CTRL-tab / All Tabs work
Tony Chung
The notes posted at https://wiki.mozilla.org/Platform/2008-11-18 shows:
* Ctrl-Tab
o feedback on UI has resulted in some changes to the interaction
o not sure that we're going to get this properly solved for 3.1, at
which point we might do better to pull it now and get it right for next
version
o if you want to try the new interaction: see the mockup, play with
tryserver builds
Does "pull it now" mean yank the entire CTRL-Tab/All tabs functionality
from 3.1 and revisit later? In the short term, im more interested in
what the current implementation means for beta 2, and when can we expect
a decision for the purposes of test planning.
Reference: Bug 465076
Thanks,
Tony
Mike Beltzner
> Does "pull it now" mean yank the entire CTRL-Tab/All tabs
> functionality from 3.1 and revisit later?
Yes, that's what it would mean. As we discussed at the meeting, if
we're not confident in this interaction - and it feels like we're not
- then we shouldn't try to shoehorn it in to the product and put our
schedule at risk. Instead we'll hold it for the next version of Firefox.
> In the short term, im more interested in what the current
> implementation means for beta 2, and when can we expect a decision
> for the purposes of test planning.
You can expect that it should be backed out, and that Firefox 3.1
should behave like Firefox 3.0 in that respect.
> Reference: Bug 465076
That bug is about the revised interaction that was proposed based on
Beta 2 feedback, yes.
cheers,
mike
Peter Lairo
> On 18-Nov-08, at 7:41 PM, Tony Chung wrote:
>
>> Does "pull it now" mean yank the entire CTRL-Tab/All tabs
>> functionality from 3.1 and revisit later?
>
> Yes
Hooray! And good riddance to that abomination of a UI. :-)
--
Regards,
Peter Lairo
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Mike Beltzner
> Mike Beltzner said on 19.11.2008 2:54:
>> On 18-Nov-08, at 7:41 PM, Tony Chung wrote:
>>
>>> Does "pull it now" mean yank the entire CTRL-Tab/All tabs
>>> functionality from 3.1 and revisit later?
>>
>> Yes
>
> Hooray! And good riddance to that abomination of a UI. :-)
Yes, that's a really helpful comment which I'm sure makes the hard
work by Boriss and Dao, as well as their responsiveness to your
feedback, feel like it was both worthwhile and a good use of their
time. Thanks. Feel free to unsubscribe from this newsgroup just as
soon as you want, mmkay?
cheers,
mike
Jennifer Boriss
cheers,
mike
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Peter Lairo
> The bug for backing this out has been filed at 465843.
Thanks! That should allow for enough time to get this cool-looking
feature right.
BTW: The 7x MRU order is *totally* confusing me (hence my outburst of
joy over its removal). I suspect it might also confuse the huge number
of non-advanced PC/Firefox users. Instead of using the max allowable by
smart people of 5 or 7 MRU tabs, perhaps making just *2 MRU tabs* the
default would be optimal (switching back and forth between two tabs
should cover most usage cases - it would for me) (and having an
about:config setting to change the number of MRUs for the more advanced
users).
PS. On my Firefox (trunk, WinXP) the shaded area of the CTRL+Tab field
seems *shifted up* (the top edge is just over the lower part of the menu
- File | Edit | View...). But in all the screenshots on
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox3.1/control_tab#New_Beltzner_Proposal
the shaded area is centered inside the content area. Is that a known
WinXP bug (or is it just something broken in my install)?
> On 19-Nov-08, at 6:04 PM, Peter Lairo wrote:
>>> On 18-Nov-08, at 7:41 PM, Tony Chung wrote:
>>>
>>>> Does "pull it now" mean yank the entire CTRL-Tab/All tabs
>>>> functionality from 3.1 and revisit later?
>>> Yes
--
Jennifer Boriss
Thanks for the more constructive comment. You say 7x MRU is confusing - can you elaborate on why it is?
I say this because of the distinction between knowing a tab is recent and knowing you saw it six tabs ago. We hold a few items in our short term memory, yes, but that memory is not a numbered and categorized list. If you're going to the grocery store, you probably won't think "ah yes, I need milk, because it's the fourth thing I thought of before I left the house." You will more likely think back to your fridge, visualize its contents, perhaps remember your last meal and what you were out of. So, I don't see 7+-2 as the "advanced" number, but more a sampling from the items you've been dealing with recently.
That said, we now have a bit more time to work on this and are keen to see it work smoothly and successfully with ways people work. Perhaps we can win you over before this is released.
- Boriss
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Lairo" <Pe...@Lairo.com>
To: dev-apps...@lists.mozilla.org
Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 5:10:05 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: Re: CTRL-tab / All Tabs work
--
Regards,
Peter Lairo
Thomas Stache
> Peter -
>
> Thanks for the more constructive comment. You say 7x MRU is confusing - can you elaborate on why it is?
>
> I say this because of the distinction between knowing a tab is recent and knowing you saw it six tabs ago. We hold a few items in our short term memory, yes, but that memory is not a numbered and categorized list. If you're going to the grocery store, you probably won't think "ah yes, I need milk, because it's the fourth thing I thought of before I left the house." You will more likely think back to your fridge, visualize its contents, perhaps remember your last meal and what you were out of. So, I don't see 7+-2 as the "advanced" number, but more a sampling from the items you've been dealing with recently.
>
> That said, we now have a bit more time to work on this and are keen to see it work smoothly and successfully with ways people work. Perhaps we can win you over before this is released.
>
> - Boriss
>
I'm also one of those who are confused by the MRU-ordered tabs...
if I work my way down a large news site opening articles to read in the
background, Ctrl-Tab is clogged with previews that don't mean anything
to me, because I haven't seen the pages yet. Instead, the pages I would
recognize are shoved into e.g. page 2 of 3.
Bad Example:
http://twitpic.com/mtzb/full
Maybe it would help me to have the tab titles above the thumbnails, as I
can scan text quicker than these clipped previews? And it would be rad
if we could overlay some large (e.g. 32px) high-res favicons - but that
may remain a dream for the time being...
Also, many websites have a lot of boilerplate text in their page
titles... Hence it is likely that the short titles in the current design
don't differ enough to be helpful.
I'd like to see more of the title like in the Alt-Tab panel:
http://twitpic.com/mu07/full
--
Thomas
Gijs Kruitbosch
Just a note: Komodo Edit uses MRU for ctrl+tab switching, and it regularly
completely pisses me off. The reason for that is that if I'm actually engaged in
a tab (in this case, editing, but in the case of the browser, reading / filling
in forms / booking tickets online / whatever) then I really don't know in which
order I accessed the other tabs. The behaviour of ctrl+tab is then promptly
completely confusing, given that there is no way to tell what it's going to do
next (as the order doesn't correspond to visual order).
Could we (or are you...) perhaps add(ing) a timeout to the MRU list? If I don't
use it for 5 minutes, I'm unlikely to remember that I saw something "six tabs
ago". That's why it's called "short term" memory ;-)
~ Gijs
Peter Lairo
> Peter -
>
> Thanks for the more constructive comment. You say 7x MRU is
> confusing - can you elaborate on why it is?
>
> I say this because of the distinction between knowing a tab is recent
> and knowing you saw it six tabs ago. We hold a few items in our
> short term memory, yes, but that memory is not a numbered and
> categorized list. If you're going to the grocery store, you probably
> won't think "ah yes, I need milk, because it's the fourth thing I
> thought of before I left the house." You will more likely think back
> to your fridge, visualize its contents, perhaps remember your last
> meal and what you were out of. So, I don't see 7+-2 as the
> "advanced" number, but more a sampling from the items you've been
> dealing with recently.
MRU adds yet another abstract (and ever changing!) set of information I
have to store in my brain. I already have in my brain: the web pages
contents, the tabs I have open, the approximate
location/physical/chronological order of these tabs on my tab bar, and
now ... MRU. It's just too much. And the actual items of interest, the
contents, are waaay at the other end of this long list of
to-be-remembered data.
Adding to this confusion is the uncertainty of how the MRU order
possibly *changes*: if I *semi-randomly* switch between a bunch of tabs
(looking for some scattered info) it seems the MRU order should change
too. I do this often. This renders the MRU not only useless, but makes
it a hindrance to coherent tab order remembering.
> That said, we now have a bit more time to work on this and are keen
> to see it work smoothly and successfully with ways people work.
> Perhaps we can win you over before this is released.
I really doubt that. I will almost certainly turn it off (for myself and
all my users).
I was thinking last night that there is another very strong reason why I
dislike the tab switching UI so much: It's the jarring experience of
having the entire content, which is usually predominately white,
suddenly covered by something else, which is predominately black. It's
highly disorienting. My entire mental and visual model of my content and
my tabs are wiped away - like pouring a bucket of water onto the writing
on a chalk board.
Possible solution:
1. Make the "all-tabs" overlay and the "tab-switching" UI *separate*.
2. Make the all tabs UI like it is now (covering the whole content) (and
make it in tab order).
3. Make the tab switching UI a *strip just below the tab bar* and have
the tab's preview aligned below each tab. Yes, the previews would get
smaller as more tabs are added, but I think this is the best solution. I
can have 4 tabs before the tabs get narrower (19" @ 1280x1024) and four
tabs should cover a huge percentage of the usage cases.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
| (<)(>)(O)(X) [ ] [ ] |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
|/____tab 1____\/____tab 2____\/____tab 3____\/____tab 4____\_________|
|| || || || | |
|| Preview 1 || Preview 2 || Preview 3 || Preview 4 | |
|| || || || | |
|+-------------++-------------++-------------++-------------+ |
| |
| |
| C O N T E N T |
| |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
Add highlighting and titles (that can wrap to 2-3 lines?) as needed.
Favicons are no longer needed because they are already in the tab. Make
"on-hover" look different from the "active" tab.
I also thought about my previous suggestion of making the MRU = 2 to
switch back and forth between two tabs. It has a major downside: I more
often open several tabs and then want to *progress* from one to the
other. The MRU=2 back&forth would always take me back to the previous
tab and not to the next tab. Conclusion: kill MRU entirely (perhaps make
it an about:config option).
PS: Isn't this newsgroup supposed to be bottom-/interleaved
posting? And why are your replies not threaded under the post you were
replying to, but instead, under the OP? Zimbra doesn't seem to handle
newsgroups very well. Have you tried Thunderbird? ;-)
PPS. I think the 1+ hour I just spent formulating these suggestions more
than makes up for my previous one-line "shorthand feedback" on the
current tab switching UI. mmkay Mike? ;-)
supernova_00
>
> - Show quoted text -
For tab order see...https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?
id=463211
That is really the only complaining I ever saw about ctrl+tab is the
MRU instead of in tab order.
Mike Beltzner
> PPS. I think the 1+ hour I just spent formulating these suggestions
> more than makes up for my previous one-line "shorthand feedback" on
> the current tab switching UI. mmkay Mike? ;-)
Quite; and that's the sort of apology (actual effort, detail and ways
to move forward) that makes things better for everyone. Very much
appreciated, Peter. Welcome back. :)
cheers,
mike
David McRitchie
Thanks Peter, for sticking your neck out (or on the chopping block).
There is a big difference between functional and cool looking,
and the whole mess is not functional in my mind, glad it was
removed, at least for now. I'm afraid that the only people who
would most notice it are the same people that do not want it.
But if it has to be added at least an option
- no interference (default)
- show on the tabs dropdown (as in Opera)
- show the "cool" feature
and an option for the MRU order (browser.ctrlTab.mostRecentlyUsed) as well.
- MRU order to Ctrl+Tab (would prefer OFF by default)
I try to keep my tabs at one level so I can get rid of them when
finished, I do not like looking at pictures of web pages, while trying
to do something as I pretty much know what they are even 30-60 tabs open.
--
David McRitchie, extensions I use are briefly documented on my site
Firefox Custom: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/firefox/firefox.htm
Functional Ext & Styles: http://kb.mozillazine.org/User:Dmcritchie