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Last post Author Topic: Mozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?  (Read 45144 times)

Ehtyar

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Re: Mozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?
« Reply #25 on: May 20, 2009, 02:33 AM »
I am of the same mind as the two of you. However all I hear around my workplace and across the internet is that Firefox is too heavy. Everyone switching to Chrome is doing so because it's more lightweight than Firefox. If Mozilla were to incorporate all these extensions into Firefox, it might make us momentarily happier, but others would switch browsers permanently. All we really have to do is go install a few addons each time we make a new Firefox...

Ehtyar.

rgdot

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Re: Mozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?
« Reply #26 on: May 20, 2009, 02:59 AM »
Why is there a comparison to Chrome? That's not fair really. Chrome can be compared to Firefox only after it is of the same age. Is anybody really thinking that Chrome is not going to become heavier, to use your word(s), as time goes by? And when similar extensions become available for Chrome of course a majority will want to use them anyway and I am betting a good number will ask the features to be included in the download itself.

housetier

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Re: Mozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?
« Reply #27 on: May 20, 2009, 06:34 AM »
I want even more keyboard control in a browser. I have gotten used to vimperator and I would love to be able to manage my tabs using only the keybord, i.e. "select all tabs I opened in the last 5 minutes and do something on them", "select the youngest 5 tabs", "select all tabs I opened from a specific tab and bookmark them", "store this tab's history" so I can go back later even when I have closed in the meantime...

Maybe a sort of 2/3D-view of the relationship between tabs might help when users have a lot of tabs.

Also, often I open quite a bunch of URLs remotely using my feed-reader; it would be nice if FF would stack them on top of each other, so I can view the items one after the other without having 100 open tabs. Something like invisible tabs in a group or so. Nomsayn?

MilesAhead

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Re: Mozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?
« Reply #28 on: May 20, 2009, 11:15 AM »
People are so used to tabs now that if they opened a link in a new browser window it might seem like a revolutionary experience. :)
You might be right.

BTW It just came to me but: isn't "too much tabs" just a mental problem?

I see it falling into the same category as hundreds of icons on Desktop or entries in Start menu.
-fenixproductions (May 19, 2009, 08:43 PM)

Could be in the eye of the beholder.  Funny thing is, since I mentioned opening in another window, I went to Netflix, where I tried out the dual view FF addon a while before.  Turns out browsing the new releases, picking one and opening it in another window was the best way.  After that I just dragged the pic of a DVD with the left mouse button onto the new window and got the details without losing my place in the slider gizmo they have. Also it was much easier to read the copy and user reviews.  The old becomes new again. :)


MilesAhead

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Re: Mozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?
« Reply #29 on: May 20, 2009, 11:23 AM »
I do think though that Firefox needs a few additional mechanisms to handle Windows more effectively. For example, moving tabs more efficiently between windows, an alt-tab type mechanism for windows perhaps....

Do you mean working like Opera now?
...
-fenixproductions (May 19, 2009, 09:20 PM)

It seems like there's always a fly in the ointment. I like Opera. I like the Wand.  I like that I can go to AllMusic.com and play samples without installing anything. What drives me nuts is there's no way(apparently) to make a simple thing like AutoCopy. I just can't abide triple clicking the mouse to select a line of text.  I'd end up with CTS for sure. So I end up only firing it up when going to AllMusic or if I'm going online to buy something using the Wand(I wrote a little AutoIt3 gizmo to encrypt the [Personal] section of opera6.ini so my info isn't sitting there in plain text when not in use.  I don't have heavy enough form usage to justify RoboForm or something similar at the present time.)

My point, I guess, is I'd use it more if I could get some small changes to make life easier.  Doesn't look like they're going to happen though. I'll have to search again in case AutoCopy clone for Opera is out there but it seems like it would be contrary to the ethos or something.  I don't comprehend the resistance to it.
« Last Edit: May 20, 2009, 11:27 AM by MilesAhead »

mouser

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Re: Mozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?
« Reply #30 on: May 20, 2009, 12:07 PM »
MilesAhead's description of surfing netflix, using one tiled panel to show a page of details about the main page he was reading matches how i do a lot of surfing.. i wonder if some hybrid of tabs and tiled panels could be done so that you had one main window for browsing, and then it spawned some temporary tiles as you were looking at extra information related to the main page.

Lashiec

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Re: Mozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?
« Reply #31 on: May 20, 2009, 01:45 PM »
Wow, if managing 20 tabs is a problem for these guys, they'll panic in front of my 200+ tabs sessions ;D

I'm interested in what will come out of this, even if some of the articles they link practically solve many of the inherent problems of tabs without reinventing the wheel or doing weird things (I particularly like Raskin's mockup and the solutions he proposes). I hope the ideas people submit don't try to solve everything they can in a single interface (like Mahemoff apparently suggests), otherwise they'll end up with complex interfaces that try to anticipate every user needs and will only confuse the hell out of the user.

Personally, I'd like to see something like Internet Explorer QuickTabs or OS X Exposé on steroids. Instead of having a tab bar, you would have a thumbnail page with realtime previews of the pages you have open (taking advantage of GPU acceleration, which at least Opera Software is working on). You can move them around, group them if you like, have various thumb pages to overcome screen space limitations, the browser can notify you of specific pages incidents via visual cues on its thumbnail, etc. Clicking on one would of course take you to that page, and you could easily go back to the thumbs with a hotkey or hovering the mouse over a previously defined hotcorner.

That said, I personally think that, for most people, all of these are solutions in search of a problem, and they don't present clear advantages to them. Not to mention that, one way or another, browsers already have methods to solve many of the problems outlined. The real problems, not the "things I'd like to have", as those could be cool for a while and remain unused for the rest of the time.

rgdot

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Re: Mozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?
« Reply #32 on: May 20, 2009, 02:04 PM »
This idea is not entirely new and perhaps needs "enhancement" to be workable but...how about turning tabs into continuous pages? One (long) page that eases moving through what would otherwise be tabs with different sites. For researching a topic for example, not moving between tabs but browsing down one page.

ghacks

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Re: Mozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?
« Reply #33 on: May 22, 2009, 12:47 PM »
I was thinking of a semi-transparent tab wheel either in the center of the page or around the mouse position.

fenixproductions

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Re: Mozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?
« Reply #34 on: May 26, 2009, 06:06 PM »
Heh… and someone just "took" my idea ;)

http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=nVtQ4YE2aFA

MilesAhead

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Re: Mozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?
« Reply #35 on: May 26, 2009, 07:01 PM »
Heh… and someone just "took" my idea ;)

http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=nVtQ4YE2aFA
-fenixproductions (May 26, 2009, 06:06 PM)

Hmmmmm maybe there was a point to it being a video because when I read what you suggested I didn't get it.  But the video removes any ambiguity. Now aren't you sorry you didn't break out the chicken outfit?  :)

fenixproductions

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Re: Mozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?
« Reply #36 on: May 26, 2009, 07:25 PM »
Now aren't you sorry you didn't break out the chicken outfit?  :)

Nope. I've used to it long time ago. It was painful first time though*.

*) Like an idea for action movie when murderer shoots through peephole to victim. It was used in "The Pelican Brief" film IIRC. Or an idea from "real live RPG sessions" for a character with power of annihilating anything which allows him to copy feed's characteristics thanks to that. Well, some game (called Prototype) will be released soon with exactly the same hero I had in mind.

I just have too big imagination sometimes :)
« Last Edit: May 26, 2009, 07:45 PM by fenixproductions »

MilesAhead

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Re: Mozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?
« Reply #37 on: May 26, 2009, 07:45 PM »
I think somebody stole an idea of mine for some gadget, but my memory is so bad I don't remember what it was.  The one thing I know for sure is that Marat Safin, the tennis player, stole one of my jokes.  He told it well though.  At least he got a laugh. :)

fenixproductions

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Re: Mozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?
« Reply #38 on: May 26, 2009, 07:53 PM »
2MilesAhead
Some postmodernist said once:
"Everything had been said, nothing more to imagine, only playing with form and style left."

I hope, someday we will be 1st with excellent form :)

MilesAhead

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Re: Mozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?
« Reply #39 on: May 26, 2009, 08:39 PM »
Heh.  Sounds like a variation on "nothing new under the sun." But I don't care what anyone says, Safin lifted my joke!! It was way too specific to be coincidence. :)

Shows he has a good sense of humor anyway.

jojo99

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Re: Mozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?
« Reply #40 on: May 31, 2009, 08:32 PM »
1. I like the tab grouping idea.  People have been suggesting this for some time.

2. I often keep a lot of tabs open (have 7 rows now).  There used to be an extension that would allow you to set-up a hot key to hide or unhide the tab but it no longer works in FF 3.x.  This would be a useful addition to normal tab functionality to allow for more screen to work with.

3. IMO, the biggest change that could be made for tabs would be to make each one a separate, isolated environment.  This would enhance security and allow much more control of FF by firewalls.

wreckedcarzz

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Re: Mozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?
« Reply #41 on: May 31, 2009, 09:25 PM »
Well, I have Tab Mix Plus (a great little add-on, customizable in every aspect) and I found myself being drug into a debate on Firefox themes by a friend of mine - it went from a small IM battle to a full-scale "this theme is better than yours" and in the process I actually found several very nice themes that I installed, putting each one in it's own new tab as I went browsing...

The result? (Non-trimmed version here: ImageShack)
youdividedbyzero_small.pngMozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?

I think I've hit the limit of "tabbed browsing" as-is :P

app103

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Re: Mozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?
« Reply #42 on: June 01, 2009, 02:44 AM »
Well, I have Tab Mix Plus (a great little add-on, customizable in every aspect) and I found myself being drug into a debate on Firefox themes by a friend of mine - it went from a small IM battle to a full-scale "this theme is better than yours" and in the process I actually found several very nice themes that I installed, putting each one in it's own new tab as I went browsing...

The result? (Non-trimmed version here: ImageShack) (see attachment in previous post)
I think I've hit the limit of "tabbed browsing" as-is :P
-wreckedcarzz (May 31, 2009, 09:25 PM)

I prefer a combination of ColorfulTabs and Tab Kit (I don't like the coloring in this one and prefer the previous extension for that)

SNAG-00387.pngMozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?

Incidentally, Tab Kit can also give you a tree instead of tabs, but I use it primarily to have multiple tab rows with a scrollbar to keep it from taking over my whole browser window

Lashiec

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Re: Mozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?
« Reply #43 on: July 18, 2009, 04:51 PM »
The winners have been announced. I haven't see any of the videos yet, just skimmed through the descriptions, but frankly, I don't find anything groundbreaking. That could change after seeing the ideas in action though (the TabViz extension refuses to work correctly)

Ehtyar

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Re: Mozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?
« Reply #44 on: July 18, 2009, 06:17 PM »
I think I could be comfortable with FaviTabs, but I'm not really a fan of the rest. I don't know who they let vote for the users choice...*shudder*

Ehtyar.

MilesAhead

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Re: Mozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?
« Reply #45 on: July 18, 2009, 09:44 PM »
Here's a weird idea.. instead of tabs how about Open In New Window that Docks? You could select a Docking Heuristic so that it would be automatic. Various placement schemes could be employed such as rotational clockwise, left to right rows, etc.. Just right click or middle click or whatever triggers it.

Imagine a cluster of 8 FF windows all stuck together and they automatically proportionally resize to avoid taking up all the desktop?

Said, it was weird, not good. :)

fenixproductions

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Re: Mozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?
« Reply #46 on: July 18, 2009, 10:00 PM »
After watching winning entries I must say: there must something wrong with me because almost never I have more than 10 tabs opened.

Some contestant told that tabs are not usable when there are 50 or 100 of them. Come on! 50 tabs does not mean "tabs are the problem" it means "people are". What is the reason of having so many opened pages? What are bookmarks for?

I understand that during some hard work someone might have more than 10 tabs but 100? Can anyone explain what is the reason of getting it so messed up?

P.S. I think same guy reinvented the wheel. He made a presentation of tabs panel with live filter which behaves almost the same way like Opera's bookmarks do. BUT since Opera sucks in advertising I am sure that Mozilla can take it, implement it and make it known as theirs ;)
« Last Edit: July 18, 2009, 10:05 PM by fenixproductions »

CleverCat

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Re: Mozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?
« Reply #47 on: July 19, 2009, 02:07 AM »
Yikes - Tab Mix Plus is supposed to be compatible with FF 3.5 - some elements work but not all! Can't get Lock/protect tab on context tab menu? But Protect Tab is on Main Context Menu?
« Last Edit: July 19, 2009, 02:19 AM by CleverCat »

Innuendo

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Re: Mozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?
« Reply #48 on: July 19, 2009, 01:18 PM »
Yikes - Tab Mix Plus is supposed to be compatible with FF 3.5 - some elements work but not all! Can't get Lock/protect tab on context tab menu? But Protect Tab is on Main Context Menu?

Are you using the latest development version? If not, that's probably your problem.

Tab Mix Plus Dev-Build 0.3.7.4pre.090516
http://tmp.garyr.net...x_plus-dev-build.xpi

wreckedcarzz

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Re: Mozilla Contest: How Would You Improve Tabbed Browsing?
« Reply #49 on: July 19, 2009, 02:41 PM »
Yikes - Tab Mix Plus is supposed to be compatible with FF 3.5 - some elements work but not all! Can't get Lock/protect tab on context tab menu? But Protect Tab is on Main Context Menu?

Are you using the latest development version? If not, that's probably your problem.

Tab Mix Plus Dev-Build 0.3.7.4pre.090516
http://tmp.garyr.net...x_plus-dev-build.xpi

I'm using that version without any trouble, it seems to work well.
Well...
(Firefox did freak out once last night and my context menu was scrollable because it had so many items, it was as if all my extensions had all menu items enabled - the statusbar was edited as well. A restart of FF fixed it, though)

I would give it a go and see how it works for you.