Mirrored App Tabs, Multiple Windows
Rob Campbell
A discussion in IRC came up today about what to do with App Tabs in multiple windows. One proposal is to mirror the App Tabs across all windows. Every window gets all of the App Tabs. Another possibility is to have every window have it's own set of App Tabs. Or perhaps one main window gets all of the App Tabs.
What I'd like to get out of this discussion is an idea of some of the different use cases that could describe these different interactions. How do we want to use app tabs and do multiple windows make a difference here? I'll try to keep my own personal bias to a minimum for the purposes of this discussion.
To kick it off, I'll describe the state we have now:
- A user (who I'm going to call Steve because I hate referring to people as "user") has one browser window open with three App Tabs and a collection of other tabs. Because Steve has a computer with multiple desktops on it (Spaces in OS X), he needs to bring a couple of his tabs over to another space to refer to the contents of them there. Steve detaches one of his regular tabs with the drag and drop feature, and then drags another tab into that new window. Steve finally moves the new window to the secondary workspace which he uses for focus work away from the distractions of his various messaging clients and IRC terminals. The App Tabs stay in the same window where he can safely ignore them while he's working. -
In this scenario, the user keeps his app tabs in the original window. They are not mirrored. This is actually a desirable state for Steve who doesn't want to be tempted to click in gmail or feedly or twitter while he's working. They are hidden but easily accessible when he wants to return to them. If a user wants to create a new App Tab in a secondary window, he or she can do so.
The second scenario is one where we have App Tabs mirrored across all windows:
- Timmy routinely has several Firefox windows open which he allocates to different topics or purposes. He uses these windows to logically group related tabs and trains of thought. Timmy follows a lot of social networks and blogs and will frequently promote different websites to App Tabs for easy access. As he's browsing, he might select a blog he's wants to write a reply to and make it an App Tab, then leave that window to pursue another train of thought. As he's browsing, the App Tabs collect in the left his browser windows for easy access and they can be found within any of his windows, their contents up-to-date where he can return to check for updates or write a comment. -
In this scenario, our user has multiple windows with various App Tabs shared among each of them. They follow him around and he's able to get to them regardless of which window he's actually activated.
Are there other use cases we could come up with? Interactions you'd like to see?
--
Rob Campbell
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Eric Sampson
pseudo-simultaneously, like Timmy and his partner Trina, who both jump on
and off the internet during the night as they are checking email, browsing
the web, etc? They might want to have multiple of the same app tabs
simultaneously (either in the same or different windows), each logged into
their respective account. Does this touch on Profiles as well?
Eric
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Rob Campbell
Jennifer Boriss
Thanks for bringing this up; there's some important interaction behavior to work out here.
Let's talk about Steve, who is a good example user because of his common use cases. What's true about Steve is that he uses Firefox for two large categories of tasks: tasks he wants to focus intently on with no distractions and social networking/interaction/email that is constantly throwing updates at him. He also wants "read it later" functionality. To Steve, an app tab is a good way to store content to be read later, but the mere icon is distracting when he wants to do other work. The visual cue of Gmail's favicon, especially if it counts unread messages, steals Steve's attention away from what he's focusing on.
While Steve's use case of wanting "read it later" without the distraction of favicons is likely common, I don't think this is the intended use case of app tabs. What Steve really needs is a way to store items for later - on another desktop or another window. Steve would be well served by Tab Candy, which could store a group of tabs to be looked at another time, or an extension like Read it Later.
However, the main idea behind app tabs (at least how I think of them) addresses a different use case to "read it later."
Steve may work, and he may do social networking, but in the background he is running applications. One of these applications is iTunes, which Steve listens to when he works and plays online. Another is his calendar, which he refers to both for work and social engagements. These are items he needs often, checks occasionally ("I want play only yodeling this hour" "am I free Friday night?"), but these don't seriously detract from his task. However, rather than running separate applications on his OS, Steve may be using "web applications" for the same functionality - Pandora and Google Calendar, for instance. Unlike on his OS, where Steve can easily switch to his calendar and music, on Firefox he needs to hunt down that one tab, which to Steve is more like an application than a website.
This is the broken interaction that app tabs on Firefox can fix - but only if they are mirrored on every tab. Rather than forcing a tab-hunt, these provide an easy switch to a commonly-accessed sites while allowing the user to remain in the context of the window they are in. If Steve is listening to Pandora on his "play" desktop, now he doesn't need to leave his "work" desktop to change tracks. If anything, app tabs should be an aid to focus.
- Boriss
Ron Hunter
More options equals more power.
Ron Hunter
single window, and global would be in all windows, and, optionally, all
users (profiles).
Alex Faaborg
tabs in a window == tab set in tab candy
Personally, I'm in favor of this model:
-First window opened gets the app tabs
-Subsequent windows do not contain app tabs
-If the first window is closed, the next window gets them again
-App tabs appear in a separate special set in tab candy (styled to sort of
match the background, and using 32x32 favicons)
-If you select an app tab in tab candy, you get a view that also includes
all of the tabs floating outside of a any specific set (sort of on the
"desktop").
I think Aza has been in favor of a model where the app tabs appear in every
tab set (because they are universally useful) [1], but I'm worried that this
will end up over time making all of the tab sets similar and cluttered.
Certain app tabs like email and feed reader tend to create a lot of
peripheral tabs, that you don't necessarily want spreading at random into
the tab set you happened to be in when you accessed your email or feeds. It
might be the case that you want a particular Web app for use in one your tab
sets, but then I think you should actively move it in. Also app tabs tend
to be distracting (especially when we pick up badging) so keeping them out
of very task specific tab sets will help users focus.
-Alex
[1] http://www.flickr.com/photos/azaraskin/4845263796/
Neil Lee
> This is the broken interaction that app tabs on Firefox can fix - but only if they are mirrored on every tab. Rather than forcing a tab-hunt, these provide an easy switch to a commonly-accessed sites while allowing the user to remain in the context of the window they are in.
I agree with this. It could be confusing to have a situation like Alex described where the app tabs disappear (when the first window is closed) and then come back when a new window is opened.
The way I've been thinking about app tabs is that they are like toolbars - when I install a toolbar, I expect it to be in every window until I actually go and either hide it or uninstall it. This leads to the possibility that Alex noted where someone could easily hoist their own petard[1].
In the context of Tab Candy, maybe the way to go is to have app tabs appear in all of that current tab set's windows?
One question I just thought of: what happens if I dragged an app tab out of a window? Would that remove it from all of the windows?
Neil
[1]:http://abcdefu.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/firefox-maximum-toolbars.png
Kr@n
On 11 août, 22:03, Jennifer Boriss <jbor...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> This is the broken interaction that app tabs on Firefox can fix - but only if they are mirrored on every tab. Rather than forcing a tab-hunt, these provide an easy switch to a commonly-accessed sites while allowing the user to remain in the context of the window they are in. If Steve is listening to Pandora on his "play" desktop, now he doesn't need to leave his "work" desktop to change tracks. If anything, app tabs should be an aid to focus.
On 11 août, 23:20, Ron Hunter <rphun...@charter.net> wrote:
> As always, code for both options, and let the individual user choose.
> More options equals more power.
To avoid too much coding (at least for now, since time is quite short
until FF4 and there still are a lot more things to do), would it be
possible to provide an easy way in order to collapse (hide) or expand
(show) the AppTab part of the tab strip ? Steve would thus be able to
hide distracting tabs during his work, but could still easily find his
precious Pandora tab when needed.
The AppTab section could collapse into a single AppTab-like tab, with
the number of open AppTabs instead of the favicon (a bit like the
future download manager/notifier).
The issue I can foresee with this kind of mechanism : it's another
clutter/interaction/visual added to the already quite loaded tab-strip
(especially if we consider the tab-strip to be living in the title
bar, with FF and window buttons)
-- Matthieu
Eric Sampson
multiple users sharing the same computer simultaneously? This is not a
theoretical question, my wife and I share one laptop... :)
Eric
Biju
>
> > As always, code for both options, and let the individual user choose.
> > More options equals more power.
>
> To avoid too much coding (at least for now, since time is quite short
> until FF4 and there still are a lot more things to do), would it be
> possible to provide an easy way in order to collapse (hide) or expand
> (show) the AppTab part of the tab strip ? Steve would thus be able to
I see AppTabs as some thing similar to TaksBar Icons [1] for
applications on Windows Task bar.
MS-Windows provide an option called "Hide Inactive TaksBar Icons". We
could have some thing similar to that.
Also AppTabs appearing on each window only become problem for those
who have a lot of AppTabs. I feel most users of Firefox will have only
say 4 or 5 AppTabs. I feel will somebody will make extension if they
want a different behavior.