Are people who are opposed to tabs also opposed to the Bookmarks bar? What is the functional difference between 1) using tabs and 2) clicking on bookmarks in the bar to bring up cached web pages?
I would just like to hear the anti-tab argument laid out.
I've mentioned my reason why I don't think tabs are a good idea, and why I don't buy the "you can turn them off" argument. They're all on the first page. Call it being self-righteous, but I think my points are cogent. It's not the end of the world of course, but it is the thread topic, hence all the posts about it.
I should also point out what I originally said in the MacNN forums. If you conceive of these "tabs" as temporary bookmarks it's not so bad. If you have the bookmarks bar on, they sort of look like they're glommed on to the bookmarks bar.
What really annoys me about the anti-tab rhetoric is just how pious and self-righteous it is. It reminds of the self-styled interface gurus insisting why the Dock was evil UI even though I had been waiting impatiently for the Dock for years, and it's actually (mostly) excellent UI.
Tabs are a decent -- and, IMO, also somewhat flawed -- solution to a real problem: the clutter created when managing and switching between a large number of web pages open at the same time.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Righteous? Sure. Self-righteous, no. It's like how Dodge, GM, Ford, etc. started advertising how their cars had a jizzillion cupholders tucked into every space imaginable. Is having 22 cupholders in your car really better than having 8?
Tabs used in this way unintentionally promote a single-task oriented experience. When I browse the web, I like having at least two pages open with visual feedback on both. Most Windows users I know are single-taskers. They have one app occupying the whole screen at a time. That's not how I work, and that's what tabs promote.
BRussell, nope, I don't use Bookmark bars in any browser for the same reasons I dont use tabs. There's already a facility for me to select bookmarks. I don't need a redundant bookmark bar on one, two, three, four, or more open web browser windows.
Wow, I've never seen Eugene so FIRED UP about something!
Let me see if I can give you an argument why I would -personally- like to have the option for tabbed winders...
I'm working on two different projects at the same time. These projects both require a fair amount of online work. I'm bouncing back and forth between the projects over the course of a few hours.
As things currently stand I've grown accustomed to rapidly flipping through windows via (command-tilde)....but on this theoretical example I now have 8 windows open and I often slam past the one I need...so I end up using my mouse to go up and manually select the proper window from the menubar.
If I could have tabbed windows I could have TWO windows open that contain all of the windows related to the project/subject contained therein...
I could STILL use the keyboard to slam between windows, but would know that I'm not going to have to flip through webpages from the OTHER open window...just the tabbed ones in the topmost window.
<strong>Hobbes: I know they're plain ol' tabs, I'm just trying to rationalize the situation based on the tab appearance.
Eugene: Don't even get me started on Windows' use of tabs! Worst user experience ever!<hr></blockquote></strong>
I so agree -- Windows and a great deal of Windows apps do the most awful, awful things with tabs.
[quote]<strong>Other apps have used tabs in this bad way before even these web browsers picked them up. But Apple has essentially blessed a bad idea in the UE. Not like this is the first or last time. I don't mean to whine, I'm just pointing out my rationale.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yeah, I noticed Quark seems to be attempting to jump on the tabbed window bandwagon as well. (shudder)
And maybe you're right, that this will lead to a increased trend of inappopriately applied tabbed windows in Mac apps. That would be awful.
I don't know though. Browsing really does to me seem like a singular exception to the strong tradition in the Mac to avoid the multiple document interface in a single window.
In what other application activity do you find advanced users opening anywhere from a half-dozen to over a dozen windows, rapidly switching between them, and continously closing some, and opening new ones?
<strong>In what other application activity do you find advanced users opening anywhere from a half-dozen to over a dozen windows, rapidly switching between them, and continously closing some, and opening new ones?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Photoshop! Of course, Photoshop has its own issues, mainly because it's more of a Windows app now than an OS X app, but that's for another thread...
The interesting thing, if you look at the screenshots, is that Apple seems to acknowledge the evilness of the MDI interface; and by hanging the tabs from the top, it would SEEM that they are making it at least appear to the user that the global controls (back, forward, etc) are attached to each individual tab. (do you understand that? i'm not articulating particularly well tonight)
thereby eliminating much of the MDI problem. However, I'm not so sure that webpages are in fact documents; rather they are more like applications IMO, with unique interfaces, of course, but most web pages offer a similar amount of clickable actions and inputs as many 'native' widgeted 'tab' interfaces; see system preferences for example, each pane has tabs... what's so different between tabs in SysPrefs and tabs between webpages?
I'm genuinely indifferent about them. I find them useful in some situations... and a nuisance in others. I think the attachment of a close box (perhaps multifunctional widget, who knows from screen shots alone) to each tab is a much better idea than the seperated 'close tab' widgets present in Chimera or DirectConnect...
I think this could shape up to be a good thing. No reports yet on rearrangeability, though...
drewprops, there *are* siatuations where tabs are appropriate, but from what I've seen in this thread, most people are using tabs to bring the Microsoft Windows UE paradigm to Mac OS.
Nearly every Windows user I know has his mIRC, Explorer, Word, etc. windows maximized to fit his screen, using the taskbar tabs to switch between apps. I just think that's awful, and if tabs allow people to do this, then it's better not having them as an option.
<strong>In what other application activity do you find advanced users opening anywhere from a half-dozen to over a dozen windows, rapidly switching between them, and continously closing some, and opening new ones?</strong><hr></blockquote>
What exactly are you looking at in order to have a half-dozen to over a dozen windows open? pr0n searching? There's something wrong if you're going through that many websites.
Can you give me an example where all these websites have to be constantly at a click's grasp?
Not to mention that having 6 to 12 tabs in a window that's not fullscreen wide causes some serious truncation problems that renders tabs tit-useless.
[ 02-23-2003: Message edited by: kim kap sol ]</p>
Photoshop! Of course, Photoshop has its own issues, mainly because it's more of a Windows app now than an OS X app, but that's for another thread...</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm not sure what you mean, but I'm just fine with the way Photoshop works in OS X right now. Conversely, I hate Photoshop in Windows because it uses MDI... <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[oyvey]" />
<strong>I like having... </strong><hr></blockquote>
Enough said.
All of your 'solutions' for tabs are multi-click/lot's o' mouse movement solutions. Not good time management. They're kind of laughable 'solutions' considering how annoying some of them are.
For someone with one screen (most mac users, hell, most computer users) tabs help increase screen space and visual feedback.
I think a tab should be able to be pulled off to a separate window. I also think a hierarchical history (like the bookmarks screen) would be an interesting addition to a browser.
Nearly every Windows user I know has his mIRC, Explorer, Word, etc. windows maximized to fit his screen, using the taskbar tabs to switch between apps. I just think that's awful, and if tabs allow people to do this, then it's better not having them as an option.</strong><hr></blockquote>
<strong>Nothing's stopping you from stacking Safari windows on top of each other. If you really need to see what's behind your Safari windows, you can option-click out of Safari.
The problem isn't really the existence of tabs, but the fact that people are using them the wrong way. I'm sure there are rare instances where tabs are better, but nobody has really pointed one out so far.</strong><hr></blockquote>
But Eugene, requiring users to manually stack their windows on top of one another is BAD interface. It's needless work. As is travelling to the Window menu or control-clicking the Dock just to see what windows you have open.
[quote]<strong>
Tabs used in this way unintentionally promote a single-task oriented experience. When I browse the web, I like having at least two pages open with visual feedback on both. Most Windows users I know are single-taskers. They have one app occupying the whole screen at a time. </strong><hr></blockquote>
I don't see how having the ability to group the multiple tasks you're working on into a unified structure makes you a single-tasker.
I do know what you mean about visual feedback in the background, though. It's something that's definitely reduced in tabbed browsing (not completely lost -- just reduced into a single tab).
Look, the point is, some people find tabbed browsing incredibly elegant, and other find it incredibly ugly. I think it truth is somewhere in-between... tabs are very compact and efficient, but can be clunky, and reduce to Taskbar-like incoherence if too many are open. I'd like to see something even better. But as BuonRuotto said, it's not the end of world.
I'm not sure what you mean, but I'm just fine with the way Photoshop works in OS X right now. </strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm teasing... a little. In a facetious response to Hobbes' post, Photoshop is another app where I often have many windows open at once. It could make use of more OS X UE features like inspectors and toolbars instead of button bars (all Adobe apps feel like Windows apps right now thanks to this) and olde-timey palettes that in OS X look and act wonky.
And for another facetious post, how silly does Apple's homepage with its tabs look with Safari's tabs just above them?
Whatever Eugene doesn't like isn't good!</strong><hr></blockquote>
Lame answer...yuo lose!!!!
Why should Eugene or I be left out in the dust? An effort to find a better solution that fits both tab-lovers and 'the rest' should be Apple's priority. Not just slapping in the tabbed concept and calling it a day.
What a stupid solution. I bet the Safari and Hyatt spent half a second trying to figure out a better solution.
Comments
Use the application as it is now, or use it with tabbed windows.
Everybody gets their own flavor.
Nobody loses!
Nuff Said.
<strong>
Tabs are a bad habit. It's like smoking. You can like tabs, but it doesn't mean it's good for you.
Tabs a solution in search of a problem.</strong><hr></blockquote>
What really annoys me about the anti-tab rhetoric is just how pious and self-righteous it is. It reminds of the self-styled interface gurus insisting why the Dock was evil UI even though I had been waiting impatiently for the Dock for years, and it's actually (mostly) excellent UI.
Tabs are a decent -- and, IMO, also somewhat flawed -- solution to a real problem: the clutter created when managing and switching between a large number of web pages open at the same time.
At this point, using the Window menu, command-~, and minimizing windows to the Dock is another solution. But this can get awfully untidy, and doesn't allow one to see all of one's open windows at a glance. Maybe an enhanced Minimize-in-Place in 10.3 and an improved Dock will help. Maybe not. We're not there yet.
And incidentally, comparing tabbed browsing to the Windows MDI paradigm seems to me a little...extreme. Yes, a single Safari v62 window can hold multiple pages, but what other solution is there? (And if you don't feel there's a problem, I suggest you're in the minority -- most people who discover tabbed browsed get hooked for a reason.) I find tabbed browsing (for all it's minuses) a pretty far cry from the MS windows-within-windows paradigm.
<strong>It keeps things much cleaner than having windows all over the place.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Nothing's stopping you from stacking Safari windows on top of each other. If you really need to see what's behind your Safari windows, you can option-click out of Safari.
The problem isn't really the existence of tabs, but the fact that people are using them the wrong way. I'm sure there are rare instances where tabs are better, but nobody has really pointed one out so far.
<strong>
Tabs are a bad habit. It's like smoking. You can like tabs, but it doesn't mean it's good for you.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
That's true. I've gotten used to life without tabs again since I've been using Safari.
I would just like to hear the anti-tab argument laid out.
I should also point out what I originally said in the MacNN forums. If you conceive of these "tabs" as temporary bookmarks it's not so bad. If you have the bookmarks bar on, they sort of look like they're glommed on to the bookmarks bar.
[ 02-23-2003: Message edited by: BuonRotto ]</p>
<strong>
What really annoys me about the anti-tab rhetoric is just how pious and self-righteous it is. It reminds of the self-styled interface gurus insisting why the Dock was evil UI even though I had been waiting impatiently for the Dock for years, and it's actually (mostly) excellent UI.
Tabs are a decent -- and, IMO, also somewhat flawed -- solution to a real problem: the clutter created when managing and switching between a large number of web pages open at the same time.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Righteous? Sure. Self-righteous, no. It's like how Dodge, GM, Ford, etc. started advertising how their cars had a jizzillion cupholders tucked into every space imaginable. Is having 22 cupholders in your car really better than having 8?
Tabs used in this way unintentionally promote a single-task oriented experience. When I browse the web, I like having at least two pages open with visual feedback on both. Most Windows users I know are single-taskers. They have one app occupying the whole screen at a time. That's not how I work, and that's what tabs promote.
BRussell, nope, I don't use Bookmark bars in any browser for the same reasons I dont use tabs. There's already a facility for me to select bookmarks. I don't need a redundant bookmark bar on one, two, three, four, or more open web browser windows.
[ 02-23-2003: Message edited by: Eugene ]</p>
Let me see if I can give you an argument why I would -personally- like to have the option for tabbed winders...
I'm working on two different projects at the same time. These projects both require a fair amount of online work. I'm bouncing back and forth between the projects over the course of a few hours.
As things currently stand I've grown accustomed to rapidly flipping through windows via (command-tilde)....but on this theoretical example I now have 8 windows open and I often slam past the one I need...so I end up using my mouse to go up and manually select the proper window from the menubar.
If I could have tabbed windows I could have TWO windows open that contain all of the windows related to the project/subject contained therein...
I could STILL use the keyboard to slam between windows, but would know that I'm not going to have to flip through webpages from the OTHER open window...just the tabbed ones in the topmost window.
So, for me, this would be nice.
Don't take my head off Eugene!
<strong>Hobbes: I know they're plain ol' tabs, I'm just trying to rationalize the situation based on the tab appearance.
Eugene: Don't even get me started on Windows' use of tabs! Worst user experience ever!<hr></blockquote></strong>
I so agree -- Windows and a great deal of Windows apps do the most awful, awful things with tabs.
[quote]<strong>Other apps have used tabs in this bad way before even these web browsers picked them up. But Apple has essentially blessed a bad idea in the UE. Not like this is the first or last time.
Yeah, I noticed Quark seems to be attempting to jump on the tabbed window bandwagon as well. (shudder)
And maybe you're right, that this will lead to a increased trend of inappopriately applied tabbed windows in Mac apps. That would be awful.
I don't know though. Browsing really does to me seem like a singular exception to the strong tradition in the Mac to avoid the multiple document interface in a single window.
In what other application activity do you find advanced users opening anywhere from a half-dozen to over a dozen windows, rapidly switching between them, and continously closing some, and opening new ones?
<strong>In what other application activity do you find advanced users opening anywhere from a half-dozen to over a dozen windows, rapidly switching between them, and continously closing some, and opening new ones?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Photoshop!
thereby eliminating much of the MDI problem. However, I'm not so sure that webpages are in fact documents; rather they are more like applications IMO, with unique interfaces, of course, but most web pages offer a similar amount of clickable actions and inputs as many 'native' widgeted 'tab' interfaces; see system preferences for example, each pane has tabs... what's so different between tabs in SysPrefs and tabs between webpages?
I'm genuinely indifferent about them. I find them useful in some situations... and a nuisance in others. I think the attachment of a close box (perhaps multifunctional widget, who knows from screen shots alone) to each tab is a much better idea than the seperated 'close tab' widgets present in Chimera or DirectConnect...
I think this could shape up to be a good thing. No reports yet on rearrangeability, though...
Nearly every Windows user I know has his mIRC, Explorer, Word, etc. windows maximized to fit his screen, using the taskbar tabs to switch between apps. I just think that's awful, and if tabs allow people to do this, then it's better not having them as an option.
<strong>In what other application activity do you find advanced users opening anywhere from a half-dozen to over a dozen windows, rapidly switching between them, and continously closing some, and opening new ones?</strong><hr></blockquote>
What exactly are you looking at in order to have a half-dozen to over a dozen windows open? pr0n searching? There's something wrong if you're going through that many websites.
Can you give me an example where all these websites have to be constantly at a click's grasp?
Not to mention that having 6 to 12 tabs in a window that's not fullscreen wide causes some serious truncation problems that renders tabs tit-useless.
[ 02-23-2003: Message edited by: kim kap sol ]</p>
<strong>
Photoshop!
I'm not sure what you mean, but I'm just fine with the way Photoshop works in OS X right now. Conversely, I hate Photoshop in Windows because it uses MDI... <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[oyvey]" />
<strong>I like having... </strong><hr></blockquote>
Enough said.
All of your 'solutions' for tabs are multi-click/lot's o' mouse movement solutions. Not good time management. They're kind of laughable 'solutions' considering how annoying some of them are.
For someone with one screen (most mac users, hell, most computer users) tabs help increase screen space and visual feedback.
I think a tab should be able to be pulled off to a separate window. I also think a hierarchical history (like the bookmarks screen) would be an interesting addition to a browser.
<strong>
Nearly every Windows user I know has his mIRC, Explorer, Word, etc. windows maximized to fit his screen, using the taskbar tabs to switch between apps. I just think that's awful, and if tabs allow people to do this, then it's better not having them as an option.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Whatever Eugene doesn't like isn't good!
<strong>Nothing's stopping you from stacking Safari windows on top of each other. If you really need to see what's behind your Safari windows, you can option-click out of Safari.
The problem isn't really the existence of tabs, but the fact that people are using them the wrong way. I'm sure there are rare instances where tabs are better, but nobody has really pointed one out so far.</strong><hr></blockquote>
But Eugene, requiring users to manually stack their windows on top of one another is BAD interface. It's needless work. As is travelling to the Window menu or control-clicking the Dock just to see what windows you have open.
[quote]<strong>
Tabs used in this way unintentionally promote a single-task oriented experience. When I browse the web, I like having at least two pages open with visual feedback on both. Most Windows users I know are single-taskers. They have one app occupying the whole screen at a time. </strong><hr></blockquote>
I don't see how having the ability to group the multiple tasks you're working on into a unified structure makes you a single-tasker.
I do know what you mean about visual feedback in the background, though. It's something that's definitely reduced in tabbed browsing (not completely lost -- just reduced into a single tab).
Look, the point is, some people find tabbed browsing incredibly elegant, and other find it incredibly ugly. I think it truth is somewhere in-between... tabs are very compact and efficient, but can be clunky, and reduce to Taskbar-like incoherence if too many are open. I'd like to see something even better. But as BuonRuotto said, it's not the end of world.
[ 02-23-2003: Message edited by: Hobbes ]</p>
<strong>
I'm not sure what you mean, but I'm just fine with the way Photoshop works in OS X right now. </strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm teasing... a little. In a facetious response to Hobbes' post, Photoshop is another app where I often have many windows open at once. It could make use of more OS X UE features like inspectors and toolbars instead of button bars (all Adobe apps feel like Windows apps right now thanks to this) and olde-timey palettes that in OS X look and act wonky.
And for another facetious post, how silly does Apple's homepage with its tabs look with Safari's tabs just above them?
<strong>
Whatever Eugene doesn't like isn't good!</strong><hr></blockquote>
Lame answer...yuo lose!!!!
Why should Eugene or I be left out in the dust? An effort to find a better solution that fits both tab-lovers and 'the rest' should be Apple's priority. Not just slapping in the tabbed concept and calling it a day.
What a stupid solution. I bet the Safari and Hyatt spent half a second trying to figure out a better solution.