Tab switcher
Benjamin Smedberg
I have a few immediate concerns that are not just adjustment-to-new:
* the pagination buttons at the bottom are completely unclear: I can't tell
which one is pressed and which one is unpressed without clicking on them
(this is on mac)
* I expected the scrollwheel to do something useful, such as switch between
"pages" of the tab selector
* it's noticably slower
* it doesn't have the same spatial reference as the tab bar, which
frustrates quick-select maneuvers. To be precise:
I typically set up my "main browser window" in a precise way:
* Gmail
* Tinderbox
* Pushlog
* ... any random tabs I open from the first three tabs
With the old tab-switcher, it was easy to get back to these first three
tabs... now it's a much more involved process.
--BDS
Mike Beltzner
Great feedback - I especially like the suggestion of using the scrollwheel
to do page changes.
On your last point about spatial relationships. In Beta 1 control-tab used
most-recently-used ordering. Now the first tab listed is most-recently-used
and after that we go to spatial order, I think. When you refer to the "old
tab switcher" do you mean the Beta 1 way or the Firefox 3 way?
cheers,
mike
--BDS
_______________________________________________
dev-apps-firefox mailing list
dev-apps...@lists.mozilla.org
https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-apps-firefox
Benjamin Smedberg
> On your last point about spatial relationships. In Beta 1 control-tab used
> most-recently-used ordering. Now the first tab listed is most-recently-used
> and after that we go to spatial order, I think. When you refer to the "old
> tab switcher" do you mean the Beta 1 way or the Firefox 3 way?
I never have used Ctrl-Tab. I'm talking entirely about what happens when you
click the down-arrow thing on the right side of the tab bar.
--BDS
Thomas Stache
>
> I typically set up my "main browser window" in a precise way:
>
> * Gmail
> * Tinderbox
> * Pushlog
> * ... any random tabs I open from the first three tabs
>
> With the old tab-switcher, it was easy to get back to these first three
> tabs... now it's a much more involved process.
>
> --BDS
For what it's worth, "Cmd-1, 2, 3.. 8" shortcuts take you to the 1st,
2nd... left-most tabs. Only numbers 9 and 0 are exceptions: 9 takes you
to the right-most tab, and "Cmd-0" resets the page/text zoom.
These shortcuts work better for me to switch to fixed tabs like you
mentioned, than any menulist or AllTabs popup could.
Benjamin Smedberg
> For what it's worth, "Cmd-1, 2, 3.. 8" shortcuts take you to the 1st,
> 2nd... left-most tabs. Only numbers 9 and 0 are exceptions: 9 takes you
> to the right-most tab, and "Cmd-0" resets the page/text zoom.
>
> These shortcuts work better for me to switch to fixed tabs like you
> mentioned, than any menulist or AllTabs popup could.
My comments were about the mouse-based tab selector. I don't use the
keyboard much within Firefox, and when my hand is on the mouse using
keyboard shortcuts isn't very quick.
--BDS
Bob Clary
> Hey Benjamin,
>
> Great feedback - I especially like the suggestion of using the scrollwheel
> to do page changes.
>
> On your last point about spatial relationships. In Beta 1 control-tab used
> most-recently-used ordering. Now the first tab listed is most-recently-used
> and after that we go to spatial order, I think. When you refer to the "old
> tab switcher" do you mean the Beta 1 way or the Firefox 3 way?
Just to pile on....
1. I stopped using ctrl-tab when the behavior changed.
2. I normally work through js test triage by opening dozens of bugs in
tabs and working my way through them. Previously I could click the
tab-selector menu at the right of the tab strip and get a compact list
of tabs with titles (bug 99999 - summary....) and quickly scan and
select them. One bug looks just like another when rendered as a
thumbnail. The new UI sure is flashy but makes using tabs as a work
queue much less useful. I don't suppose there is a pref to go back to
the old approach.
John J. Barton
With FF3.1b1, Cntrl-Tab brings up a dark box just below the middle of
the window containing thumbnail images of the tabs.
With three tabs the UI seems odd: tabbing circulates through the list as
if it is a circle. But for me it's not, it's a line. In fact that line
is the tab bar. I think wrapping the list around is confusing.
Is there a way to integrate with the tab bar? I think the confusion is
having two images of the tab list at the same time, one line one circle.
John
Boris Zbarsky
> I'm a bit puzzled by which feature is being discussed on this thread...
One that didn't exist until 3 days ago, basically. In particular, it's
not talking about Ctrl-Tab.
-Boris
Mike Shaver
<johnj...@johnjbarton.com> wrote:
> I'm a bit puzzled by which feature is being discussed on this thread...
>
> With FF3.1b1, Cntrl-Tab brings up a dark box just below the middle of the
> window containing thumbnail images of the tabs.
>
> With three tabs the UI seems odd: tabbing circulates through the list as if
> it is a circle. But for me it's not, it's a line. In fact that line is the
> tab bar. I think wrapping the list around is confusing.
The ctrl-tab/ctrl-pgdn navigation wraps for me in FF3.0 as well -- not for you?
Mike
John J. Barton
Sure, but the left most tab never appears on the right hand side of the
right most tab. They stay in their visual order.
Dão
> Hey Benjamin,
>
> Great feedback - I especially like the suggestion of using the scrollwheel
> to do page changes.
>
> On your last point about spatial relationships. In Beta 1 control-tab used
> most-recently-used ordering. Now the first tab listed is most-recently-used
> and after that we go to spatial order, I think.
Seven tabs are in MRU order, the rest is in the tab bar order, but
relative to the current tab.
Dao
Dão
> * it doesn't have the same spatial reference as the tab bar, which
> frustrates quick-select maneuvers. To be precise:
>
> I typically set up my "main browser window" in a precise way:
>
> * Gmail
> * Tinderbox
> * Pushlog
> * ... any random tabs I open from the first three tabs
>
> With the old tab-switcher, it was easy to get back to these first three
> tabs... now it's a much more involved process.
Yeah, the current ordering simply doesn't support that use case, and
therefore isn't a straight replacement for the old "all tabs" list. You
can now search for the tabs, but since you already know the position and
since you want to use your mouse, that's inefficient. I used to argue
for tab-bar ordering in the "all tabs" panel, but finally gave up.
Personally I don't care much, because even though I have a very fixed
and long-lived tab bar order due to session restore, I never used the
old list (but Ctrl+[number]).
Dao
Mike Beltzner
>> On your last point about spatial relationships. In Beta 1 control-
>> tab used
>> most-recently-used ordering. Now the first tab listed is most-
>> recently-used
>> and after that we go to spatial order, I think.
>
> Seven tabs are in MRU order, the rest is in the tab bar order, but
> relative to the current tab.
Where did we come up with the number seven?
cheers,
mike
Dão
It's the approximate number of items that people keep in their
short-term memory. Seven is also the limit that Alex said Vista would be
using for Alt+Tab, and Simon Bünzli told me something similar.
Dao
Rob Arnold
windows per row whereas we do 3. This means that if I know I haven't used a
window in a while (Ex: Firefox's window with Pandora), then I know to skip
the first row entirely. Similarly, for a recently used window, I scan the
top row first.
-Rob