This is not an extensive review, for I'm sure there better ones around. I appreciate the work that has been done on new features and on consolidating old ones, but I will concentrate on one of them only. First of all, however, a brief remark about the new "resume browsing section" feature: nice, but I would love not to have to test it so often! Also, it does restore windows, and tabs (I don't know downloads, although it is claimed to) but not text written in forms, well, at least not in textareas, and that can be annoying. However I'm aware that the frequent crashes may be due to my particular system, and I'm positive that any problem will be solved in the next minor releases.
Now, let's come to the main point that I want to discuss, which is, in view of my interest for interfaces, the new tabbed browsing system. Actually, I'm not really sure whether to consider it as an improvement...
Generally I'm a supporter of KISS all the time. In this case consider what we had before: any number of tabs displayed simultaneously, that could shrink arbitrarily. Now we have left and right arrows to scroll while viewing a limited number of them at once. Which scheme is simpler? I'm half hearted: with the previous one, one had an intuitive idea of how many were open, but indeed things could get quite messy. (I occasionally open 30 or more!) With the new one, things are certainly more ordered under any circumstance.
What I still consider not to be an improvement is the choice of having a close button per tab. First of all it makes the visual appearance heavier, notwithstanding the fact that it's shaded (depending on the chosen theme, I guess, but most will do, I also guess) in inactive tabs. Second, and more important, previously one used to have a single close button in a fixed position, now the position changes with the frame one is actually viewing. I suppose it's all a matter of getting used to any of these choices, but in any case I cosider the current one to be conceptually more complex while buying one nothing, and overloading each tag. I wish at least there were an option to choose between the old and the new behaviour.
Last, recently closed tabs in history are a great tool, of course!
it does restore windows, and tabs […] but not text written in forms, well, at least not in textareas
It doesn’t? It does for me! Maybe something is broken in your install? Maybe you want to try the Firefox version of reinstalling Windows: start over with a fresh profile. (Just copy over your cookies and bookmarks.) See if that helps.
In this case consider what we had before: any number of tabs displayed simultaneously, that could shrink arbitrarily.
Note, though, that the previous scheme had a massive fault: tabs didn’t shrink endlessly, and when they’d no longer fit, there was no way to access the excess tabs with the mouse. (You could only Ctrl-Tab/Ctrl-PgUp/Dn to them.)
I still dislike the scroll buttons though; and I find the fact that the tab list dropdown includes the tabs you can already see on the tab strip disorienting. But it makes sense if you consider that the tab strip is scrollable. Personally I would’ve wanted just a dropdown that lists the tabs that wouldn’t fit on the tab strip, and no scrollability.
What I still consider not to be an improvement is the choice of having a close button per tab.
The two schemes simply have different affordances and costs. For novice users, having a close button on each tab is more intuitive. It’s a problematic choice, because neither scheme is clearly better than the other.
I wish at least there were an option to choose between the old and the new behaviour.
But there is: browser.tabs.tabMinWidth and browser.tabs.closeButtons.
Re:
blazar on 2006-11-14T16:29:39
It doesn’t? It does for me! Maybe something is broken in your install? Maybe you want to try the Firefox version of reinstalling Windows: start over with a fresh profile. (Just copy over your cookies and bookmarks.) See if that helps.Well, that's not that much of a hassle after all. Should it crash when editing into a textarea, and fail to restore what I had written up to then, I will consider doing so...
Note, though, that the previous scheme had a massive fault: tabs didn’t shrink endlessly, and when they’d no longer fit, there was no way to access the excess tabs with the mouse. (You could only Ctrl-Tab/Ctrl-PgUp/Dn to them.)Hmmm, this makes me guess I must have come close to the limit, but never really passed it, or else I just didn't realize because I actually use keyboard navigation quite a lot.
I still dislike the scroll buttons though; and I find the fact that the tab list dropdown includes the tabs you can already see on the tab strip disorienting. But it makes sense if you consider that the tab strip is scrollable. Personally I would’ve wanted just a dropdown that lists the tabs that wouldn’t fit on the tab strip, and no scrollability.scroll buttons are fine for me, although I simply do not use them. As for the overlapping with the dropdown facility, it's an amount of TMTOWTDIness that's fine for me too.
The two schemes simply have different affordances and costs. For novice users, having a close button on each tab is more intuitive. It’s a problematic choice, because neither scheme is clearly better than the other.OTOH when I use the mouse for navigation, I tend to move it to the right as I was used in the old scheme. And when I click on a tab that's inactive I occasionally hit the close button. I don't want to care about the point of the tab I click into.
But there is: browser.tabs.tabMinWidth and browser.tabs.closeButtons.Great! You made my day! Min width is fine, but I restored 1.5's behaviour with the second one and I feel much more comfortable with it. The only shortcoming is that the dropdown button is now slightly mutilated on the right.
Two more last minute things that sprung to mind
:
- first, something I wanted to say in the first post, but forgot to: with 1.5 opening in a new tab opened in the rightmost position and closing it brought one to the next rightmost one. With 2.0 it brings back to the previously visited one: quite more intuitive!
- Just a wild thought: perhaps an action could be associated to double clicking on a tab, IMHO most reasonably promoting it to a window of its own...
