Quite. I think you've hit on a couple of great ideas in this thread, and you're right, we're just not that far apart on how we view the system after all.
um, there's a slight difference between the two. for example, posting here can be at your own pace, but chatting requires you to be real-time attentive to people constantly sending you IM's. the few times i have tried to have multi-user chats at work, it was all i could do to keep up with the various threads at once simultaneously. it's like having completely different conversations at a dinner party, with people standing on either side of you... and you don't talk, you type.
like i said, bit of a difference between that and here.
This all depends on how you use IM. I come from ICQ (the first IM, IIRC) and that was originally "single message", so I've stuck with it. I don't feel any rush to answer IMs if they're not urgent and nobody should either.
If you ever come across an interlocutor that expects you to answer immediately don't and either tell him/her directly to stop pressuring you or stop IM'ing you if they can't wait and they'll soon understand.
That sounded harsher than I meant, but it's true. IM means instant message, not Instant Reply. Educate your interlocutors and they'll in turn educate theirs.
I have conversations where each message is replied maybe hours and sometimes days after it was originally sent (ICQ made this easier by storing messages in the server which were delivered when the other party logged in, and saving a history of the conversation over time, modern IM clients help with this as well by storing History files).
Again, you decide how you want to chat and how you use your time. Nobody can force you to reply instantaneously if you don't want to.
And as a side note, the stupid method of setting yourself as "away" is a sad way to not have people sending you messages. Educate users, don't work around their ways.
My self and my partners use ichat (AIM) on a daily basis to do buisness. Having the ability to group all of my partners and freelances together in a group would be a nice feature, this would limit me to 1 chat window as opposed to the 4 to 6 that I may have up at a time. To me this would be a PRO.
Having tabs windows helps here. Having tabs doesn't lead to error unless you're careless. It saves space and allows for flexibility.
The conversation in this thread is going a little overboard because it seems people are arguing over which interface should be ENFORCED and this is stupid. The option should be given and whoever wants it could use it (like Safari's tabs).
Right now I think Adium has the best interface for IM out there (I'm including every IM application under the sun here, for all platforms, all of which I've used).
You can use tabs or not. You can have all your conversations in a single tab or have different tab groups. You can have your tabs ordered by group, alphabetically or by status. You can have different tab groups (windows) for different user grouops (Friends, Family, etc.). Probably the only improvement I'd make in Adium right now would be to make sure when the user sees a notification for a user's message that he realizes he may not be seeing that user's tab. This is PEBKAC, obviously, and I don't have a good interface solution for it.
I do wish Apple checked the Adium guys. Apple doesn't like as much customizability in their apps and usually go for a more rigid and controllable interface, but maybe a deal could be struck.
The main problem here is the Adium license and for this several options exist:
-Apple could make the iChat's proprietary protocols (especially AV) closed source as a plug-in for a special version of Adium, as this version would have to be Closed-Source.
-The Adium people could consult with all its developers and decide upon a especially-made version of Adium for Apple, and sell the source for that specific subset of Adium to them. The Adium group could use the money and Apple would have a flexible sourcebase to build onto without killing the main Adium fork (which would keep its base and flexibility).
There are several options but, as usual, Apple won't do it this way. I liked what they did on David Hyatt (hire him, let him keep working on Camino, etc.) but the Adium team is much larger and may not be an option.
I also don't think Apple would include MSN support, for several reasons which I won't list here. I myself hate MSN but have more than half my friends there (I have been able to convince a few of them to switch, but then they'd have to tell their friends to switch, which wouldn't happen, as that second level has absolutely no reason to do so).
Sure, people can say it's PEBCAK, but what you say entirely true. It's unfortunately happened to me...and not just any ol' conversation between two people...it happened to be a mix up when I was talking to my ex-girlfriend and my new girlfriend simultaneously. It's silly and evands and adam may laugh but it's pretty fucking serious if you ask me. Switching back and forth between tabs between conversations can lead to disastrous situations. The possibility of misclicks also happen when you have to target small tabs.
The solution is not to decide over whether to include tabs or not, but to give the option to have tabs and, most importantly, to give the option on which tabs go where.
Safari doesn't have tabs enabled by default and neither should iChat. Tabs should also be movable or groupable. This way you could have tabs for what you want and grouped the way you want. The same way you can with Safari right now (the only thing safari is missing is tab regrouping, moving or detaching).
I for example have tried Adium's grouping of tabs. In the end I just used a single window for them all except when I'm chatting with friends and co-workers, in which case I have to windows with their respective tabs. I do this not because I think I can mistype one thing for the other but because sometimes I'll send a URL to ALL my friends' tabs and I can easily do CMD-V,CMD-SHIFT-LEFT,CMD-V until I've gone through all the tabs without seeing who I'm sending them to.
I do agree tabs should have a blinker or some animated notification. The current way to do this in Adium is to change the online-status gumdrop, which is not enough. But this is only so it can grab your attention. I've often gone unnoticed of a message for a while because I didn't see the icon change.
Something I'd like and that is probably unfeasible is that if I activate Expose in adium (and other tab-enabled applications) all tabs should detach and appear separately. This is mostly eye Candy, but I'd like it.
Right now all tabbed-applications I know of can be manipulated via the keyboard (and it's actually more intuitive than several windows, as you have a spatial location you can correlate to keys: This tab is to the left so I hit the "go left" keyboard combo, etc.). I have sometimes gone without using the keyboard while doing Mail-IM-Webbrowsing-IRC-Terminal for several hours. As long as you don't have to click on links or select-and copy you don't notice. It's releasing.
The only problem I see with tabs is you wouldn't know who replied unless there was some form of indicator such as a little icon that appears on the tab or something... Also it would be great for keyboard short cuts to be put in for switching between tabs. Something like Shift-1, Shift-2, etc. That alone would be faster than going between windows as it currently exists. The less I have to use the mouse the happier and faster I am.
You should check current implementations of tabbed IM windows (like proteus and Adium). The tabs have notices in them (although I'd like for the tab to blink) and you can easily navigate the tabs with the keyboard, just as you can in Safari (and Colloquy, for that matter, which is also a tabbed app which is all the better for having tabs).
For all those who don't know yet: When you log in with a Jabber account, you can automatically be connected to all your other services (MSN, AIM). With just one password. All your other accounts are stored on the server.
Jabber servers have gateways to lots of other protocols (most of them support AIM, ICQ, MSN, IRC, Yahoo).
I currently use Jabber, so I should make these notes:
Jabber supports gateways to other protocols, but your client and your server must know about them. If Apple adds Jabber support but hardcode their server or don't add support for gateways in their client other protocols may not be supported.
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Jabber is an open and free protocol and it will probably become the only official IM standard. Until now this freeness has been a bit of a problem for Jabber's adoption: the public Jabber servers don't form one big network (altough most of them interconnect) because they're not backed by commercial companies.
The same reasons you give here are the ones given by those that say Jabber won't take off.
Jabber is currently not endorsed by any company (and if rumors are true Apple won't endorse it officially any more than Adium does, it'll be just one more protocol for their proprietary client).
MSN and AOL are currently the de-facto standard (depending on the country and continent) because they were backed by companies. ICQ was the original IM (not including unix's 'talk'.. and it was swallowed by the other two. I should add that ICQ was toppled when it already have more than ten times the current Jabber's user base. So there.
I like Jabber (not 100%, but I don't like any IM protocol 100%) but I can see its defects.
Here's what I'd like to see in an IM protocol:
-Support for server-sent messages (for when you're online)
-Server-stored Buddy lists
-Support for AV (right now iChat's the best AV protocol, and Skype's the best Audio-only protocol)
-Support for seeing the IP information of your authorized buddies (that is, you authorize people to see your IP directly) and of going through the server for those you don't.
-Allowing YOU to delete YOURSELF from people who could have you in their lists.
-Easy layer of P2P interconnectivity for adding third-party connection tools (AV, Games, File transfers, etc.)
Adam...bring this back. You don't understand what I mean by chat are being horizontally skinny. You're thinking the whole window has to be skinny...not so. Just the text area.
Two things:
1.-I liked your screenshot for an idea. I hadn't understood you either, which brings me to:
2.-Maybe you should check on that "you don't understand me" and change it to "maybe I'm not making myself clear". Don't assume the others are at fault. I wasn't understanding you and I believe nor were some of the others.
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Still...I don't think Apple should touch tabs. I was surprised they did with Safari and I'd be even more surprised if they did with iChat. The casual browser or chatter doesn't need tabs.
To this day, I know no one personally that uses the tabs in Safari. The only time I hear of people using it is on web forums.
I don't see why things have to be so radical. Apple doesn't force you to use tabs. Tabs are disabled by default. You only use them if:
1.-You know about them from somewhere else
2.-You find them while seeing around the preferences
3.-A friend points them over to you or enables them for you.
In cases 1 and 2 we're not talking unknowing users. Casual browsers won't see them and won't need them, so they won't use them. The only way a casual browser would use tabs is in case "3" above, in which case he knows where the odd behaviour comes from and knows who to go to and complain/ask/question about them.
You may choose to assume that users are in average uneducated or dumb, but don't assume they have to be corraled and shouldn't be given choices. EVERY user I have presented tabs to have come to rely on them so much they hate going back to browsers that don't have them (which is like Expose, which you may not know until someone points it to you and then you get used to it immediately).
Eduo
PS: I have refrained to use the term "feature nazi" because I don't think that's what you mean, but I should mention that's how you come across.
But they were made to solve a problem that the Mac simply doesn't have.
You could argue that staples are a kludge for people that can't use folders properly and that paperclips are better for so many reasons.
It still wouldn't be the point.
The point is that different people like to manage things differently and you're nobody to tell them they're doing it better or worse than they should. I know people who use their mice the wrong way up and people who close their car doors with their feet. I know people who cut their hair with that vacuum, "seen-on-tv" thingy and people that eat spaghetti cutting it up before. I know people who mix Whiskey and Coke and people who use SUVs in the city. I know people who swing (sexually) and people who go to church every other day.
Can I have an opinion on the issue and say I don't agree with what they do? Yes.
Can I say they're wrong, say they should be prohibited from having that option and that they're stupid, wrong, inefficient or whatever else I think I am superior to them for? No. I can't. Neither can you say people SHOULDN'T have the option. No matter your opinion in this respect (something which, incidentally, you evidently lack by extension).
Geez. I can't believe I'm reading "People shouldn't have the choice because it's my belief this interface decision is passe/overrated/unnecessary/ugly/hard-to-click/misunderstood-by-me".
Gosh. Complain if the feature is planned as mandatory, not if it's considered as optional (like tabs currently in Safari, which are entirely optional and off by default).
I myself would LOVE to have an GUI that is fullscreen, no windows, just panes and tabs. Self-contained, self-referencing. My grandmother could understand something like that better than she does current UI's. Would that be inefficient or less-than-best? Yes. Would it work better for her? Yes.
Give me one fullscreen OS. With several panes and tabs for each application and I have at least 20 people I know would be much happier than they currently are. Of which I'm not one, but I'm capable of seeing that something that would limit me would make an experience easier for someone else.
I see an IM client as being like a text editor, but the documents are shared. I would never *dream* of using a text editor that was tabbed! Would you?
I do. The most-used grapical text (code and text) editors in Windows and Unix use tabs (HomePage, Bluefish, Quanta). They also do a two-pane interface (list of documents, document content, tabs below). Same for IDEs.
They *work*.
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For one thing, tabs (in many implementations) break drag and drop between documents. Ouch. Big no-no.
This is not an inherent problem of tabs, but a problem of current tab implementation. Saying this is like saying a folder within a closed folder precludes d&d. Not so. In the same way we have pop-up and pop-into-view for d&d in the finder and expose for d&d in overlapped windows accross applications tabs could EASILY switch into focus in the middle of a drag operation and before the drop.
Say, you have text in one tab which you select, drag, move to the tab bar over a different tab, said tabs switches into focus, drop.
For some items (mostly, even) you could just drop the item over the tab and if you don't wait for it to come up and just drop right away the item is sent without an "enter" (which would happen if you waited for the window to pop up) the same way it is for the finder currently.
Do not confuse tabs themselves with tab implementations and pass the defects of one unto the others. Complaining about an implementation just means that's a temporary concern, until it's addressed.
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And they have many drawbacks as well, not the least of which is that they don't scale well, they don't work with many app content, and most implementations break drag-and-drop. I mean come on, that last one has got to be a biggie. You (generic programmer, not you in particular) just broke one the most *fundamental* UI elements, and it's not a hack? Hmmm.
Read above for the Drag&Drop. You're missing the point. D&D could be implemented in tabs just like it can be implemented in multiple windows (or, if you will, in windows currently obscured by something else).
On the "scale well" argument, few things scale well in UI. You have to decide on adopting things for your average user. As you've repeatedly stated, normal users don't have more than a handful of IM conversations at the same time. That means Tabs work for that.
I like tabs because I can have a single messaging window which I can keep in view while something else occupies most of the screen (it may be a movie I'm seeing, it may be Steve's latest keynote, it may be my mail, it may be my OTHER tabbed application: IRC. I am not able to fit several IM windows and several IRC windows in my 1024x768 screen without having it completely wallpapered by the windows. Which I obviously don't like.
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Yes, you did, but no more convincingly, sorry. I see why some people like them... but I refuse to accede that they are a general solution widget. The original problem they were designed to solve simply isn't an issue on the Mac.
For you.
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Edit: Just saw your above reply... fair enough, you're limiting it to just the IM client, and that's it. I think at that point, it becomes merely an issue of personal taste, and we can agree to disagree?
It was always about the IM client. Some of us mentioned the feasibility of tabs somewhere else but the argument was focused on the IM client. And we should've agreed to disagree from the beginning.
I'm actually curious to see how it's going to work...especially since iChat does video and audio chats. Somehow I think it's a feature that will be dropped before it shows up in any build.
What the heck has AV got to do with Tabs? I haven't ever used audio of video in a text window. You get a separate window for it, so the point is incredibly irrelevant, highly tangential and dangerously flammable..
I apologize for my barrage of messages. I read the thread just today and replied to messages as I read them.
Now I have a page almost all to myself..
As a summary, I'd like to mention I think current implementations of every UI widget have possible improvements (even Expose) and, as I said, Tabs currently address a single need for me: Grouping all of an app's windows into a single one.
I don't think every multi-window app needs tabs. I wouldn't dream of using tabs in Photoshop, for example, but I can see their usefulness and how they make some users' UI usage more efficient.
I'd dare to find anyone that can handle their Safari or Adium windows without tabs faster than I can with them. Really.
Yes, you did, but no more convincingly, sorry. I see why some people like them... but I refuse to accede that they are a general solution widget. The original problem they were designed to solve simply isn't an issue on the Mac.
For you.
For anyone. You even state that your own desire for tabs is based on grouping, not cycling problems:
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Originally posted by eduo
As a summary, I'd like to mention I think current implementations of every UI widget have possible improvements (even Expose) and, as I said, Tabs currently address a single need for me: Grouping all of an app's windows into a single one.
The original problem that tabs were supposed to solve, poor window management leading to a lack of ease in selecting quickly and precisely the window you want out of many, isn't the problem on MacOS X that it is under other systems. For *that problem*, tabs are at best a nicety under MacOS X, not absolutely essential as on other systems.
However, you did come around to the same terminology we had been discussing above, that of window grouping. That's an area of potential high utility for everyone, and one that supercedes tabs by a wide margin.
Bottom line: arguing about tabs, or figuring out the best possible implementation for tabs would be a waste of time for Apple. They should be concentrating on the bigger fish that will get more users better benefit. Tabs, or tab functionality, will fall out of that research quite naturally.
And do we *really* need to go down the 'just make everything an option' road again? That horse is dead, beaten, and therein lies madness. Or X11. It's a bad approach to UI design, fundamentally.
I'll ignore the rest of your comments since they were covered in the conversation between Gon and I.
And do we *really* need to go down the 'just make everything an option' road again? That horse is dead, beaten, and therein lies madness. Or X11. It's a bad approach to UI design, fundamentally.
Until they fix the hide-minimize system, I'd say tabs as an option are a good idea. It is very useful to me in both browsing and IM, and maybe this is a surprise to you but both Expose and Windows Taskbar get swamped by the combined quantity/quality of my browser windows. I haven't thought about it before, but the linear nature of the tabs helps me organize my browsing, especially on forums. Expose gives no order to the windows.
Everything can be configured - good
You are expected to configure everything - bad
You are needlessly exposed to advanced options - bad
I'd say GNOME and Firefox people have configuration right. Both have simple configuration, but you can get to GNOME's internals with a distinct advanced configuration tool, and you can extend Firefox to do whatever you want, using simple or complicated extensions.
I do. The most-used grapical text (code and text) editors in Windows and Unix use tabs (HomePage, Bluefish, Quanta). They also do a two-pane interface (list of documents, document content, tabs below). Same for IDEs.
They *work*.
And the window managers they work within *suck*. I know. I use them. I'm quite fond of tabbed editors and browsers on Windows, simply for want of something better.
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Do not confuse tabs themselves with tab implementations and pass the defects of one unto the others. Complaining about an implementation just means that's a temporary concern, until it's addressed.
But that's dodging the issue. Currently, on the Mac, the "tabs" under discussion (as opposed to the conventional use) only exist as implementations. My entire criticism, at least, centers precisely around the fact that there is no standard, thought-through behavior for multiple-document windows. So you have to start there. Tabs cannot be considered a feature, in my opinion, until we can actually talk about "tabs themselves" rather than a wildly variable and completely inconsistent morass of implementations. (Actually, if you talk about "tabs themselves," they exist on OSX, and they're well designed for their intended job: Organizing panes of related controls in a space-efficient manner.)
As for the idea that UIs should be as wildly variable as individuals are, I can't understand that at all. What other interfaces are so variable? Would you want to get into someone's car only to realize that they prefer to steer with their feet? If a machine has a certain set of features, the interface's primary obligation is to make those features accessible in a consistent and intuitive way. The fact that the close box on a Mac window is in the upper left-hand corner has not, so far as I know, interfered with anyone's individuality.
The UI designed with the mantra that consistency is fascism is Motif, and look at how that turned out.
As for the idea that UIs should be as wildly variable as individuals are, I can't understand that at all. What other interfaces are so variable? Would you want to get into someone's car only to realize that they prefer to steer with their feet? If a machine has a certain set of features, the interface's primary obligation is to make those features accessible in a consistent and intuitive way.
Totally wrong. Who's forcing you to use an interface someone else customized for himself? If you want the standard interface, you use the standard interface.
If I lost both my hands in an accident, I would definitely want a feet-steered car.
Intuitiveness and consistency in interfaces are subjective. Both depend on how close the user's thought model and the software's logic correspond.
Consistency is quite important in my estimate. I like knowing that if I sit down at any mac or windows computer, I will know how to use it. That isn't true of *nix systems; graphical or commandline. On the mac, top -u sorts by CPU use order, on any other system that gives an invalid argument. Things like that are really annoying, and make it a big pain to trouble shoot (especially over the phone) and I think it makes the system seem unpolished.
Playing with KDE's options, you can see so many of them and set pretty much anything. But I maintain that some things should be set by the system design. That is the point of design and making design decisions. I think Apple is really good at giving us options without giving us everything under the sun (I would like themes though). It's what makes standards and a joyful user experience.
Consistency of what -- behavior, layout, structure? I think people have to get a little deeper into what they mean by consistency because you can be consistent to an idea, but that can invoke different particular details.
Consistency is an exercise in fine-tuning. I can make you jump through hoops on a consistent basis, make you jump through the same set of hoops, but you're still jumping through hoops. We're looking for a more sophisticated set of tools or behaviors first, then we can hammer out any quirks or exceptions. And in order to do that, we have to agree on what we're trying to manage or structure here -- windows, documents, apps, networks, etc. I don't think we've even come to agreement on what it is we're trying to manage.
As far as optioning out everything under the sun, if you've ever used 3D modelling software, you know the advantages and pitfalls of that approach. I've used a lot of FormZ in the last 6+ years, and while you can do just about anything under the sun, there's a really steep learning curve to learn how to do that. That's true of almost any 3D app. Some 3D apps throw the whole book at you right off the bat, and you can't even draw a simple box because you're buried in inputs, options and strict hierarchies that you can't dig yourself out of. Others hide options and tools until the user calls for them. Finding those options can be a spelunking expedition, and while users can usually at least build something simple, getting the app to do what they want is difficult. Users often think that you can't do xyz because they can't find the option or change the restriction. It takes months to learn the apps' structure, how to navigate, go into different modes of working, understand the different sets of tools, etc. This situation is simply unacceptable if it's compounded by an OS that acts the same way.
Anyway, I think you have to sort out the structure issue before you talk about consistency, options, tools and features to manage that structure. Basically, you have to start at the beginning. Also ask yourself how much control you're willing to give up to the computer, and how much you want to manage things yourself? There's a range of answers, but the range has to be defined, and thus you have to set limits. The wider the rnage, less easily learned the GUI will be. And Apple isn't really famous for having an intuitive UI, it's famous for having an easy to learn UI.
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Thanks for an enjoyable discussion.
Originally posted by rok
um, there's a slight difference between the two. for example, posting here can be at your own pace, but chatting requires you to be real-time attentive to people constantly sending you IM's. the few times i have tried to have multi-user chats at work, it was all i could do to keep up with the various threads at once simultaneously. it's like having completely different conversations at a dinner party, with people standing on either side of you... and you don't talk, you type.
like i said, bit of a difference between that and here.
This all depends on how you use IM. I come from ICQ (the first IM, IIRC) and that was originally "single message", so I've stuck with it. I don't feel any rush to answer IMs if they're not urgent and nobody should either.
If you ever come across an interlocutor that expects you to answer immediately don't and either tell him/her directly to stop pressuring you or stop IM'ing you if they can't wait and they'll soon understand.
That sounded harsher than I meant, but it's true. IM means instant message, not Instant Reply. Educate your interlocutors and they'll in turn educate theirs.
I have conversations where each message is replied maybe hours and sometimes days after it was originally sent (ICQ made this easier by storing messages in the server which were delivered when the other party logged in, and saving a history of the conversation over time, modern IM clients help with this as well by storing History files).
Again, you decide how you want to chat and how you use your time. Nobody can force you to reply instantaneously if you don't want to.
And as a side note, the stupid method of setting yourself as "away" is a sad way to not have people sending you messages. Educate users, don't work around their ways.
Eduo
Originally posted by averagezen
My self and my partners use ichat (AIM) on a daily basis to do buisness. Having the ability to group all of my partners and freelances together in a group would be a nice feature, this would limit me to 1 chat window as opposed to the 4 to 6 that I may have up at a time. To me this would be a PRO.
Having tabs windows helps here. Having tabs doesn't lead to error unless you're careless. It saves space and allows for flexibility.
The conversation in this thread is going a little overboard because it seems people are arguing over which interface should be ENFORCED and this is stupid. The option should be given and whoever wants it could use it (like Safari's tabs).
Right now I think Adium has the best interface for IM out there (I'm including every IM application under the sun here, for all platforms, all of which I've used).
You can use tabs or not. You can have all your conversations in a single tab or have different tab groups. You can have your tabs ordered by group, alphabetically or by status. You can have different tab groups (windows) for different user grouops (Friends, Family, etc.). Probably the only improvement I'd make in Adium right now would be to make sure when the user sees a notification for a user's message that he realizes he may not be seeing that user's tab. This is PEBKAC, obviously, and I don't have a good interface solution for it.
I do wish Apple checked the Adium guys. Apple doesn't like as much customizability in their apps and usually go for a more rigid and controllable interface, but maybe a deal could be struck.
The main problem here is the Adium license and for this several options exist:
-Apple could make the iChat's proprietary protocols (especially AV) closed source as a plug-in for a special version of Adium, as this version would have to be Closed-Source.
-The Adium people could consult with all its developers and decide upon a especially-made version of Adium for Apple, and sell the source for that specific subset of Adium to them. The Adium group could use the money and Apple would have a flexible sourcebase to build onto without killing the main Adium fork (which would keep its base and flexibility).
There are several options but, as usual, Apple won't do it this way. I liked what they did on David Hyatt (hire him, let him keep working on Camino, etc.) but the Adium team is much larger and may not be an option.
I also don't think Apple would include MSN support, for several reasons which I won't list here. I myself hate MSN but have more than half my friends there (I have been able to convince a few of them to switch, but then they'd have to tell their friends to switch, which wouldn't happen, as that second level has absolutely no reason to do so).
That was rather more than 2 cents.
Eduo
Originally posted by kim kap sol
Sure, people can say it's PEBCAK, but what you say entirely true. It's unfortunately happened to me...and not just any ol' conversation between two people...it happened to be a mix up when I was talking to my ex-girlfriend and my new girlfriend simultaneously. It's silly and evands and adam may laugh but it's pretty fucking serious if you ask me. Switching back and forth between tabs between conversations can lead to disastrous situations. The possibility of misclicks also happen when you have to target small tabs.
The solution is not to decide over whether to include tabs or not, but to give the option to have tabs and, most importantly, to give the option on which tabs go where.
Safari doesn't have tabs enabled by default and neither should iChat. Tabs should also be movable or groupable. This way you could have tabs for what you want and grouped the way you want. The same way you can with Safari right now (the only thing safari is missing is tab regrouping, moving or detaching).
I for example have tried Adium's grouping of tabs. In the end I just used a single window for them all except when I'm chatting with friends and co-workers, in which case I have to windows with their respective tabs. I do this not because I think I can mistype one thing for the other but because sometimes I'll send a URL to ALL my friends' tabs and I can easily do CMD-V,CMD-SHIFT-LEFT,CMD-V until I've gone through all the tabs without seeing who I'm sending them to.
I do agree tabs should have a blinker or some animated notification. The current way to do this in Adium is to change the online-status gumdrop, which is not enough. But this is only so it can grab your attention. I've often gone unnoticed of a message for a while because I didn't see the icon change.
Something I'd like and that is probably unfeasible is that if I activate Expose in adium (and other tab-enabled applications) all tabs should detach and appear separately. This is mostly eye Candy, but I'd like it.
Right now all tabbed-applications I know of can be manipulated via the keyboard (and it's actually more intuitive than several windows, as you have a spatial location you can correlate to keys: This tab is to the left so I hit the "go left" keyboard combo, etc.). I have sometimes gone without using the keyboard while doing Mail-IM-Webbrowsing-IRC-Terminal for several hours. As long as you don't have to click on links or select-and copy you don't notice. It's releasing.
Eduo
Originally posted by jherrling
The only problem I see with tabs is you wouldn't know who replied unless there was some form of indicator such as a little icon that appears on the tab or something... Also it would be great for keyboard short cuts to be put in for switching between tabs. Something like Shift-1, Shift-2, etc. That alone would be faster than going between windows as it currently exists. The less I have to use the mouse the happier and faster I am.
You should check current implementations of tabbed IM windows (like proteus and Adium). The tabs have notices in them (although I'd like for the tab to blink) and you can easily navigate the tabs with the keyboard, just as you can in Safari (and Colloquy, for that matter, which is also a tabbed app which is all the better for having tabs).
Originally posted by vroem
MSN support is already there. (in Tiger)
For all those who don't know yet: When you log in with a Jabber account, you can automatically be connected to all your other services (MSN, AIM). With just one password. All your other accounts are stored on the server.
Jabber servers have gateways to lots of other protocols (most of them support AIM, ICQ, MSN, IRC, Yahoo).
I currently use Jabber, so I should make these notes:
Jabber supports gateways to other protocols, but your client and your server must know about them. If Apple adds Jabber support but hardcode their server or don't add support for gateways in their client other protocols may not be supported.
Jabber is an open and free protocol and it will probably become the only official IM standard. Until now this freeness has been a bit of a problem for Jabber's adoption: the public Jabber servers don't form one big network (altough most of them interconnect) because they're not backed by commercial companies.
The same reasons you give here are the ones given by those that say Jabber won't take off.
Jabber is currently not endorsed by any company (and if rumors are true Apple won't endorse it officially any more than Adium does, it'll be just one more protocol for their proprietary client).
MSN and AOL are currently the de-facto standard (depending on the country and continent) because they were backed by companies. ICQ was the original IM (not including unix's 'talk'..
I like Jabber (not 100%, but I don't like any IM protocol 100%) but I can see its defects.
Here's what I'd like to see in an IM protocol:
-Support for server-sent messages (for when you're online)
-Server-stored Buddy lists
-Support for AV (right now iChat's the best AV protocol, and Skype's the best Audio-only protocol)
-Support for seeing the IP information of your authorized buddies (that is, you authorize people to see your IP directly) and of going through the server for those you don't.
-Allowing YOU to delete YOURSELF from people who could have you in their lists.
-Easy layer of P2P interconnectivity for adding third-party connection tools (AV, Games, File transfers, etc.)
Originally posted by kim kap sol
Adam...bring this back. You don't understand what I mean by chat are being horizontally skinny. You're thinking the whole window has to be skinny...not so. Just the text area.
Two things:
1.-I liked your screenshot for an idea. I hadn't understood you either, which brings me to:
2.-Maybe you should check on that "you don't understand me" and change it to "maybe I'm not making myself clear". Don't assume the others are at fault. I wasn't understanding you and I believe nor were some of the others.
Still...I don't think Apple should touch tabs. I was surprised they did with Safari and I'd be even more surprised if they did with iChat. The casual browser or chatter doesn't need tabs.
To this day, I know no one personally that uses the tabs in Safari. The only time I hear of people using it is on web forums.
I don't see why things have to be so radical. Apple doesn't force you to use tabs. Tabs are disabled by default. You only use them if:
1.-You know about them from somewhere else
2.-You find them while seeing around the preferences
3.-A friend points them over to you or enables them for you.
In cases 1 and 2 we're not talking unknowing users. Casual browsers won't see them and won't need them, so they won't use them. The only way a casual browser would use tabs is in case "3" above, in which case he knows where the odd behaviour comes from and knows who to go to and complain/ask/question about them.
You may choose to assume that users are in average uneducated or dumb, but don't assume they have to be corraled and shouldn't be given choices. EVERY user I have presented tabs to have come to rely on them so much they hate going back to browsers that don't have them (which is like Expose, which you may not know until someone points it to you and then you get used to it immediately).
Eduo
PS: I have refrained to use the term "feature nazi" because I don't think that's what you mean, but I should mention that's how you come across.
Originally posted by Kickaha
But they were made to solve a problem that the Mac simply doesn't have.
You could argue that staples are a kludge for people that can't use folders properly and that paperclips are better for so many reasons.
It still wouldn't be the point.
The point is that different people like to manage things differently and you're nobody to tell them they're doing it better or worse than they should. I know people who use their mice the wrong way up and people who close their car doors with their feet. I know people who cut their hair with that vacuum, "seen-on-tv" thingy and people that eat spaghetti cutting it up before. I know people who mix Whiskey and Coke and people who use SUVs in the city. I know people who swing (sexually) and people who go to church every other day.
Can I have an opinion on the issue and say I don't agree with what they do? Yes.
Can I say they're wrong, say they should be prohibited from having that option and that they're stupid, wrong, inefficient or whatever else I think I am superior to them for? No. I can't. Neither can you say people SHOULDN'T have the option. No matter your opinion in this respect (something which, incidentally, you evidently lack by extension).
Geez. I can't believe I'm reading "People shouldn't have the choice because it's my belief this interface decision is passe/overrated/unnecessary/ugly/hard-to-click/misunderstood-by-me".
Gosh. Complain if the feature is planned as mandatory, not if it's considered as optional (like tabs currently in Safari, which are entirely optional and off by default).
I myself would LOVE to have an GUI that is fullscreen, no windows, just panes and tabs. Self-contained, self-referencing. My grandmother could understand something like that better than she does current UI's. Would that be inefficient or less-than-best? Yes. Would it work better for her? Yes.
Give me one fullscreen OS. With several panes and tabs for each application and I have at least 20 people I know would be much happier than they currently are. Of which I'm not one, but I'm capable of seeing that something that would limit me would make an experience easier for someone else.
Eduo
Originally posted by kim kap sol
http://img32.exs.cx/img32/4757/Expose769.png
No problems distinguishing 9 conversations with Exposé.
So...
Who's roxanne?
...
Sorry... Got derailed.
Eduo
Originally posted by Kickaha
I see an IM client as being like a text editor, but the documents are shared. I would never *dream* of using a text editor that was tabbed! Would you?
I do. The most-used grapical text (code and text) editors in Windows and Unix use tabs (HomePage, Bluefish, Quanta). They also do a two-pane interface (list of documents, document content, tabs below). Same for IDEs.
They *work*.
For one thing, tabs (in many implementations) break drag and drop between documents. Ouch. Big no-no.
This is not an inherent problem of tabs, but a problem of current tab implementation. Saying this is like saying a folder within a closed folder precludes d&d. Not so. In the same way we have pop-up and pop-into-view for d&d in the finder and expose for d&d in overlapped windows accross applications tabs could EASILY switch into focus in the middle of a drag operation and before the drop.
Say, you have text in one tab which you select, drag, move to the tab bar over a different tab, said tabs switches into focus, drop.
For some items (mostly, even) you could just drop the item over the tab and if you don't wait for it to come up and just drop right away the item is sent without an "enter" (which would happen if you waited for the window to pop up) the same way it is for the finder currently.
Do not confuse tabs themselves with tab implementations and pass the defects of one unto the others. Complaining about an implementation just means that's a temporary concern, until it's addressed.
And they have many drawbacks as well, not the least of which is that they don't scale well, they don't work with many app content, and most implementations break drag-and-drop. I mean come on, that last one has got to be a biggie. You (generic programmer, not you in particular) just broke one the most *fundamental* UI elements, and it's not a hack? Hmmm.
Read above for the Drag&Drop. You're missing the point. D&D could be implemented in tabs just like it can be implemented in multiple windows (or, if you will, in windows currently obscured by something else).
On the "scale well" argument, few things scale well in UI. You have to decide on adopting things for your average user. As you've repeatedly stated, normal users don't have more than a handful of IM conversations at the same time. That means Tabs work for that.
I like tabs because I can have a single messaging window which I can keep in view while something else occupies most of the screen (it may be a movie I'm seeing, it may be Steve's latest keynote, it may be my mail, it may be my OTHER tabbed application: IRC. I am not able to fit several IM windows and several IRC windows in my 1024x768 screen without having it completely wallpapered by the windows. Which I obviously don't like.
Yes, you did, but no more convincingly, sorry. I see why some people like them... but I refuse to accede that they are a general solution widget. The original problem they were designed to solve simply isn't an issue on the Mac.
For you.
Edit: Just saw your above reply... fair enough, you're limiting it to just the IM client, and that's it. I think at that point, it becomes merely an issue of personal taste, and we can agree to disagree?
It was always about the IM client. Some of us mentioned the feasibility of tabs somewhere else but the argument was focused on the IM client. And we should've agreed to disagree from the beginning.
Originally posted by kim kap sol
I'm actually curious to see how it's going to work...especially since iChat does video and audio chats. Somehow I think it's a feature that will be dropped before it shows up in any build.
What the heck has AV got to do with Tabs? I haven't ever used audio of video in a text window. You get a separate window for it, so the point is incredibly irrelevant, highly tangential and dangerously flammable..
Eduo
I apologize for my barrage of messages. I read the thread just today and replied to messages as I read them.
Now I have a page almost all to myself..
As a summary, I'd like to mention I think current implementations of every UI widget have possible improvements (even Expose) and, as I said, Tabs currently address a single need for me: Grouping all of an app's windows into a single one.
I don't think every multi-window app needs tabs. I wouldn't dream of using tabs in Photoshop, for example, but I can see their usefulness and how they make some users' UI usage more efficient.
I'd dare to find anyone that can handle their Safari or Adium windows without tabs faster than I can with them. Really.
Eduo
Yes, you did, but no more convincingly, sorry. I see why some people like them... but I refuse to accede that they are a general solution widget. The original problem they were designed to solve simply isn't an issue on the Mac.
For you.
For anyone. You even state that your own desire for tabs is based on grouping, not cycling problems:
Originally posted by eduo
As a summary, I'd like to mention I think current implementations of every UI widget have possible improvements (even Expose) and, as I said, Tabs currently address a single need for me: Grouping all of an app's windows into a single one.
The original problem that tabs were supposed to solve, poor window management leading to a lack of ease in selecting quickly and precisely the window you want out of many, isn't the problem on MacOS X that it is under other systems. For *that problem*, tabs are at best a nicety under MacOS X, not absolutely essential as on other systems.
However, you did come around to the same terminology we had been discussing above, that of window grouping. That's an area of potential high utility for everyone, and one that supercedes tabs by a wide margin.
Bottom line: arguing about tabs, or figuring out the best possible implementation for tabs would be a waste of time for Apple. They should be concentrating on the bigger fish that will get more users better benefit. Tabs, or tab functionality, will fall out of that research quite naturally.
And do we *really* need to go down the 'just make everything an option' road again? That horse is dead, beaten, and therein lies madness. Or X11. It's a bad approach to UI design, fundamentally.
I'll ignore the rest of your comments since they were covered in the conversation between Gon and I.
Originally posted by Kickaha
And do we *really* need to go down the 'just make everything an option' road again? That horse is dead, beaten, and therein lies madness. Or X11. It's a bad approach to UI design, fundamentally.
Until they fix the hide-minimize system, I'd say tabs as an option are a good idea. It is very useful to me in both browsing and IM, and maybe this is a surprise to you but both Expose and Windows Taskbar get swamped by the combined quantity/quality of my browser windows. I haven't thought about it before, but the linear nature of the tabs helps me organize my browsing, especially on forums. Expose gives no order to the windows.
Everything can be configured - good
You are expected to configure everything - bad
You are needlessly exposed to advanced options - bad
I'd say GNOME and Firefox people have configuration right. Both have simple configuration, but you can get to GNOME's internals with a distinct advanced configuration tool, and you can extend Firefox to do whatever you want, using simple or complicated extensions.
Originally posted by eduo
I do. The most-used grapical text (code and text) editors in Windows and Unix use tabs (HomePage, Bluefish, Quanta). They also do a two-pane interface (list of documents, document content, tabs below). Same for IDEs.
They *work*.
And the window managers they work within *suck*. I know. I use them. I'm quite fond of tabbed editors and browsers on Windows, simply for want of something better.
Do not confuse tabs themselves with tab implementations and pass the defects of one unto the others. Complaining about an implementation just means that's a temporary concern, until it's addressed.
But that's dodging the issue. Currently, on the Mac, the "tabs" under discussion (as opposed to the conventional use) only exist as implementations. My entire criticism, at least, centers precisely around the fact that there is no standard, thought-through behavior for multiple-document windows. So you have to start there. Tabs cannot be considered a feature, in my opinion, until we can actually talk about "tabs themselves" rather than a wildly variable and completely inconsistent morass of implementations. (Actually, if you talk about "tabs themselves," they exist on OSX, and they're well designed for their intended job: Organizing panes of related controls in a space-efficient manner.)
As for the idea that UIs should be as wildly variable as individuals are, I can't understand that at all. What other interfaces are so variable? Would you want to get into someone's car only to realize that they prefer to steer with their feet? If a machine has a certain set of features, the interface's primary obligation is to make those features accessible in a consistent and intuitive way. The fact that the close box on a Mac window is in the upper left-hand corner has not, so far as I know, interfered with anyone's individuality.
The UI designed with the mantra that consistency is fascism is Motif, and look at how that turned out.
Originally posted by Amorph
As for the idea that UIs should be as wildly variable as individuals are, I can't understand that at all. What other interfaces are so variable? Would you want to get into someone's car only to realize that they prefer to steer with their feet? If a machine has a certain set of features, the interface's primary obligation is to make those features accessible in a consistent and intuitive way.
Totally wrong. Who's forcing you to use an interface someone else customized for himself? If you want the standard interface, you use the standard interface.
If I lost both my hands in an accident, I would definitely want a feet-steered car.
Intuitiveness and consistency in interfaces are subjective. Both depend on how close the user's thought model and the software's logic correspond.
Playing with KDE's options, you can see so many of them and set pretty much anything. But I maintain that some things should be set by the system design. That is the point of design and making design decisions. I think Apple is really good at giving us options without giving us everything under the sun (I would like themes though). It's what makes standards and a joyful user experience.
Consistency is an exercise in fine-tuning. I can make you jump through hoops on a consistent basis, make you jump through the same set of hoops, but you're still jumping through hoops. We're looking for a more sophisticated set of tools or behaviors first, then we can hammer out any quirks or exceptions. And in order to do that, we have to agree on what we're trying to manage or structure here -- windows, documents, apps, networks, etc. I don't think we've even come to agreement on what it is we're trying to manage.
As far as optioning out everything under the sun, if you've ever used 3D modelling software, you know the advantages and pitfalls of that approach. I've used a lot of FormZ in the last 6+ years, and while you can do just about anything under the sun, there's a really steep learning curve to learn how to do that. That's true of almost any 3D app. Some 3D apps throw the whole book at you right off the bat, and you can't even draw a simple box because you're buried in inputs, options and strict hierarchies that you can't dig yourself out of. Others hide options and tools until the user calls for them. Finding those options can be a spelunking expedition, and while users can usually at least build something simple, getting the app to do what they want is difficult. Users often think that you can't do xyz because they can't find the option or change the restriction. It takes months to learn the apps' structure, how to navigate, go into different modes of working, understand the different sets of tools, etc. This situation is simply unacceptable if it's compounded by an OS that acts the same way.
Anyway, I think you have to sort out the structure issue before you talk about consistency, options, tools and features to manage that structure. Basically, you have to start at the beginning. Also ask yourself how much control you're willing to give up to the computer, and how much you want to manage things yourself? There's a range of answers, but the range has to be defined, and thus you have to set limits. The wider the rnage, less easily learned the GUI will be. And Apple isn't really famous for having an intuitive UI, it's famous for having an easy to learn UI.
Originally posted by BuonRotto
And Apple isn't really famous for having an intuitive UI, it's famous for having an easy to learn UI.
Intuitiveness and ease-of-use normally go hand-in-hand. I have trouble finding an example where they don't.
Things are easy when they are intuitive.