August 04, 2005

• For me, in a nutshell, if I have 10 tabs open vs. 10 windows open, it's very easy to scan along the tab bar to find the one tab out of 10. If it's windows, I have to either pull down the window menu or flip through all the different windows (or use Exposé). Plus, opening all of my web comics with one click is really handy, as well. Especially since closing one tab will take you to the next tab in a very predictable manner, unlike windows, which will come up based on various and sundry algorithms that may or may not be intuitive. So, a few little things that add up to big savings over time.
• Oh, and I use the key command to close windows, rather than clicking on the red dot (or X, depending on your OS), so I rarely close all my windows. Some browsers will even ask you if you reeeealy want to close all the tabs, or just the one.
• ff is a resource hog. Tabs cuts down on the energy spent(this may or may not only be in my mind). Perhaps you need one of the tab browser extensions to give them more flexibility. Isn't there a button on the far right of the tab below the 'x' in the browser window that closes a tab? (I've got a skin so can't remember what was here before).
• Here's a scenario I had this afternoon: I was doing some research and I had lexis/nexis, westlaw, a government site, etc. open as tabs in one browser window. Associated with that research, I need to look up a couple of French terms I wasn't familiar with. I opened up another browser window, did a google search, and opened a number of tabs with various dictionaries that might be useful. When I was finished, I closed the window and all the tabs within it, and went back to my original browser window with its four or five tabs with various tools open. The reason this works is that I open new windows when the task changes. My main task, that is the research I was doing remained focused in one window. The secondary task was in another and it also developed multiple tabs as it progressed. If I'd opened separate windows as I went they would have gotten totally out of hand, but even more importantly the tabs let me categorize by groups of related tasks, and that makes this sort of research task much easier. I find I can easily handle 10 or more open pages and can easily jump from one to another to find what I want. Dunno if that makes any sense, but that's why I like 'em!
• Screen real estate for me, I run my computer at 1280x1024, but having multiple windows of the browser open is just too much screen being used. I also like middle-clicking to open a whole ton of stuff in tabs, like from a blog post, then working my way down the line of tabs closing each when I'm done. "In fact, when I open new tabs and try to close one of them, they all close, and I lose cookies, while with windows, I just get back to what I wanted to see." Never had that happen to me personally, what version do you have installed? Maybe even uninstall it, delete it's remaining folders, then do a fresh install.
• Yeah, I dislike tabbed browsing too, mainly because the tab bar clutters my visual space, even though it's not much, it annoys me; I don't wish to change the behaviour of my windows display because I've become used to it, makes it faster to complete work. I've removed most tabbed browsing functionality from firefox and use good old multiple windows (shift+click on a link or ctrl+N). I never have that many open that the window labels collapse on the taskbar, because I don't have a big huge strip of icons in the tray anyway and don't use the quicklaunch shit & all that other cluttery crap. Windows GUI is fucking visual pollution, imho, so I use classic mode and everything uncluttered, no icons anywhere. Since I've got control of what processes are running in background, I use the minimum required, so FF can hog all the resources it wants, makes no difference. Get rid of all that shit in back and any programs you don't need that run on startup, makes everything smooooth.
• Two major reasons for me: 1: Screen real estate. 2: "Open in Tabs" option for bookmarks. How else can I open a window, hit a button and get the fifteen or so daily pages I look at to open up all at once?
• Oh, also the "Reload All Tabs" command.
• See, I don't understand why anyone open 12 hundred different pages all at once, I have my bookmarks all neat and categorised so I can fly backwards and forwards with just two or three windows open. Got all that shit neatorised.
• Like chimaera I love the "Open in Tabs" option. I organise my regularly-surfed sites by category in my bookmarks, viewing Mefi, MoFi, my blog, the Wiki and Metachat in one window, games in another, and so on.
• Um. huh? I'm the person who couldn't get the downloadable spell checker to do anythiing since I'm really a complete La Gatta - way out of date. Is there a tutorial somewhere that would hope me? For anything? I'm just hanging on by my toes. And, I use bookmerks to organize my daily viewing. Why would I need something else?
• "bookmerks" is a Canadian term I picked up form Koko. Anyway, I can keep several windows open to do surfing and play games. I still don't understand.
• It's mostly just a question of which interface you prefer. Me, I like navigating between tabs, mostly because I hate having a bunch of separate windows on my taskbar. I've got a fair-sized screen at hi rez, so I don't miss the lost real estate. Also I believe tabs chew up fewer system resources than separate windows, though I don't know that for sure. "Open in tabs" is an option for any links you put in your bookmarks toolbar folder. Go to bookmarks -> bookmarks toolbar folder, and under all the links you've put in the bookmarks toolbar, you'll see an option that reads "Open in Tabs." This opens every last single link on your bookmarks toolbar at once. In short, you prefer one or the other. Go with what you like. However, tabbed browsing or no, MS seems to agree that FF is the better browser, as release 7 appears to rip off pretty much every feature that FF has and IE doesn't.
• Just as a smartassed addit, one can have multiple home pages in ff. If you insert the '|' symbol in between homepages, you will have all of them load in tabs immediately upon startup. It's actually quite cool if you open the same palaver each time.
• ..in between homepages.... ought to be: ..in between URLs....
• The only reason I use tabs is because it keeps clutter contained to one program. Fluxbox keeps track of my windows pretty nicely, and then Firefox keeps track of my sites. So when I minimize Firefox, I have a clean and neat taskbar.
• I must be soooo in love with tabs, because this question and Chyren's assertions just sound like trolls. How can you use tabs for a day and not adore them?
• I can keep several windows open to do surfing and play games This is what tabbed browsing is great for. You have only one window open for the games you are playing on the 4-5 different tabs. Meanwhile, you have one window with 8-10 tabs open of normal surfing. Meanwhile, you have one window open with 5-6 tabs of reasearch on a specific topic you are studying, like maybe a bunch of different recipes, or dimensional theory. Meanwhile, you have a fourth window open for looking at porn in 25-30 tabs. It let's you tree your browsing, rather than have one big pile of stuff to constantly dig through.
• The cry of the geek rings out over the sleeping city   Mozilla-u-akhbar! The holy war has begun... c'mon kids - the browser wars are so 1990's
• The times I have to use IE (yeah, I know...) I clench my teeth when having to open another window. Safari and Mozilla's tabs have spoiled me. Let's say I enter Mofi, Mefi or another message board: from main page, I click interesting links so they open in tabs in the background, so I can continue looking at list. As I finish with main page, then I jump from tab to tab and deal with the content of each one. Some has another link embedded? Click to open the link in another tab. Ad infinitum... no mess.
• The only tabs I know about seem to involve word processing rather than than online stuff. If you were to ask me how FF works, I'd say it opens windows. Looking up tab via Google doesn't seem enlightening, nor does looking it up in my Dictionary of Computer Terms [1997]. So what's a tab?
• It's LSD, man. I try to avoid it whilst on the internets. Ruins the experience. It's best to stare at a tree.
• beeswacky: You know those configuration windows that have a zillion pages with a row of selectors across the top to choose the page? Those selectors are called tabs after their hanging file meatspace analogue. Tabs in the browser are the same kind of thing. You have one window, which actually contains multiple pages. By clicking on the tabs, you can switch between pages rather like changing channels on an old-skool car radio. path: Tabs are really useful for research. My most common scenario is this: Search in Google; open the most promising-looking links in tabs in the background; go through the tabs. Yes, you can do the same thing with the taskbar on Windows/Gnome/KDE; it's a bit like having a specialised taskbar just for the browser, but means that you can read what's on them more easily. On OS X, browser tabs are really useful: the Dock lists only applications, and there's no per-window taskbar, so tabs are by far the easiest way of having several pages open in the browser and switching between them.
• Thanks, ThreeDayMonk.
• Also, the tab bar doesn't contain any of the other programs you have running. You don't accidently bring up winamp, azureus, and nethack while trying to jump from the page that has a monkeyfilter thread to the page at dictionary.com telling you how to spell what you're typing at the first page. It's a bar devoted only to the net, and only to as narrowly defined topic as you choose.
• Sessionsaver extension to firefox remembers tabs and their individual histories if you manually close firefox. When you launch it next time, firefox session is restored, complete with all the tabs and their histories. Undoclosetab is another extension to firefox which will open a tab that is accidentally closed. The combination is quite useful. If you need general help with what extensions are and how to install them, go to the Extension Room. There are hundreds of extensions for various common things that you want your firefox to do or have.
• The mouse gestures extension makes it worthwhile for me. Makes it much easier to close one tab at a time.

• I click interesting links so they open in tabs in the background

  this sums it up for me. i guess i consider a browser window as an interface to one site, from which i will follow a range of links. i open these links in tabs, maintaining the context from which i accessed the link; if i need to go to an unrelated site, i open a new browser window.
• The ability to navigate via keyboard within one program, as Mr. K points out, is very useful for opening what you want without accidentally switching. Let's say for example that I'm writing, oh I don't know, how about my dissertation. I have 2 documents open in Word, and am also running EndNote reference manager, several pages in Firefox, and some PDF articles in Acrobat, with Winamp playing pirat... um, legitimately acquired background music. I am trying to check references on an online database to add into my reference library while writing. If I hit [alt]-[tab] I will be switching between all the programs I have open, which means navigating from my window of search results to the window of search content could mean hitting [tab] 4 or 5 times before it jumps to the window I want. Using tabs in Firefox, [ctrl]-[tab] will jump around tabs inside my browser without touching anything else. Plus, I can bookmark both my search page and all of the interesting results pages for future reference, in one step. (Really useful for when you are shutting down for the day and would rather restart your poor struggling computer than hibernate it, to clear your old memory threads...) Compare this to the behavior in other programs. MS Office opens a new window for each document, even if you can switch documents within a window via a menu command. Acrobat sometimes keeps one window and other times uses multiples. Photoshop keeps everything in one window. The tab bar was supposed to be a default GUI thing for Windows, and I'm honestly surprised that more programs don't use it. I have a web editor circa 1999 or so that uses the tab bar-style document settings, and I still like it better than anything I've seen since. And damn, Chyren, you gots some issues with Windows. I like a neat desktop as much as the next geek, but I still find the quicklaunch bar and system tray to be damn handy. I just force auto-hide anything in the tray I don't want to see, which means all I have showing is the network and battery meters most times, but the rest is there with a click. Same for quicklaunch - 90% of what I use on a daily basis is there, accessible via a click as a popup menu. Not the huge string of icons cluttering the taskbar many people have, you can force it to be smaller. I have like 4 icons showing, the rest are hiding. Sure, screen real-estate is precious, but if you're that worried about it go install one of the minimized themes for Firefox, or just F11 when browsing to use the whole screen at once.
• I like the idea of having one window for each research subject, with tabs containing all subsequent windows, so you can close that one window and all the sub-ones go away. One draw back is if that window crashes, it takes the others down. But the "Screen real estate" argument is bunk. I have 10 IE windows open, basically stacked up as windows tend to do, taking about the same space that one does. Control-tab verses alt-tab is an interesting debate, and I was pissed when MS removed c-t from Office. I can get around without it, but I can see how it would help me if the browser supported it. I don't like tabs on chat windows. If I'm talking to more then one person, it's useful to have each in a different part of the screen. Makes it harder to send something to my boss that I intended for my girlfriend.
• I don't know if this is too simplistic, but it seems like path is asking for a basic guide. In Windows you can right click on an individual tab and just close that tab. Likewise, you can close all but that tab. Ctrl+W is the keyboard command to close the active tab. (Sorry if someone's said that already). Maybe someone could do a screenshot for beeswacky if he's still unsure of what we're talking about? Personally I like tabs because I'm frequently working with several applications at once, and it makes it easier for me to organize. Also, if you're goofing off at work, it looks far worse to have 10 browser windows up than one with as many tabs.
• I'm an academic, so I'm always looking up stuff and tabs are good for me because they are more convenient. If I'm reading an article online, or anything and it mentions something I'm interested in, or even a word I want a definition of I highlight it and rightclick and search for it. Now I only want that window open for a couple seconds so having it right there and the close tab button right there is easier than having to move the mouse all the way up to the corner. And I don't have to worry about a new window popping up that isn't full screen or that stupid flashing button crap down in the taskbar.
• tabs mean i can use the mouse to switch between pages instead of ALT+TAB. Saves the .06 seconds it would take my left hand to get over there.
• ummmmmm, tasty tabs I have to use IE at work and trying to navagate the windows is a royal PAIN after tabby goodness. I may have to go and play in the extension room now.
• Just wondering, when you say you have to use IE at work, does it mean no other browsers are allowed, or you need the functionality (ActiveX)? Is it possible to use the various IE-based browsers like crazy browser or avant which provide tabs, popup blockers etc?
• tabs mean i can use the mouse to switch between pages instead of ALT+TAB. Saves the .06 seconds it would take my left hand to get over there. Oh how I envy your mousing abilities! I can't mouse to save my friggin' life.
• Usually means that's all they've installed, and they won't let you install anything else. I've even tried putting FF on a flash drive and bringing that to work, but they've blocked us from setting up USB devices.
• tabs mean i can use the mouse to switch between pages instead of ALT+TAB. Saves the .06 seconds it would take my left hand to get over there. I use Ctrl+Tab to switch between tabs... And I've discovered I can't live without Middle-Click.
• Thanks, folks! Small light turned on. Now I'll have to play with using tabs as intended.
• I love tabbed browsing, and I don't even use the more advanced bookmark-related features. I just think grouping all the web page tabs together in a seprate tab-bar of their own (as opposed to jamming them all into the Windows task bar) makes sense. It helps keep all the open documents distinct and fast to get to. But it's perfectly possible to eschew tabbed browsing in Mozilla/Firefox, if that's what you prefer. They do "Open in new window" too, if that's what you like.
• Ohhhhhhh, yes. It's all about the choices, baby.
• "And damn, Chyren, you gots some issues with Windows." Yes, yes I do. I have Asperger's Syndrome, and in my case, one of the symptoms is being distracted by minor, niggly things to the point where I cannot actually think, or I explode in frustrated rage, so, yeah, I have cleared everything out of the periphery of my visual range on the screen. I have a high degree of focus on detail, call it visual supertasting. I also resist change to the nth degree, which is why my windows GUI is in stasis around post win98 level.
• This. Explains. A lot.
• indeed.
• Maybe you should try one of the alternate shells for Windows? There is one based on blackbox (it might even be black box) that you may like. They are just very, very simple and light window managers. All changes are handled with simple text files. Oh, that was directed at Chy, btw.
• I just like that I can apple + (tab#) to whatever tab I want instead of trying to remember the order of the windows I've opened and having to alt+tab through 17 screens to get to the one I want. And it's cleaner, etc. And it takes my computer way longer to load a new window than it does to load a new tab. And it makes it easier when you're researching - all tabs for one subject in one window, tabs for another subject in another window. Apple+w will just close the active tab, if you're having problems closing the entire window when you just want to close a tab. This has probably all been said in the thread, but I didn't read the whole thing. Ah well.
• p.s. i use both a mac and pc, hence the discontinuities in my tabbing problems/apple terminology.