Comments on: Wrestling with Tabs http://dubroy.com/blog/2008/08/25/wrestling-with-tabs/ on programming, usability, and design; by Patrick Dubroy Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:32:23 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.4 by: Patrick http://dubroy.com/blog/2008/08/25/wrestling-with-tabs/#comment-17160 Tue, 26 Aug 2008 17:45:58 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2008/08/25/wrestling-with-tabs/#comment-17160 <p>@Dominik: Interesting that you prefer the recency-based Ctrl-Tab behaviour. Myself, I think sometimes it's the right thing, sometimes it's not.</p> <p>@Roo: Yep, the things you mention totally jive with what many other people have reported to me. Surprisingly, the use cases for tabs are very similar among all the people I've talked to.</p> <p>Opera on NDS doesn't have tabs? That's weird, I thought Opera was the first browser to introduce tabs, way back in 2000. Ah...NDS is the Nintendo DS. For some reason I was thinking that was Novell's desktop Linux distro. Getting confused with Novell Directory Services I guess...</p> <p>@Erigami: "Open to the right" vs. "open at the end" is tough question. When opening up a bunch of links off the same page (like search results, Digg, etc.), I agree that I want them to go on the end of the tabs that I've already opened from that page. But if I have say 5 tabs open, and I open a link from the 2nd tab, I'd prefer the new tab to appear immediately to the right, rather than at the end of a bunch of unrelated tabs. What do you think about that case?</p> @Dominik:
Interesting that you prefer the recency-based Ctrl-Tab behaviour. Myself, I think sometimes it’s the right thing, sometimes it’s not.

@Roo:
Yep, the things you mention totally jive with what many other people have reported to me. Surprisingly, the use cases for tabs are very similar among all the people I’ve talked to.

Opera on NDS doesn’t have tabs? That’s weird, I thought Opera was the first browser to introduce tabs, way back in 2000. Ah…NDS is the Nintendo DS. For some reason I was thinking that was Novell’s desktop Linux distro. Getting confused with Novell Directory Services I guess…

@Erigami:
“Open to the right” vs. “open at the end” is tough question. When opening up a bunch of links off the same page (like search results, Digg, etc.), I agree that I want them to go on the end of the tabs that I’ve already opened from that page. But if I have say 5 tabs open, and I open a link from the 2nd tab, I’d prefer the new tab to appear immediately to the right, rather than at the end of a bunch of unrelated tabs. What do you think about that case?

]]> by: Dubroy.com/blog - Blogging is the hardest “conversation” I’ve ever had http://dubroy.com/blog/2008/08/25/wrestling-with-tabs/#comment-17158 Tue, 26 Aug 2008 17:31:56 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2008/08/25/wrestling-with-tabs/#comment-17158 <p>[...] Yesterday, after writing my post in reply to Atul, Aza, and co., I was thinking about how much work it is to put together a post like that. You often hear people refer to blogs as a “conversation”, but if that’s true, it’s more work than any type of conversation I’ve ever had. [...]</p> […] Yesterday, after writing my post in reply to Atul, Aza, and co., I was thinking about how much work it is to put together a post like that. You often hear people refer to blogs as a “conversation”, but if that’s true, it’s more work than any type of conversation I’ve ever had. […]

]]> by: Erigami http://dubroy.com/blog/2008/08/25/wrestling-with-tabs/#comment-17157 Tue, 26 Aug 2008 17:07:36 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2008/08/25/wrestling-with-tabs/#comment-17157 <p>I usually use tabs as a future, or as a bookmark. </p> <p>I use the 'future' mode when I'm reading a page and I don't want to be distracted. I open a link a new tab so that it's loaded when I'm done with the current page and I can switch to it immediately. In this scenario, I know all of my futures are to the right of the current tab that I'm reading. IE7 puts newly opened tabs immediately to the right of the current tab, which screws up my future stack.</p> <p>I treat a tab as a bookmark when I know that I'll want to come back to a page that I've opened this session (ie, documentation for something I'm working on, a specification, etc). Those are always to the left of the tab that I'm currently reading.</p> I usually use tabs as a future, or as a bookmark.

I use the ‘future’ mode when I’m reading a page and I don’t want to be distracted. I open a link a new tab so that it’s loaded when I’m done with the current page and I can switch to it immediately. In this scenario, I know all of my futures are to the right of the current tab that I’m reading. IE7 puts newly opened tabs immediately to the right of the current tab, which screws up my future stack.

I treat a tab as a bookmark when I know that I’ll want to come back to a page that I’ve opened this session (ie, documentation for something I’m working on, a specification, etc). Those are always to the left of the tab that I’m currently reading.

]]> by: Roo http://dubroy.com/blog/2008/08/25/wrestling-with-tabs/#comment-17143 Tue, 26 Aug 2008 13:23:29 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2008/08/25/wrestling-with-tabs/#comment-17143 <p>I use tabs in two ways: 1) Avoid multiple browsers - I've usually got a few 'stock' pages open (google reader, bug reporting system, etc) This works well when I don't need to see the data side by side. Of course this leads to me wanting to be able to tear off a tab and start a new window at times. Oh god I can't stand the MDI model, but that's basically what tabbed browsing is. 2) As Patrick mentions, using it as a better history. - A tab is somewhere between a bookmark and the back button. - Thinking about this, there have been times when I've wanted to go back, then down a different branch of my browsing - and have been frustrated that I can't do this. (the back button is linear, and this bugs me to no end) Browsing is navigating a directed graph, and sometimes you want to mark certain nodes as interesting place holders and return to that train of thought.</p> <p>As an interesting thought experiment - try browsing for an hour without tabs. See how it feels to not have the feature. Occasionally I use the Opera browser on the NDS and it doesn't have tabs - very different experience.</p> I use tabs in two ways:
1) Avoid multiple browsers
- I’ve usually got a few ’stock’ pages open (google reader, bug reporting system, etc)
This works well when I don’t need to see the data side by side. Of course this leads
to me wanting to be able to tear off a tab and start a new window at times. Oh god
I can’t stand the MDI model, but that’s basically what tabbed browsing is.
2) As Patrick mentions, using it as a better history.
- A tab is somewhere between a bookmark and the back button.
- Thinking about this, there have been times when I’ve wanted to go back, then down
a different branch of my browsing - and have been frustrated that I can’t do this.
(the back button is linear, and this bugs me to no end) Browsing is navigating a
directed graph, and sometimes you want to mark certain nodes as interesting place
holders and return to that train of thought.

As an interesting thought experiment - try browsing for an hour without tabs. See
how it feels to not have the feature. Occasionally I use the Opera browser on the NDS
and it doesn’t have tabs - very different experience.

]]> by: Dominik Grabiec http://dubroy.com/blog/2008/08/25/wrestling-with-tabs/#comment-17123 Tue, 26 Aug 2008 05:57:13 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2008/08/25/wrestling-with-tabs/#comment-17123 <p>I use Google's Reader quite a lot, even so far as to call it my main web browsing activity. When reading feeds I tend to open up a lot of tabs in Firefox for all of the articles I find interesting (like this one). It allows me to go through the list in the morning and have stuff ready to read when my code is compiling.</p> <p>Also I prefer having Ctrl+Tab/Ctrl+Shift+Tab go through the last used list rather than go to the next left/right tab. It seems more natural on the Windows platform where it matches the actions of other such applications. That and it mimics the Alt+Tab of Application windows with the tabs (which are like sub-windows). There's an addin for Firefox 2 and 3 called LastTab (I believe) which adds in this behaviour.</p> <p>Argh, I could go on about this, but I'm sure you've thought about these issues, and I've got work to get on with.</p> I use Google’s Reader quite a lot, even so far as to call it my main web browsing activity. When reading feeds I tend to open up a lot of tabs in Firefox for all of the articles I find interesting (like this one). It allows me to go through the list in the morning and have stuff ready to read when my code is compiling.

Also I prefer having Ctrl+Tab/Ctrl+Shift+Tab go through the last used list rather than go to the next left/right tab. It seems more natural on the Windows platform where it matches the actions of other such applications. That and it mimics the Alt+Tab of Application windows with the tabs (which are like sub-windows). There’s an addin for Firefox 2 and 3 called LastTab (I believe) which adds in this behaviour.

Argh, I could go on about this, but I’m sure you’ve thought about these issues, and I’ve got work to get on with.

]]> by: Patrick http://dubroy.com/blog/2008/08/25/wrestling-with-tabs/#comment-17101 Mon, 25 Aug 2008 22:46:56 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2008/08/25/wrestling-with-tabs/#comment-17101 <p>@Dustin: That's definitely a problem that I've run into before. And sometimes I want to go back to a page, but I just don't remember what tab I was in when I went to that page.</p> @Dustin: That’s definitely a problem that I’ve run into before. And sometimes I want to go back to a page, but I just don’t remember what tab I was in when I went to that page.

]]> by: Dustin http://dubroy.com/blog/2008/08/25/wrestling-with-tabs/#comment-17100 Mon, 25 Aug 2008 22:00:43 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2008/08/25/wrestling-with-tabs/#comment-17100 <p>My two cents would be that when I spawn a new tab from a link on my current page, it doesn't take the back history of its parent page with it. At least, this is what happens in FireFox. It is as if the new page appears out of nowhere. This is very inconvenient if I've done a purge of all open tabs except the one I'm focusing on, and then I want to go back but cannot.</p> My two cents would be that when I spawn a new tab from a link on my current page, it doesn’t take the back history of its parent page with it. At least, this is what happens in FireFox. It is as if the new page appears out of nowhere. This is very inconvenient if I’ve done a purge of all open tabs except the one I’m focusing on, and then I want to go back but cannot.

]]> by: Dustin http://dubroy.com/blog/2008/08/25/wrestling-with-tabs/#comment-17099 Mon, 25 Aug 2008 21:53:34 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2008/08/25/wrestling-with-tabs/#comment-17099 <p>Good reading. I'm excited to see where you'll go with this!</p> Good reading. I’m excited to see where you’ll go with this!

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