The Trouble With Tabs
I love hate love hate love don't like tabbed interfaces. I love how they keep things tidy and in one place but then I hate the way my brain just can't get my head round them.
Alt-Tab is my window to the world of, erm, Windows. I hardly ever use the mouse and taskbar combination. I always use Alt-Tab. If I want a different window that's what I do. This is where my mind gets confused. Most tabs it sees as separate windows. To get to them it thinks Alt-Tab is the best route. The times I've cursed my self for Alt-Tabbing away from the tabbed interface I am working in. This is not only true of tabbed browsing but also of the Notes Client and especially Domino Designer.
Anyway, in the news - IE 7 will have tabbed browsing. Good news? I'm not sure. Contradicting what I've said before, I quite like how IE is different and I'm not sure I'll enable this option(?) when/if I upgrade to version 7 this "summer".
My thoughts are echoed by another MSDN blogger here. It's nice to know it's not just me being thick. If I don't get it after this there must be a lack of intuitiveness there. Give me exposé any day!
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I love the tabs in Firefox because when using the SessionSaver extension, it saves the state of ALL tabs when closing the application, and restores them when opening it again. I use about 5-10 sites at a time, and I don't want to launch them every time when opening the browser. And CTRL-TAB / SHIFT-CTRL-TAB isn't that hard to use when shifting between tabs :-)
I know about ctrl-tab Johan, it's my brain that can't get used to it ;o) It's sees all windows as windows and can't distinguish between them and tabs.
Hi Jake,
Tabbed interfaces are a blessing and curse. They are supposed to tidy things up and make information more accessible. However I've seen a lot of missuse, when related information is spread over (many) tabs.
For the Alt-Tab/Crtl-Tab issue: it's an age old discussion. When Microsoft abandoned the MDI in Office they abandoned Crtl-Tab at the same time (or maybee it works still kind of: go to the next program of the same type?).
Eventually an config option would be the solution: On Alt-Tab goto the next tab. Then you have it both. The tidyness of the tab interface (and the save session/group bookmarks) and a single key combination to switch.
However......... it would be non standard. So what would be the lesser evil? Also: With tabs you can't put two windows aside each other for drag & drop.
My 2c
;-) stw
Tabs can be confusing - especially some of the ones you come across in the Windows OS and some apps.
The ones I'm thinking of are where there are too many tabs to fit across the top, so they double (or, in some cases, triple) up. The problem is, when you click on a tab from another row, it moves them around. I <<think>> the order in the row stays the same, but it still throws me when I'm trying to find a specific option and I'm not sure what tab it should be on.
Clear as mud? [Gripe over]
Greasemonkey for O/S's? I do use some automation with a utility called AutoHotKey, but I haven't had issues with Alt-tabbing. I'm sure you could code up a solution with one of these utilities {Link}
Maybe a little utility to bring MDI windows and tabbed windows on the same level as apps for the Alt-Tab behaviour would help out.
Maybe Longhorn will address that for Windows anyway. Some of the newer Microsoft applications launch new windows for every opened file and they are all lumped under one entry in the taskbar. Alt-tabbing still works on these opened file.
If that is indeed part of the road map for Windows, then you'll be able to use Firefox, IE or whatever browser you want and set your preferences to launch a new window rather than a tab.
Tabbed browsing is definitely not a problem, but a solution to me. And I hate (and alwas disable) grouping in the task bar.
But I agree 100% to Blop. There are just too many occasions where multiple, stacked and nested tabs work to the contrary of their intention.
This is even true for tabbed tables in Notes, which have done not only good. Now, look at more recent development environments like Eclipse, and what do you see? Tabs, used in the same way as they are in modern browsers, but inside the single editor windows: Good old sections all over the place. Not bad at all.
@Stephan: it's possible to make drag & drop work with tabs (it does in Notes6) by activating the tab on mouseover.
I always liked MDI and find tabs to be a perfect mataphor for that concept.
Pity MS dropped MDI in Office, but IE7 is a step in the right direction.
I found the "grouping" of windows in one taskbar button really bad and disabled at once.
Your problem isnt really with tabs.. but the fact that you insist on using those shortcut keys.
So maybe you could critize those instead?
I personally love the tabbed interface in Firefox, but, as with any feature, *all things in moderation*.
Tabs are wonderful if you're limited to a single row of tabs. Those tabs may resize themselves as you add more, but they stay where you put them.
Tabs in Windows dialog boxes are another story altogether. You have 10 tabs divided into one row of 6 and one row of 4, and they reorder themselves when you click on any one of them. This looks to me like a new developer who just figured out how to create tabs. I admit that I've created some pretty ugly interfaces while exploring new features of an IDE, but I can' t say I've ever allowed them to be put into production!