You know what's funny? I made this post so long ago, which links to this mock-up. It was of course designed to overcome the major list of shortcomings in browser tabs as they are usually implemented.
Everybody scoffed at it then, and now it's apparently the best thing ever?
Thumbnail tabs suck less than normal browser tabs, but they still suck.
Yeah, I remember that mockup. Here's what Dave Hyatt had to say about it here:
Quote:
That is why I think ideas like this, although extremely pretty, seem to be targeting an audience that IMO doesn't exist. A power user doesn't want thumbnails, since they wouldn't be easily distinguishable anyway once you opened several tabs, the overflow mechanism for such a system would be clumsy (or would use too much space, scrollbar anyone?), and you lose too much horizontal real estate. Sure, it's got a neat initial "whizzy" factor to it, but it's simply not as usable or as scalable as the classic tab strip model.
It will be interesting to see what his comments are of OmniWeb 5 and how the general public will like its interface.
You know what's funny? I made this post so long ago, which links to this mock-up. It was of course designed to overcome the major list of shortcomings in browser tabs as they are usually implemented.
Everybody scoffed at it then, and now it's apparently the best thing ever?
Thumbnail tabs suck less than normal browser tabs, but they still suck.
for the record, aside from the "way too much metal" of those mockups, i liked the idea fromt he get-go. i like the way that hyatte considers scroll-bars to be such an awful idea, when the ">>" right side overflow button ain't all that great as a solution, either. exposé is still the only technique i have seen in a long time that solves the problem of when there's just too much crap to give everything its due attention.
ah, whatever. i say apple should just make the omni guys rich, and buy 'em out, and offer them fat contracts to put features and user interface on hyatte's work.
Yeah, I remember that mockup. Here's what Dave Hyatt had to say about it here:
Programmers almost never make good interface designers. Their brains are just wired differently. He neglects all the problems with tabs in the first place. The Omni and "Safari MP" solution is just a band-aid.
I also wonder why Hyatt considers tabs a power user's interface.
-We organize lists vertically, so should we with tabbed windows.
-OmniWeb tabs better capture the essence of a webpage. A webpage can be an advanced application. It is not merely a page. It's better to portray it as a clearly draggable/repositionable object, with a thumbnail rather than a simple line of text. Hopefully Cmd-W and other commands are intact and not used to close tabs.
-Workspaces may be the best innovation at all. It preserves the sanctity of the rest of the UI if it works the way I think it does. Snapshots/saved-states. When you switch workspaces you are really closing the windows behind you and opening new ones. The OmniGroup is working with the UI instead of working *against* it.
It will be interesting to see what his comments are of OmniWeb 5 and how the general public will like its interface.
Dave was wrong, and Omniweb 5.0 will prove it. He/Apple had the chance to do something that was both functionally more powerful than tabs, and showed off some of the Quartz power of OS X. Rather than "Think Different" it was imitation rather than innovation...
Dave was wrong, and Omniweb 5.0 will prove it. He/Apple had the chance to do something that was both functionally more powerful than tabs, and showed off some of the Quartz power of OS X. Rather than "Think Different" it was imitation rather than innovation...
Well, let's just wait and see what Safari 2 looks like at WWDC where they also announce an update to the WebCore for all those developers
I'm surprised that there isn't more complaining from power web surfers.
This is a wonderful implementation of a terrible UI. Knowing how Apple has treated other amazing innovations to come out of third party dev groups, Safari 2 will have some mediocre copy of OW5's tab implementation and workspace (see Sherlock 3).
I think I am most excited about OW5's site preferences. It is so much more powerful than Crapzilla's ability to remember certain aspects for individual sites. All those banking ect sites that refuse you because your browser identifies itself as Mac can now be spoofed without having to lower Mac hits to other sites. I am also intrigued by how their "auto search" feature works. From the videos it would appear that you can click in a search field and that site gets added to the search field with the proper syntax auto-magically added.
Of course Omni do find themselves in a similar situation to Netscape, when Microsoft released IE. It looks like Omniweb 5.0 is going to be great, but people get IE and Safari for free, and like Windows, they may consider them "good enough".
However, the Mac world is better known for paying for shareware than the Windows world, so that may make the difference. Having the world's most advanced browser on our platform is also great for showing up Windows users.
Comments
Originally posted by Eugene
You know what's funny? I made this post so long ago, which links to this mock-up. It was of course designed to overcome the major list of shortcomings in browser tabs as they are usually implemented.
Everybody scoffed at it then, and now it's apparently the best thing ever?
Thumbnail tabs suck less than normal browser tabs, but they still suck.
Yeah, I remember that mockup. Here's what Dave Hyatt had to say about it here:
That is why I think ideas like this, although extremely pretty, seem to be targeting an audience that IMO doesn't exist. A power user doesn't want thumbnails, since they wouldn't be easily distinguishable anyway once you opened several tabs, the overflow mechanism for such a system would be clumsy (or would use too much space, scrollbar anyone?), and you lose too much horizontal real estate. Sure, it's got a neat initial "whizzy" factor to it, but it's simply not as usable or as scalable as the classic tab strip model.
It will be interesting to see what his comments are of OmniWeb 5 and how the general public will like its interface.
Originally posted by Eugene
You know what's funny? I made this post so long ago, which links to this mock-up. It was of course designed to overcome the major list of shortcomings in browser tabs as they are usually implemented.
Everybody scoffed at it then, and now it's apparently the best thing ever?
Thumbnail tabs suck less than normal browser tabs, but they still suck.
for the record, aside from the "way too much metal" of those mockups, i liked the idea fromt he get-go. i like the way that hyatte considers scroll-bars to be such an awful idea, when the ">>" right side overflow button ain't all that great as a solution, either. exposé is still the only technique i have seen in a long time that solves the problem of when there's just too much crap to give everything its due attention.
ah, whatever. i say apple should just make the omni guys rich, and buy 'em out, and offer them fat contracts to put features and user interface on hyatte's work.
Originally posted by Nebagakid
I am pretty shure it would be bringing the entire workspace to the front.
But that's not what I asked it to do.
Over-all, it's good to see the OmniGroup showing some UI common sense unlink Apple lately.
Originally posted by eVo
Yeah, I remember that mockup. Here's what Dave Hyatt had to say about it here:
Programmers almost never make good interface designers. Their brains are just wired differently. He neglects all the problems with tabs in the first place. The Omni and "Safari MP" solution is just a band-aid.
I also wonder why Hyatt considers tabs a power user's interface.
-We organize lists vertically, so should we with tabbed windows.
-OmniWeb tabs better capture the essence of a webpage. A webpage can be an advanced application. It is not merely a page. It's better to portray it as a clearly draggable/repositionable object, with a thumbnail rather than a simple line of text. Hopefully Cmd-W and other commands are intact and not used to close tabs.
-Workspaces may be the best innovation at all. It preserves the sanctity of the rest of the UI if it works the way I think it does. Snapshots/saved-states. When you switch workspaces you are really closing the windows behind you and opening new ones. The OmniGroup is working with the UI instead of working *against* it.
Originally posted by eVo
It will be interesting to see what his comments are of OmniWeb 5 and how the general public will like its interface.
Dave was wrong, and Omniweb 5.0 will prove it. He/Apple had the chance to do something that was both functionally more powerful than tabs, and showed off some of the Quartz power of OS X. Rather than "Think Different" it was imitation rather than innovation...
Originally posted by curmi
Dave was wrong, and Omniweb 5.0 will prove it. He/Apple had the chance to do something that was both functionally more powerful than tabs, and showed off some of the Quartz power of OS X. Rather than "Think Different" it was imitation rather than innovation...
Well, let's just wait and see what Safari 2 looks like at WWDC where they also announce an update to the WebCore for all those developers
This is a wonderful implementation of a terrible UI. Knowing how Apple has treated other amazing innovations to come out of third party dev groups, Safari 2 will have some mediocre copy of OW5's tab implementation and workspace (see Sherlock 3).
I think I am most excited about OW5's site preferences. It is so much more powerful than Crapzilla's ability to remember certain aspects for individual sites. All those banking ect sites that refuse you because your browser identifies itself as Mac can now be spoofed without having to lower Mac hits to other sites. I am also intrigued by how their "auto search" feature works. From the videos it would appear that you can click in a search field and that site gets added to the search field with the proper syntax auto-magically added.
February can't come soon enough.
However, the Mac world is better known for paying for shareware than the Windows world, so that may make the difference. Having the world's most advanced browser on our platform is also great for showing up Windows users.