<strong>Everyone acts like tabs are going to totally screw up OS X gui. I guess those tabs in the prefs panes dont count?</strong><hr></blockquote>
The tabs in the pref panes do count as bad UI. Why should I be forced to look at one control panel at a time? What if I want to quickly compare settings in two pref panes at once? <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
<strong>I'm still wondering why people think mousing to the static "Window" menu and selecting one item is harder than mousing to a dynamic location on the screen to select a tab.
I'm still wondering why people enjoy scanning a one-dimensional list of tabs. As Brad illustrated, it quickly becomes confusing even with <10 tabs. </strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm still wondering that people aren't allowed to have their own friggin ways of working!!!
PS: The Window menu is as dynamic as anything else: the windows are listed alphabetically!!
The tabs are placed where I opened them.
[quote]Originally posted by Eugene:
<strong>I always list items in a column because the list becomes two dimensional. A single bulleted item is read left to right, while separate items are in their own row.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Hey, no room for personal prefences in this thread.
Wow, I guess I should get some notes from you on how I should work then. Talk about arrogance. This is a FEATURE folks, you don't have to use it. blah blah blah blah blah</strong><hr></blockquote>
Why do you think the author created this mock-up? I'll give you a hint. It looks like an attempt to solve one of the problems with tabs we've talked about. Too bad it just introduces more problems.
And I refer you back to Brad's screenshot. No UI should allow for something like that to happen. And no amount of refining will really fix that. </strong><hr></blockquote>
Well let's see the final result before judging, OK?
[quote]Originally posted by Eugene:
<strong>Why do you think the author created this mock-up? I'll give you a hint. It looks like an attempt to solve one of the problems with tabs we've talked about. Too bad it just introduces more problems.</strong><hr></blockquote>
And what's the point about showing it then? It doesn't fix the socalled problem.
I'm still wondering why people think mousing to the static "Window" menu and selecting one item is harder than mousing to a dynamic location on the screen to select a tab.
I'm still wondering why people enjoy scanning a one-dimensional list of tabs. As Brad illustrated, it quickly becomes confusing even with <10 tabs. I always list items in a column because the list becomes two dimensional. A single bulleted item is read left to right, while separate items are in their own row.
But I've already listed all my reasons, and tab-proponents are just rehashing lies about how difficult it is to use the built-in features of the OS instead. "To use the Window menu you have to chop off your pinkie, close one eye, mouse to the top of the screen, then make a wish, blah blah..." not.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Alrighty, then, let's just cut the BS and get down to the bare basics, and examine each quite thorougly, without bias. I've never really used tabs, always been an IE/OmniWeb person myself, and am now using Safari.
Mousing to the Window menu, which really isn't all that static as it changes position from app to app, isn't hard at all. Neither is mousing to a dynamic location, if it's location varys only horizontally. It is well highlighted and quite obvious; therefore organisms with at least the mental capabilities of a chimpanzee probably wont have a problem with it. But difficulty isn't the question; rather, time and efficiency are.
Think of it this way: unless my muscle memory is trained to perfection, to absolute perfection, mind you, and I know exactly where the pointer is to begin with, and can somehow calculate the dynamic tracking of the mouse in (using a too complex-for-mental-math formula depending on speed and distance), I'm still going to have to look at where I'm going with the pointer in order to get it to where ever I'm going. Therefore, the fact that one widget is static and one widget is not has little weight. My brain can quickly determine where the desired object is, even easier if the variation is on a horizontal plain. And it can determine this before my hand has started to move, in all likelihood. I can easily determine the location of the tab bar, its under the big thing at the top of the window. The lag lies between my brain and my hand.
Now with the location out of the way, how about what must actually be done? Well, with the tab bar, the information is already there, one click does the task I want. With the Window menu, I must first click the menu to activate it (extra steps = wasted time) and then when the menu pops up and the information appears below the cursor, I've got to search again to find what I want. More mouse movements. Damn! There goes a few more precious microseconds.
Tabs can be more efficient, regardless of how limited they have the potential of being. It is easier for us to read through a list of items rather than a row of items, but that is negated by the fact that we must perform extra actions to obtain said list. For a few pages, tabs are an excellent way of switching between them, when the number climbs, you can always revert easily to windows.
Those of you who bitch on and on about MDI interfaces and about how Apple is making an disputed example of an MDI interface in Safari, you're all quite narrow minded.
Think of the way nearly all browsers function (and the definition of browser in an OS sense): they are all, essentially, MDI interfaces. When you want to go to a new page, say you click a link, bookmark or enter a new URL, you are not thrown into a new window specific to that document/page. Instead, the previous page is now accessible by the back button, and in the same document window, you are now at a new document. Voodoo! Blasphemy! The back and forward buttons are really just cached tabs, only they are less easily accessed and not properly labeled. Browsers (keep in mind the definition of browser) by their very nature shred guidelines (also keep in mind the definition of guideline, it hasn't been etched in diamond, gilded, and set in stone inside of an impregnable safe residing in Fort Knox) in every move.
If you people really want to have a non-MDI browser, then it you can make one that functions as such: New web pages, or documents, are opened/loaded by selecting Open Location in the File menu. Each page/document has its own window, and clicking a link on a page will open a new window no matter what. There is no forward/back history switching, that is thrown out due to how heathenish and "MDI" it is. Pages/documents in the history are more to the like of recent documents, you can select them but it will open a new window. Document windows display the URL, but you cannot modify it and use the document to go somewhere else.
The web just doesn't work this way, people. It was never meant to. Web pages cannot so easily be called simple documents, they are more and less at the same time. Guidelines are not set in stone, and there are always exceptions to the rule.
Tabbed browsers need the ability to consolidate windows to tabs, to change an existing tab to a new window, and to explode a window full of tabs into a bunch of single windows. They also need the ability to have the default behavior be user-configured to either be tabs or windows.
I was once told by a sometimes-insightful, sometimes-overreactive someone that critiquing someone's work in progress is bad form, specifically one not released to the public. From the outside looking in, we probably appear to be a bunch of jackasses, sitting here and going on and on about how much what Apple is working on -- and is not nearly finished with -- sucks. It's quite childish.
What was that bit about "tab-proponents are just rehashing lies about how difficult it is to use the built-in features of the OS instead"?
I don't understand how/why an optional means of navigation deserves such righteous indignation....wowsers. I like the option of using tabbed windows...or NOT using them. Who loses here?
It's like having a switch that turns off the passenger side airbag when you don't want it activated. Something that nobody is admitting is that GUI's, like language, art and design, change over time.
I'm totally on your side in regard to the one-panel-at-a-time nature of the system preferences. One very good solution in this instance would be to allow the user to continue using the prefs as they're currently set to work in OS X OR to allow them to open prefs one at a time like we did in OS 9. I think that many consumers are HAPPY with, and fully comprehend the "clearinghouse" nature of the current System Prefs setup...so I wouldn't totally axe that method.
But now, more than ever, I am convinced that i want tabs.
Hey Eugene, the moment you ship me a 17" Lapzilla I will consider myself a bitter enemy of the tabbed browser window option.....but UNTIL that time I'll still say that it would be nice.
I have been reading the many, many, many posts on this tab versus no tab topic. I have been very interested in the comments people make concerning good UI versus bad UI. I myself, study Human Factors/Ergonomics and have quite a bit interest in the subject of usability. I have been trying to find some information regarding the use of tab like UI designs. I haven't had much luck. However, my (somewhat) educated guess on this matter is that while the use of tabs, whether in preference panels or web browers, may lead to information being blocked at times, actually provide a very intuitive way to organize large amounts of information. With regard to the preference panels, I can't think of a great number of times I have needed to look at more than one panel at time, but upon further review an command-click option to open a new panel might be a good addition for power users. Of course, the above statements don't really address the use of tabs in web browsing. Better get back on track.
Many times, I find my self trying to surf 3 or 4, maybe 5 websites at once. I tend to think in several channels at once (albeit sometimes with decreased performatnce across all channels), and multiple windows achieves that. The problem, of course, is organization. It is good that (at least with IE 5) new windows are shifted down and to the right so that the titles of previous windows can still be seen. However, if you to return to any of the previous windows besides the most recent one, the titles of the windows (and the information contained within) are now blocked. I contend that for organization purposes, and under most circumstances, seeing all of the TITLES of the windows simultaneously are more important than being able to see all the INFO simultaneously. Therefore, it seems, at first glance, that tabs would provide a very good way to integrate all the titles of windows so that they can be seen simultaneously. This would provide improved organization. I will concede, however, that the ability to open both new tabs and new windows is probably the way to go.
Just as an aside, some people don't tend think the way I do, with the use of my self-described "channels", and instead like to surf the net in more serial fashion. In that case, the use of tabs may be confusing and/or unwanted. It most definitely should be an option, not a requirement.
I am going to keep looking for some information on this UI situation, and will let everyone know if I find anything.
Well let's see the final result before judging, OK?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Short of some mindblowing innovation, I'm not excited at the prospects.
[quote]And what's the point about showing it then? It doesn't fix the socalled problem.
Back to square one.<hr></blockquote>
It shows how there is a very real problem with the basic idea behind tabs. The guy's mock-up solves one problem but he takes a whole lot of screen space to do so. The funny thing is, the problem was already solved before Safari even existed.
Either that, or let's lock this thread because methinks all of our tanks are stuck in the mud. We're going to have to fight this war with salad forks....I hear the sun's made of asparagus.
The issue here isn't really if tabs are inherently bad, it's whether or not tabs are a bad way to navigate between multiple web pages.
In system preferences panes, the tabs are consistent. They behave in the same way, are always in the same relative position, and always the same size. If you see tabs in other places they work the same way. The tab on the left always takes you to the same place, there are always the same number of tabs, etc.
In a web browser, the tabs will always be different sizes, in different locations, and will always take you different places. It will also become difficult to distinguish one from another very quickly and it requires extra clicking to create tabs. Even worse, users have to learn that some tabs work one way, while other tabs work differently, and it sets the stage for other developers to create their own custom tab interfaces with more inconsistencies.
In short, tabbed browsing may make one application more convenient for some users, but it's effect on the big picture is very inconvenient.
However, since it's a hidden feature in the beta, maybe it's not going to actually be implemented, and they were just checking it out to see how it would work.
On a side note, Safari's faster page rendering and snapback features reduce the usefulness of tabbed browsing. I think finding solutions that reduce or eliminate the need for tabbed browsing is the way Apple should be looking.
<strong>In system preferences panes, the tabs are consistent. They behave in the same way, are always in the same relative position, and always the same size. If you see tabs in other places they work the same way. The tab on the left always takes you to the same place, there are always the same number of tabs, etc.
In a web browser, the tabs will always be different sizes, in different locations, and will always take you different places. It will also become difficult to distinguish one from another very quickly and it requires extra clicking to create tabs. Even worse, users have to learn that some tabs work one way, while other tabs work differently, and it sets the stage for other developers to create their own custom tab interfaces with more inconsistencies.</strong><hr></blockquote>
If the tabs actually looked like standard Aqua tabs I could see some minor problems, but the tabs does not look like Aqua tabs at all.
I think there are specific occasions when tabs are useful (I use the Page Holder function in IE for about 4 sites, and tabs replace this pretty well), but it's very much personal taste and usage in that context.
Comments
<strong>Everyone acts like tabs are going to totally screw up OS X gui. I guess those tabs in the prefs panes dont count?</strong><hr></blockquote>
The tabs in the pref panes do count as bad UI. Why should I be forced to look at one control panel at a time? What if I want to quickly compare settings in two pref panes at once? <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
I can't believe you even brought this up.
<strong>I'm still wondering why people think mousing to the static "Window" menu and selecting one item is harder than mousing to a dynamic location on the screen to select a tab.
I'm still wondering why people enjoy scanning a one-dimensional list of tabs. As Brad illustrated, it quickly becomes confusing even with <10 tabs. </strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm still wondering that people aren't allowed to have their own friggin ways of working!!!
PS: The Window menu is as dynamic as anything else: the windows are listed alphabetically!!
The tabs are placed where I opened them.
[quote]Originally posted by Eugene:
<strong>I always list items in a column because the list becomes two dimensional. A single bulleted item is read left to right, while separate items are in their own row.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Hey, no room for personal prefences in this thread.
[ 02-24-2003: Message edited by: JLL ]</p>
<strong>
Wow, I guess I should get some notes from you on how I should work then. Talk about arrogance. This is a FEATURE folks, you don't have to use it. blah blah blah blah blah</strong><hr></blockquote>
Flying COOOKIE.
<strong>
I'm still wondering that people aren't allowed to have their own friggin ways of working!!!
PS: The Window menu is as dynamic as anything else: the windows are listed alphabetically!!
</strong><hr></blockquote>
The Window menu is static. The contents of the menu are dynamic. A tab can be anywhere on the screen.
I?m not much of a graphics designer, but shouldn?t the color scheme on the tabs be reversed, like it is on the bookmarks?
<img src="confused.gif" border="0">
<strong>
The Window menu is static. The contents of the menu are dynamic. A tab can be anywhere on the screen.</strong><hr></blockquote>
You still don't get it.
In one window I always have five AI forum section front pages open.
I reload a tab to see if there are new posts, and new posts that I want to read are opened in new tabs.
Those five tabs to the left DO NEVER MOVE!!! Even not if someone links to - let's say - an Apple page in a thread and I open that page in a new tab.
In the Menu: oops, the Apple page moves the AI pages down the list.
[ 02-24-2003: Message edited by: JLL ]</p>
<strong>
You still don't get it.
In one window I always have five AI forum section front pages open.
I reload a tab to see if there are new posts, and new posts that I want to read are opened in new tabs.
Those five tabs to the left DO NEVER MOVE!!! Even not if someone links to - let's say - an Apple page in a thread and I open that page in a new tab.
In the Menu: oops, the Apple page moves the AI pages down the list.</strong><hr></blockquote>
And I refer you back to Brad's screenshot. No UI should allow for something like that to happen. And no amount of refining will really fix that.
I dug around one of the websites that hosted one of the v62 images and found this:
<a href="http://www.look-designs.com/extras/safari_mp/safari_mp.html"; target="_blank">http://www.look-designs.com/extras/safari_mp/safari_mp.html</a>;
Why do you think the author created this mock-up? I'll give you a hint. It looks like an attempt to solve one of the problems with tabs we've talked about. Too bad it just introduces more problems.
<strong>
And I refer you back to Brad's screenshot. No UI should allow for something like that to happen. And no amount of refining will really fix that. </strong><hr></blockquote>
Well let's see the final result before judging, OK?
[quote]Originally posted by Eugene:
<strong>Why do you think the author created this mock-up? I'll give you a hint. It looks like an attempt to solve one of the problems with tabs we've talked about. Too bad it just introduces more problems.</strong><hr></blockquote>
And what's the point about showing it then? It doesn't fix the socalled problem.
Back to square one.
<strong>Thank Jebus.
I'm still wondering why people think mousing to the static "Window" menu and selecting one item is harder than mousing to a dynamic location on the screen to select a tab.
I'm still wondering why people enjoy scanning a one-dimensional list of tabs. As Brad illustrated, it quickly becomes confusing even with <10 tabs. I always list items in a column because the list becomes two dimensional. A single bulleted item is read left to right, while separate items are in their own row.
But I've already listed all my reasons, and tab-proponents are just rehashing lies about how difficult it is to use the built-in features of the OS instead. "To use the Window menu you have to chop off your pinkie, close one eye, mouse to the top of the screen, then make a wish, blah blah..." not.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Alrighty, then, let's just cut the BS and get down to the bare basics, and examine each quite thorougly, without bias. I've never really used tabs, always been an IE/OmniWeb person myself, and am now using Safari.
Mousing to the Window menu, which really isn't all that static as it changes position from app to app, isn't hard at all. Neither is mousing to a dynamic location, if it's location varys only horizontally. It is well highlighted and quite obvious; therefore organisms with at least the mental capabilities of a chimpanzee probably wont have a problem with it. But difficulty isn't the question; rather, time and efficiency are.
Think of it this way: unless my muscle memory is trained to perfection, to absolute perfection, mind you, and I know exactly where the pointer is to begin with, and can somehow calculate the dynamic tracking of the mouse in (using a too complex-for-mental-math formula depending on speed and distance), I'm still going to have to look at where I'm going with the pointer in order to get it to where ever I'm going. Therefore, the fact that one widget is static and one widget is not has little weight. My brain can quickly determine where the desired object is, even easier if the variation is on a horizontal plain. And it can determine this before my hand has started to move, in all likelihood. I can easily determine the location of the tab bar, its under the big thing at the top of the window. The lag lies between my brain and my hand.
Now with the location out of the way, how about what must actually be done? Well, with the tab bar, the information is already there, one click does the task I want. With the Window menu, I must first click the menu to activate it (extra steps = wasted time) and then when the menu pops up and the information appears below the cursor, I've got to search again to find what I want. More mouse movements. Damn! There goes a few more precious microseconds.
Tabs can be more efficient, regardless of how limited they have the potential of being. It is easier for us to read through a list of items rather than a row of items, but that is negated by the fact that we must perform extra actions to obtain said list. For a few pages, tabs are an excellent way of switching between them, when the number climbs, you can always revert easily to windows.
Those of you who bitch on and on about MDI interfaces and about how Apple is making an disputed example of an MDI interface in Safari, you're all quite narrow minded.
Think of the way nearly all browsers function (and the definition of browser in an OS sense): they are all, essentially, MDI interfaces. When you want to go to a new page, say you click a link, bookmark or enter a new URL, you are not thrown into a new window specific to that document/page. Instead, the previous page is now accessible by the back button, and in the same document window, you are now at a new document. Voodoo! Blasphemy! The back and forward buttons are really just cached tabs, only they are less easily accessed and not properly labeled. Browsers (keep in mind the definition of browser) by their very nature shred guidelines (also keep in mind the definition of guideline, it hasn't been etched in diamond, gilded, and set in stone inside of an impregnable safe residing in Fort Knox) in every move.
If you people really want to have a non-MDI browser, then it you can make one that functions as such: New web pages, or documents, are opened/loaded by selecting Open Location in the File menu. Each page/document has its own window, and clicking a link on a page will open a new window no matter what. There is no forward/back history switching, that is thrown out due to how heathenish and "MDI" it is. Pages/documents in the history are more to the like of recent documents, you can select them but it will open a new window. Document windows display the URL, but you cannot modify it and use the document to go somewhere else.
The web just doesn't work this way, people. It was never meant to. Web pages cannot so easily be called simple documents, they are more and less at the same time. Guidelines are not set in stone, and there are always exceptions to the rule.
Tabbed browsers need the ability to consolidate windows to tabs, to change an existing tab to a new window, and to explode a window full of tabs into a bunch of single windows. They also need the ability to have the default behavior be user-configured to either be tabs or windows.
I was once told by a sometimes-insightful, sometimes-overreactive someone that critiquing someone's work in progress is bad form, specifically one not released to the public. From the outside looking in, we probably appear to be a bunch of jackasses, sitting here and going on and on about how much what Apple is working on -- and is not nearly finished with -- sucks. It's quite childish.
What was that bit about "tab-proponents are just rehashing lies about how difficult it is to use the built-in features of the OS instead"?
I don't understand how/why an optional means of navigation deserves such righteous indignation....wowsers. I like the option of using tabbed windows...or NOT using them. Who loses here?
It's like having a switch that turns off the passenger side airbag when you don't want it activated. Something that nobody is admitting is that GUI's, like language, art and design, change over time.
I'm totally on your side in regard to the one-panel-at-a-time nature of the system preferences. One very good solution in this instance would be to allow the user to continue using the prefs as they're currently set to work in OS X OR to allow them to open prefs one at a time like we did in OS 9. I think that many consumers are HAPPY with, and fully comprehend the "clearinghouse" nature of the current System Prefs setup...so I wouldn't totally axe that method.
But now, more than ever, I am convinced that i want tabs.
Hey Eugene, the moment you ship me a 17" Lapzilla I will consider myself a bitter enemy of the tabbed browser window option.....but UNTIL that time I'll still say that it would be nice.
And I'm not just lyin'!!
Many times, I find my self trying to surf 3 or 4, maybe 5 websites at once. I tend to think in several channels at once (albeit sometimes with decreased performatnce across all channels), and multiple windows achieves that. The problem, of course, is organization. It is good that (at least with IE 5) new windows are shifted down and to the right so that the titles of previous windows can still be seen. However, if you to return to any of the previous windows besides the most recent one, the titles of the windows (and the information contained within) are now blocked. I contend that for organization purposes, and under most circumstances, seeing all of the TITLES of the windows simultaneously are more important than being able to see all the INFO simultaneously. Therefore, it seems, at first glance, that tabs would provide a very good way to integrate all the titles of windows so that they can be seen simultaneously. This would provide improved organization. I will concede, however, that the ability to open both new tabs and new windows is probably the way to go.
Just as an aside, some people don't tend think the way I do, with the use of my self-described "channels", and instead like to surf the net in more serial fashion. In that case, the use of tabs may be confusing and/or unwanted. It most definitely should be an option, not a requirement.
I am going to keep looking for some information on this UI situation, and will let everyone know if I find anything.
Questions or Comments? I'd be happy to hear them.
Ed
<strong>
Well let's see the final result before judging, OK?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Short of some mindblowing innovation, I'm not excited at the prospects.
[quote]And what's the point about showing it then? It doesn't fix the socalled problem.
Back to square one.<hr></blockquote>
It shows how there is a very real problem with the basic idea behind tabs. The guy's mock-up solves one problem but he takes a whole lot of screen space to do so. The funny thing is, the problem was already solved before Safari even existed.
<strong>It shows how there is a very real problem with the basic idea behind tabs.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Why?
If I post a mockup of a new interface to something, does that mean that there is something wring with that app?
No, it shows my personal view on the matter.
<strong>
No, it shows my personal view on the matter.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The Sun is made of asparagus.
<strong>
The Sun is made of asparagus.</strong><hr></blockquote>
How clever
(possibly) in before lock!!!!!
In system preferences panes, the tabs are consistent. They behave in the same way, are always in the same relative position, and always the same size. If you see tabs in other places they work the same way. The tab on the left always takes you to the same place, there are always the same number of tabs, etc.
In a web browser, the tabs will always be different sizes, in different locations, and will always take you different places. It will also become difficult to distinguish one from another very quickly and it requires extra clicking to create tabs. Even worse, users have to learn that some tabs work one way, while other tabs work differently, and it sets the stage for other developers to create their own custom tab interfaces with more inconsistencies.
In short, tabbed browsing may make one application more convenient for some users, but it's effect on the big picture is very inconvenient.
However, since it's a hidden feature in the beta, maybe it's not going to actually be implemented, and they were just checking it out to see how it would work.
On a side note, Safari's faster page rendering and snapback features reduce the usefulness of tabbed browsing. I think finding solutions that reduce or eliminate the need for tabbed browsing is the way Apple should be looking.
<strong>In system preferences panes, the tabs are consistent. They behave in the same way, are always in the same relative position, and always the same size. If you see tabs in other places they work the same way. The tab on the left always takes you to the same place, there are always the same number of tabs, etc.
In a web browser, the tabs will always be different sizes, in different locations, and will always take you different places. It will also become difficult to distinguish one from another very quickly and it requires extra clicking to create tabs. Even worse, users have to learn that some tabs work one way, while other tabs work differently, and it sets the stage for other developers to create their own custom tab interfaces with more inconsistencies.</strong><hr></blockquote>
If the tabs actually looked like standard Aqua tabs I could see some minor problems, but the tabs does not look like Aqua tabs at all.
Hey, we like to have options!