RSSImagine, a 'Firefox 4' without browser tabs
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published May 18, 2009, 7:07 PM
Insofar as Web applications have become a fact of many everyday users' lives and work, the Web browser has come to fulfill the role of a de facto operating system -- which is why browser performance is a more important topic now than ever before. Now, this most important class of application could be at a turning point in its evolution, a point where history appears to repeat itself once again.
During the era between Windows 2.0 and 3.1, a minimized window was an icon that resided in the area we now consider the "Desktop;" and even today, many Windows users' Desktops don't perform the same role as the Mac Desktop that catalyzed Windows' creation. Even Windows 7 has tweaked the concept of what a minimized window does and means; and in the Web browser context, a tab represents a similar type of functionality, giving users access to pages that aren't currently displayed.
Now that users who do business on the Web can open dozens of tabs at once, often among multiple separate windows, rows and rows of tabs are becoming less and less manageable. And while "user experience" designers such as Mozilla Labs' Aza Raskin have been hard at work endowing Firefox tabs with more functionality, as we're seeing in the latest betas of version 3.5, Raskin and many of his colleagues are now very openly pondering the question of whether they're as functional today as it seemed they would be back in 2000.
"Much of our time on the Web is now spent in Web apps. We use them in long-lived session, and when we close the tabs that house them we know we'll be coming back," Raskin blogged last month. His comments accompanied a sketch of a possible future permutation of Firefox where open tabs are grouped according to category, and stacked along the left side of the browser rather than the top.
"In a world where we have more tabs than fingers and toes, we need a better way of keeping track of them then just a horizontal strip," he continued. "Group-by-domain seems like a reasonable way to make scanning to find a tab easy. Are there other, better groupings?"
A few responses came by way of comments, but they weren't exactly complete concepts. To spur some serious development in that direction, Mozilla Labs has announced it's making the redevelopment of browser tabs the subject of this year's Summer Design Challenge.
Participants are being asked to build their ideas on any medium they have available to them, including the backs of napkins; but to submit those ideas, they need to upload a video to YouTube, Flickr, Vimeo, or other public video site, tagged with the term mozconcept. They then send links to the video to conceptseries@mozilla.com. Deadline for submission is June 21 -- only five weeks away -- and winning entries will be announced on July 8. There's no obligation on Mozilla's part to use any winning ideas at all, though the organization also doesn't appear to stake any exclusive claim to any idea once it's been submitted.
My SkyIDE has a tree view on the left that groups windows by type.
http://techopinion.net/images/Tabs.png
Just an idea...it does need some work though, what I did was just experimental. Perhaps, if they create something like that and then if you can drag tabs into categories of the tree view...For each URL a new category would be created.
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|much prefer opera's method of new tabs. simply drag the mouse down right click. easy as pie
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|I like IE's blank tab better than having to right click and hit "new tab" or CTRL+T.
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|no offense Firefox new (empty) tab but I love my new tab king extension (from http://www.newtabking.com) that simplfies the issue of where-am-i-going now when hitting CTRL+T
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|oh... you mean exactly like the 'tab kit' plugin
way to steal an idea mozilla... hope theyre gonna pay the plugin developer for using his idea
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|http://www.shrani.si/f/38/fm/O7TeX7t/ff3.png
This is my minimal version of Firefox 3.0.10 that i also use on 8,9 inch netbook.
Small control buttons, no search field (i just type "g betanews" to search BetaNews in Google or "y betanews" for search in Yahoo for betanews), toolbar is under that blue globe, full access to all bookmarks under difefrent categories. Perfect productivity just the way i like it.
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|Tabs are great. Especially in the file cabinet/folder look of chrome. But the interface feel changes when I am in Firefox opening up links in new tabs and then discover I have like 30 tabs open. Then identifying tabs becomes harder without sifting through each. So it will be amazing and thought inspiring to see what the new innovation will be. Going beyond tabs...
wait a minute that makes me think of soda can tabs... and how even though we can't seem to do without them... there was a huge design swift in the 80s where cans transitioned from removable V shaped tabs to the current pop in round tabs. OHHH No... there goes Tokyo GO GO Mozilla Whooooaaaa!!!!
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|The obvious correct grouping is based on ORIGINATING/PARENT URL/TAB.
I do a google search and open tabs based on the results -- all those tabs are in the same group. If I spend more time on a specific tab, it needs to appear higher on the group.
You read an article that mentions a phrase/company you'd like to research so you invoke a google search based on that text (or you just click a hotlink) -- all those tabs are to be part of a group with the main article as main parent.
Similarly, all text in all open tabs needs to be indexed so instead of hunting around open tabs, you type a unique word mentioned and a quick-search will show you the tabs containing that word and the context around it (surrounding words). Just like a google search result.
You should also be able to add temp quick tab-markers (tags) to tabs, so a tab which i find interesting i'll tag "interesting" and a tab that may lead me to a purchase i'll tag "buy" to differentiate it from the 10 other tabs with similar products that i know i will NOT buy.
You could also highlight a section of the text on a tab which you feel sums up the most important info on that tab. Later, when u search around tabs, only that text-chunk will appear in the list. Of course, a smart algorithm can auto-detect that critically important text chunk in numerous occasions (after a little training, per domain).
Another critical marker of importance is the amount of text entered in a textarea box, for example, so you can quickly jump to a tab containing the most unfinished work.
And of course, last but not least, an extremely important tab jumper is the history jumper, which should start RIGHT BEFORE you start looking for tabs (it'll detect this behavior by noticing quick jumps from tab to tab until you land on the tab you're looking for). Then, with a push of a button, you'll go back to the last tab you were working on, right before you started clicking-around on tabs. It will auto-ignore those tabs in the tab-search and let you toggle between the two tabs you really care for -- original tab, and tab you just looked for and found. In other words, you'll be able to go back in time to the last time, and one before last tab, that you actually spent time on (say more than 20 seconds).
For all these ideas all it really takes is putting a group of heavy users in a room, monitoring their web/tab usage very carefully, and analyzing patterns of behavior. Not that difficult at all.
Anyway, I like the direction this is going.
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|"The obvious correct grouping is based on ORIGINATING/PARENT URL/TAB."
100% agreed.
Say I search for a good video editor or something using Google. Then also search for the associated codecs I require.
I'm not going to know from the domain name which ones are video editors and which ones are codecs. With grouping from the initial search this would make a whole lot more sense.
I'll be interested to see how this pans out, but I don't really want it taking up space on the sides of the browser. I'd much rather it use the top or bottom.
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|Thanks for the vote of confidence! ;) I was thinking about this a bit longer, and I realized that another quick way to assist in locating that elusive tab is by filtering-OUT tabs. For example, if I'm gonna be looking for a tab, it's not gonna be a facebook/cnn/ebay/amazon/betanews/bankatlantic tab.
Why won't it be? Cuz if it was I'd type "fb" or "cnn" or "e" or "a" or "b" or "ba" in the "tab trimmer" and saw ONLY those easy-to-fish-out domain-based tabs immediately. I currently type "fb" in the address-bar to immediately visit www.facebook.com, "ba" for bankatlantic.com (login page), "e" for eBay, "b" for betanews, "g" for "google advanced search", etc. These shortcuts are like engraved in my brain since I visit these sites daily... Likewise, if I type "g keyword" or "e someitem" in the address-bar right now then it performs a google/ebay search. In other words, I already "overload" my usage of these shortcuts intelligently. So the next step would be me typing "tab e" in the unified address-bar (or "e" in some special "tab trimmer" box) and all my eBay tabs will be highlighted with their critical data (title bar / significant data from actual page auto-parsed) popped around the tab. And if I simply type "tab" or a blank search in the "tab trimmer" box, it'll hide all my ebay, facebook, gmail, and other common tabs which aren't the tab I'm looking for, otherwise, again, I'd just push "tab gm" and go directly to my open Gmail tab (or in my case, actually go to my last gmail tab I used while highlighting another gmail tab I have open)... or "tab email" and all my open email website from various online providers will be highlighted. Categorization is the key point. And in next-gen, even those can be automated to some degree... (top 100 email providers is a very simple list to compile, per my example, so you got a good starting point as a dumb user, for example).
But again, the best way to reach a useful solution is to video-tape several heavy users' browsing patterns, then later on ask them about their intent at specific times (if it isn't clear from the tab they end up accessing). If you do that for just one little week, you'll be able to probably even auto-generate those nifty shortcuts I mentioned above (fb, a, b, gm, e) for the dumb user, and even make it more GUI-friendly accessible to him with little favicons or somesuch so if he forgets (or unable to remember) the keyboard shortcuts, he can do a little mouse clicking instead.
Then again, maybe there are more intelligent/efficient ways to handle this complex problem. ;)
BTW my solution is valid for taskbar app searches as well, obviously. The immediate filter will always be "is what I'm looking for part of my USUAL SUITE OF APPS or NOT" - once determined, locating the actual app you're interested in is very simple.
Oh, and one last thing. Certain apps always work "together" - so they can be considered as part of a common "project" for grouping/quick-locating purposes.
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|I can totally see a very minimal browser with no tabs and no real interface. It would look more like having IE in full screen mode. Just have the address/search field (probably ala chrome), on the taskbar and you type your URL there and it brings up a very minimal window with a very thin bar that would have a back button (for people who still don't have mice with a back and forward button on it). If you want to bring up a menu you just right click on the bar and it'll bring up a pull down menu with file, edit, bookmark...and such. You left click on the bar or on a blank part of the browser window and it shrinks it into a card (almost like the Palm Pre). The cards can be arranged any way you want and you double click again and it makes the window big. All windows will be a separate browser in its own sandbox (like chrome) to make things safer. If you download a virus or spyware in a window you just close it and it deletes it from the sandbox no harm to your system. This way you can use the taskbar to just keep track of your programs, the start button and an address/search bar. MS can do this with IE, and if FF and other browser follow (like with tabs and built in searchbar). If you want to run FF you would just use the pull down menu and highlight firefox, you want to search, you do the pull down menu and you highlight google, yahoo or live. If you want to delete a browser window just throw it in the trash can. Have multi monitors throw a another page on another monitor. Chrome kind of is going in that direction with minimal space, but this would take it a step further. With chrome you can rip a tab off and stick it on another monitor which is nice but you still have an interface. You want to open up a bookmark you should click bookmarks on the sidebar and it'll pop up your bookmarks or open up a sidebar with your bookmarks in it. All bookmarks can be shared with any browser, you should be able to right click on a bookmark and say open in FF, IE or Chrome. No need for separate bookmarks for your browsers, then you can have Xmarks just save your bookmars to a server and it would be bookmarks for you. Go to your friends house and just load Xmarks (or if MS built a save settings/passwords/bookmarks offline into windows) and put in your name and password and it brings up your bookmarks no matter what browser you bring up. Everything would be streamlined and simple.
This is the way I see the web browser of the future, simple, streamlined with the OS, uses less resources than present browsers because flash, java and such will be built into the OS. Any plugins you use for the browser will be added to the engine which will be separate from the windows so if you open up 1, 10, or 50 windows it'll take up much less resources.
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|Mozilla just need to work on making FF work faster, without memory leaks and get it back to being snappy. Then they can get fancy.
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|I don't like the tabs and I've never used them.
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|I can only assume that your desktop is a complete and utter mess.
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|So you have multiple windows open in the taskbar sjc?
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|Programmer at work also doesn't like them. He also hates FF and only uses IE. *shiver*
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|Actually, my desktop is quite tidy. with only 5 icons on it as well. I use the startmenu and the quicklaunch bar. At the moment I'm trying out Windows 7 RC 7127 and loving it. Even at this stage it is beating the crap out of Vista... Can't wait until the final comes out so I can buy a copy.
No more than two minimized.
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