I use TabMix Plus and force single browser working.
Why bother searching for an open tab? Just open a new GMail tab and close it when you’re finished.
If you do insist on having one open, have a system e.g. tab 1 is http:/gmail.com , tab 2 is http://takemystuff.co.uk , tab 3 is http://slashdot.org etc. then protect those tabs to prevent accidental closing. Then you can go to your single browser instance and press alt-1 to get gmail.
I use the same method for screen ‘tabs’ e.g. tab 5 is mysql etc.
I couldn’t live without tabs. It’s much easier to find, say, Visual Studio when I only have to look through 20-30 app windows. If my 10-250 web pages each had their own app window, I’d be doomed (yes, I know I have a problem :P).
Of course, it would be terrible to look for gmail through 250 tabs, even with an excellently shrunken skin and tabs on the side – that can typically handle only around 50 tabs (this is with Opera…Firefox and IE have no chance of holding up to my browsing style). Typically I deal with the issue by either closing gmail (or whatever) after each check, it being quick enough to reopen when needed, or by “tearing off” the tab into a separate browser window – which you can do in Opera.
Sorry, this probably comes off as a fanboy post. I like Firefox, as it’s got some fantastic extensions. I use it for my web development. It just can’t deal with my (admittedly mental) day-to-day browsing :).
Today, I wanted to compare 2 powerpoint slides on office 2003 (a new fad my company just installed 6 days ago. Yes, that’s not a typo, office 2003.). I opened one .ppt, I opened another. I saw two windows in the taskbar. However, when I wanted to compare them, they were one window. Clicking the taskbar did nothing but bring the other window to front in the MDI. However, their MDI is so screwed you can’t even unmaximize windows, you’ll have to do that via a menu…
Perhaps when I’m doing research I should open a special browser window for it or something.
Putting everything in one browser window seems a little crazy to me. Particularly if you have multiple monitors. Right now I have 9 instances of the browser open, a few on each of my 3 monitors-- so I can maximize the amount of the information I see at once.
I use tabs, too. I tend to open task-based browser instances, such that all the tabs in that browser are on a related topic. Thus, I’ll have my bloglines browser (and related tabs)… my topic X research browser (and related tabs)… my communication browser (with twitter/hotmail/gmail tabs)… etcetera.
Tabs are great for organization, but it’s so very hard to manage tabs.
How about you remember where you put your Gmail tab? Incidentally, even tabbed-browser-deluxe Firefox allows you to open what we in the business call a new window allowing you to put your Gmail into. The problem is not with tabs but with how you use 'em.
Incidentally, how about you use a stand-alone email application?
The advantages of tabs for collecting lots of information far outweigh the disadvantages. Opened up two copies of Gmail? Whoop-dee-doo — not exactly the end of the world.
The only time have 20 different windows opened at once is “easier” is when you use something like Expose. As it is, if you are looking for a webpage, it’s usually easier to just Alt-Tab and get to the browser, at which point you can usually narrow down the likely place of the page in no problem. Sorting through all of your possible interfaces when you know it is going to be in the domain of only one program is rather inefficient in itself.
In any case, it’s not like it’s hard to disable tabbed browsing and go back to the old way.
My big MDI-annoyance, if you cared, is the way that different Word documents are handled in OS X. I can’t Alt-Tab between them at all – it jumps me into a different program. This is a pain in the neck, since it often the case that one needs to be looking at more than one Word document at once, and jumping between them. (And Expose is little help either if your documents all look pretty similar as thumbnails; in any case, it certainly isn’t very fast in the switch-back-and-forth sort of way). In this response, I wish Word handled a bit more like it did in Windows than it currently does in OS X.
It’s much easier to find, say, Visual Studio when I only have to look through 20-30 app windows.
There is an important distinction between Visual Studio and web browsers, however.
The advantage of Visual Studio is that all the tabs are BY DEFINITION task-related, eg, they’re tabs containing projects and files that are part of the current Visual Studio solution. Whereas a browser may have ten completely and utterly unrelated tabs open.
And if you need to open more than one solution… you use multiple copies of Visual Studio, of course. Nobody would tell you to open five different solutions in one instance of Visual Studio. It’s not even possible.
There’s a natural container in Visual Studio, the “solution”, which has “projects” and “files”. There’s no such logical grouping for the web browser… although that is how I try to use my web browser. I group sites (tabs) by function, and per-monitor.
I love tabbed browsing. I open links in RSS feeds in new tabs(Strg+Click) and go through them one by one. If I want to get to the GMail tab, i can click on the little arrow button right to the tabs and see all my open tabs or I use Alt+1(hold always GMail) like Charles suggested.
I always believed (still do actually) that tabs were invented to reduce taskbar clutter.
If the number of tabs I use for work are reasnoble(sp), then I use a single window.
Otherwise, I tear them off to another window if it grows too large.
I sometimes have as many windows open as I have subjects to research.
But there is one window with my basic windows. GMail, Reader and Calendar, which I can always find.
If you allow Switcher, Flip, Expose to also show tabs, or even let the OS know of them, then you are instantly back to the taskbar clutter from hell.
Isn’t it odd that we’re duplicating what the operating system does inside the browser? (eg, Don’t Repeat Yourself?) Isn’t that symptomatic of the weird corner case we put ourselves in by relying so heavily on tabbed interface?
Jeff, I think any solution to this problem would have its scaling limits, since new organization issues would arise at any number of opened applications. Some might argue that the best long term solution is to keep the number of unnecessary open applications and browser instances to a minimum. At times I do have applications running that I really don’t need running after all.
At times, it may be less productive to have 20 applications running concurrently that need to be found and switched to versus closing an application at the time it’s not needed and then opening it again as need be.
I gotta agree with Winsmith–if you want Gmail to show up in the taskbar, open it in a new window. This gives you the flexibility to use tabs for most things and new windows for the few things you want quick access to.
I have one Chat-Window, One Browser, maybe even One Mailprogram opened. Expose and the Windows Taskbar make it easy to switch the Apps. And the App manages its instances with tabs.
The Problem starts, when you want to use two Browser-Windows. But if you need to do this, the app failed to provide a good experience with tabs. Or you do not use enough of it. Then you need to use no tabs at all.
Why the heck would you need 9 tabbed browsers on 3 monitors? Even if you aren’t using maximized browser windows you would need to have seriously crazy resolution and a microscope to view anything worthwhile on all 9 at the same time. I can (barely) see an argument for 1 browser window per monitor but 9 just seems silly. You have tabs, make use of them.
Even when i’m researching something I have 1, maybe 2 browser windows open, if I have to compare 2 sites…after that, things just get opened in tabs.
Mr Najmabadi’s contention that the taskbar serves the purpose just as well also baffles me. Grouping kills the taskbar when you have multiple browser windows (or any application for that matter, try finding a particular remote desktop window when they are all grouped up) open since they all collapse into 1 taskbar entry. Turning off grouping just makes them shrink up until you can’t read what they are anyway.
I suppose if you resist using tabs for what they are for or have really bad memory, tabs could be a pain.
FYI – Safari 3.0 (beta) for Mac and Windows allows you to tear off a tab and either drop it on an existing browser window or it creates a new window.
Multiple browser windows aren’t too bad in OS X because Expose supports just showing the windows for that particular application. I usually end up with 2-3 browser windows, and I use the ‘Show all Windows for this App’ hot corner instead of the ‘Show all Windows’ hot corner. Doing this, the tabs are quite readable in Expose and I can find the tab fairly easily.
I think the complaint about tabs is, whilst partly fair, missing the point.
The point (IMAO etc) is that the OS’s application navigation is entirely incapable of managing large numbers of windows (I use XP, I let it occupy two rows of application buttons and above about 15 apps it becomes pretty miserable). Tabs exist largely because opening lots of browsers would not only cripple your ability to find the right web page, but also to find any other application. On XP, for instance, you’d have to either live with lots of taskbar buttons, or the (awful) cascading buttons which not only bring you back to the same navigability as tabbed browsing, but add the issue of finding hidden windows to every application, not just the web browser.
Browsers have been forced to take the law into their own hands, and the way in which they’ve done so is still little more than a nascent design: it doesn’t, for instance, retain any semantic value from understanding links and domains, which could give a much richer structure to navigating the pages you have open.
As you suggest, the OS needs a more usable means of managing its applications (perhaps with features like search, reordering, renaming etc). Until then, tabs are a sensible response to an inadequate platform.
“Incidentally, how about you use a stand-alone email application?”
Because that only makes sense if you use one computer exclusively?
Another take on the “why would you EVER need more than one web browser” question, via comments on Cyrus’ blog:
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Because that’s how I work. I’m often working on multiple tasks simultaneously, many of which need access to the web. For example, I might be browsing specifications on our intranet. I might be reading documentation on the internet. And I might just be reading news elsewhere around the net. These are three different tasks that i do not want one app holding onto.
(I agree-- the idea that there should only be The One Browser To Rule Them All seems faintly ridiculous to me)
If you allow Switcher, Flip, Expose to also show tabs, or even let the OS know of them, then you are instantly back to the taskbar clutter from hell.
I’d argue we need a better/smarter taskbar then.
Or more/bigger monitors.
You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much desktop display area! More and bigger (preferably both) monitors is an investment that pays off.
