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FRINGE posted:Constantly trying to force new visual habits on old users is loving dumb. Improve functions, add features, stop trying to shove the sperg-of-the-month aesthetic on people that just want to use a program instead of jack off about how new their cutting edge alpha test version is. FRINGE posted:This stupid thing worked so (relatively stable anyway) well back in the version 3's.
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Sep 9, 2012 05:49
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Aleksei Vasiliev posted:You know that tabs on top is objectively better, right? You can think it looks worse or whatever, but it is unquestionably more efficient. You mind explaining that a bit?
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Sep 9, 2012 05:54
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Toast Museum posted:You mind explaining that a bit? I suppose they would be equal if you only had any taskbar/dock on the sides of your screen instead of bottom but nobody does that. Tabs on top means my tabs are currently 135 pixels wide and infinite pixels tall (starting 25 pixels from top of screen). Tabs on bottom means they would be 25 pixels tall, since I can no longer just flick my cursor to the corner of the screen.
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Sep 9, 2012 06:03
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Aleksei Vasiliev posted:You know that tabs on top is objectively better, right? You can think it looks worse or whatever, but it is unquestionably more efficient. That's false. Just straight up no truth to it. Like there's no way you can claim fitt's law and infinite height when there's a titlebar in the way! Sorry! (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Sep 9, 2012 06:03
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Firefox 4 tabs on top explained. The "Fitt's law" stuff is nonsense anyway. The top is where the title bar lives. You click and drag it when you want to move the window around. If you flick your mouse all the way to the top and click, you should hit the title bar, not the tabs. Moving it there just changes the target location, it doesn't make it "infinitely tall." For me, at least, changing tabs is the primary UI element I use my mouse for, with bookmarks second. Things like reloading and the address bar are done with keyboard commands. It makes the most sense to have the most commonly used UI element (for me, the tab bar) closest to the content area. Also in a conceptual sense, tabs are a subset of the browser program. I do not consider each tab its own isolated conceptual area or "app," I often have child tabs that should be grouped together. Tabs on top feels like you're making each tab its own program, which isn't at all how I use my browser (when I have "apps," I turn those into their own windows and use things like alt-tab to switch between them). I'm not saying it's "bad," most of my argument rests on "tabs are the most commonly used UI element for me" and if someone else uses a different element more, or uses their browser in a different way (each tab is its own app), fine, but it's nonsense to say it's objectively better. e: To be clear, a lot of the stuff in the video does make some sense on a conceptual level. I'm just saying that in practice, the thing I use my mouse the most for should be easiest to hit, closest to the content window. On the very top is an invalid location, it's already used for the title bar across programs. Having that be consistent is worth giving up that space, and it's on the periphery anyway. zachol fucked around with this message at 06:18 on Sep 9, 2012 |
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Sep 9, 2012 06:11
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 Even without the titlebar, flicking up to the top of a vertically maximized window would just get me a resize cursor, so the Fitts's Law argument isn't working for me. Edit: this is what happens when I stop to take a screenshot. Toast Museum fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Sep 9, 2012 |
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Sep 9, 2012 06:19
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Toast Museum posted:
Yeah, even using stratiform to jam the tabs into the title bar, the top of the window is still a resize cursor.
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Sep 9, 2012 07:11
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One could argue the location bar belongs to the tab, which is why it makes sense to group it under the tab. I don't really have a horse in the race, but that particular line of discussion made the most sense to me. I prefer tabs on top.
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Sep 9, 2012 07:42
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Aleksei Vasiliev posted:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts's_law   (yes, I get that you meant "nobody but übernerds". Though really, that ought to have become the default taskbar style since widescreen monitors became the standard)
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Sep 9, 2012 13:23
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Hey guys, when the browser is maximized, tabs-on-top places the tabs adjacent to the top of the screen, which is why it's the objectively correct behavior per Fitt's law, as was previously mentioned.
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Sep 9, 2012 13:52
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NihilCredo posted:Why, apparently "nobody" is my second name! Wow this screen layout is terrible
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Sep 9, 2012 14:03
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Alereon posted:Hey guys, when the browser is maximized, tabs-on-top places the tabs adjacent to the top of the screen, which is why it's the objectively correct behavior per Fitt's law, as was previously mentioned. Who maximizes a browser these days? Especially with all those fixed width sites where maximizing a browser on a 1920x1080 screen means 2/3 of your screen is whitespace.
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Sep 9, 2012 14:33
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NihilCredo posted:Why, apparently "nobody" is my second name!
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Sep 9, 2012 14:51
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Install Gentoo posted:Who maximizes a browser these days? Someone on a laptop? Someone with bad eyes who uses a really low resolution? There are probably others as well, but the point is just because YOU don't doesn't mean NO ONE does.
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Sep 9, 2012 15:55
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Misogynist posted:My favorite part is how you use the left 1/6 of your screen to display a calendar that doesn't have a single event on it (Serious answer: my uni has an integrated timetable service on the student homepage, so I got rid of the Memos module and use the desktop calendar just as a "what day of the week is the 24th?" tool.)
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Sep 9, 2012 16:21
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Alereon posted:Hey guys, when the browser is maximized, tabs-on-top places the tabs adjacent to the top of the screen, which is why it's the objectively correct behavior per Fitt's law, as was previously mentioned. Hmm, it does. I honestly hadn't considered that. It seems like such a weird thing to do but I suppose it probably would be more common, esp. with the prevalence of smaller laptops over desktops. I still think the Fitt's law explanation doesn't hold for windowed browsers, but now that explanation makes a lot more sense. e: Actually I suppose it shows how out of touch I am that the idea hadn't even crossed my mind.
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Sep 9, 2012 16:25
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Yeah it's absolutely debatable for an un-maximized browser. The video zachol posted makes intuitive sense for me so tabs-on-top seems like the best choice in that light, but as you said Fitt's law doesn't apply in the same way so there's not a bright-line right/wrong answer like there is in the case of a maximized browser. Whether or not to maximize a browser is almost a religious issue, I'd say that compelling reasons to have a maximized browser include a low-resolution (<1920x1080) or small display, having multiple monitors (so the stuff you'd have on-screen with the browser is on its own display), or spending a lot of time viewing large images and media. I also like the clean look of having only the browser filling the screen, I find it helps me focus, but that's definitely something personal and may not affect others. Anecdotally, I find that the people who tend NOT to maximize their browser either have larger monitors (27"+) or have spent a lot of time in OSX, where that kind of behavior is encouraged.
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Sep 9, 2012 17:40
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I max my browser because there is less scrolling involved. You can only do so much with mouse scrolling.
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Sep 9, 2012 23:46
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I've got a handful of reasons why I prefer to have my browser in a window, mostly having to do with how I use my computer (the idea of a single-focus fullscreen application is super weird to me), but the main problem is that if I did fullscreen my browser, text would be too wide to read comfortably. Also, I do disagree with the points in the video I posted. Mainly, I feel that things like the address bar and back button and so on aren't owned by the tab, they're owned by the program. From the top, you have the title bar, then the various tools you use in the program, and then the content the program displays. Tabs are a way of dividing up the content I'm looking at. I tend to open and close a lot of tabs over the course of browsing. Each one represents an individual bit of content, often even just a single picture, or a short few forum posts. Putting tabs on the very top implies that each one of those bits of content is its own conceptual thing, when really they're not. When I do have tabs that are they're own conceptual thing, where each feels like it could deserve its own set of tools like the address bar and so on, I give it its own window. I suppose it could almost make sense, if I was fullscreening a browser, to have a set of tabs on top to manage different "apps" or areas or something, and then tabs on the bottom to manage small bits of content within each conceptual area. The tabs on top would be manipulated by the mouse, and the ones on the bottom by keyboard shortcuts (middle click, ctrl-W). I tend to open and go through tabs in a series, I usually don't need to click on them unless I'm switching to a different sort of thing, where tabs on top would make sense, as something like switching to a different window. This all sounds super geeky and I'm phrasing it awkwardly, but I'm really just trying to respond to the points in that video (esp. that one with the purple and green colored sections). It feels like I use my browser in a very different way than how they're shooting for. e: Also this feels super trivial. I think my main point is, I don't think the points raised in that video are universally applicable. It's simply not how I use my browser. Using my browser fullscreen doesn't work for a variety of reasons (mainly, lines of text are too wide), so that loses the Fitt's law part. I'm irritated by the idea that the only reason I wouldn't want to switch over is that I'm a dinosaur that hates change. While that's certainly true, it's more than that, I think the benefits aren't actually applicable to me, so I don't see a reason to change over. zachol fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Sep 10, 2012 |
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Sep 10, 2012 00:39
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The main thing with the tabs on top is that they're good candidates for utilizing the nearly-useless space the title bar fills. If you put the address bar up there, it would look very weird, or buttons for that matter. I can see your point about a tab being a hierarchy and that it doesn't own the UI buttons, but well yeah, that is just nerdy.zachol posted:Firefox 4 tabs on top explained. If you do everything else with the keyboard, why aren't you using Ctrl+Tab for switching tabs? With TabMix Plus you can make the Ctrl+Tab functionality behave as you please; I love it myself. I also strongly disagree that the title bar should be up there. I'll be bold and say that Chrome's first release that put the tabs on the title bar was the most revolutionary browser UI change we've (I've?) seen since like the year 2000 or something. On top of that, the by-default single bar with buttons/address bar and the status bar that only showed when necessary.
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Sep 10, 2012 00:59
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Aleksei Vasiliev posted:You know that tabs on top is objectively better, right? In my opinion it is "objectively better" to sort the screen by a kind of contextual relevance and tabs are beneath the url, and that is beneath the menu bar. The menu bar controls everything, the url controls the tab, the tab identifies the page. The visual inefficiency is also an irritation to me. I want the tabs close to the space I am working with so that I can scan across them when I am actively working with several instead of looking at the top of the window edge. There should be a simple setting to switch between the "move everything around because of ..." and "leave things where they were" settings - (like there is for this issue) for all of the changes. "Objectively better"  quote:top-of-screen menus (e.g., Mac OS) are sometimes easier to acquire than top-of-window menus (e.g., Windows OS) quote:Pie menu items typically are selected faster and have a lower error rate than linear menu items, for two reasons: because pie menu items are all the same, small distance from the centre of the menu; and because their wedge-shaped target areas (which usually extend to the edge of the screen) are very large. Aleksei Vasiliev posted:Have you actually used those versions recently, or are you just talking about the 'good old days'? In general with most programs I find redesigns to be wasteful of my time as a user. With UIs I do not want to spend any of my effort re-learning it because someone else decided I should. I am well aware that some people love having everything changed with some frequency. I just want to not have to waste time on it myself.
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Sep 10, 2012 01:28
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Pilsner posted:If you do everything else with the keyboard, why aren't you using Ctrl+Tab for switching tabs? With TabMix Plus you can make the Ctrl+Tab functionality behave as you please; I love it myself. Haha, actually I'm super weird. I sit on a couch and usually keep my keyboard off to the side, and stick it on my lap when I want to type something. Most of the time I just use my mouse. I use keyboard commands in other programs, but browsing is casual enough that I just use the mouse. The only keyboard command I commonly use is Ctrl-T, to open a new tab, and I use it when I'm about to type something into the address bar anyway. I didn't want to get into it because again, super weird. Although this is unusual, I think "not wanting to use keyboard commands" isn't quite so unusual. I think many people just use the mouse, and use the keyboard for typing things in (not for commands). quote:I also strongly disagree that the title bar should be up there. I'll be bold and say that Chrome's first release that put the tabs on the title bar was the most revolutionary browser UI change we've (I've?) seen since like the year 2000 or something. On top of that, the by-default single bar with buttons/address bar and the status bar that only showed when necessary. I fundamentally disagree. The title bar is for the title. You don't stick other stuff there, regardless of what the program is. Anytime I see a program violating this it really irritates me. There needs to be a really good reason beyond "well you're just wasting space otherwise." It's part of the overall system UI remaining consistent. To me, overall system consistency is more important than taking advantage of that space. Having an area (and a fairly broad area) that I know I can click on to select and move the window around is more important. If there's no title bar, or if it's taken up by tabs, it's no longer clear what you can click on to move the window. Chrome (windowed) leaves a fairly clear area as the title bar, but comparing it right now it seems like it takes up 2/3 the space a title bar normally does, above the tabs. That... doesn't seem like a big deal to me. If you're using programs full screen, sure fine mess with the title bar or get rid of it. The title bar serves no purpose then. Like, it displays the title, but whatever. Also I really don't need that space. If anything, the very top of the monitor is out of my field of view. It would be uncomfortable to focus on it constantly. The most commonly used UI elements should go closest to the center, where you're usually focused. The least used elements (like "moving the window around") should be on the periphery. Tabs on top breaks this up, it puts a commonly used UI element (for me) on the periphery. Sometimes I do have a smaller window that's lower down, more in my field of view, and when I do I use Chrome, and then I do appreciate how it doesn't take up space with a menu and bookmarks. The sorts of things I use it for then (video, mostly) actually work great with the tabs on top. In fact, I regularly use and appreciate Chrome in that way. But, it wouldn't work as my primary browser. Like, I'm throwing out a bunch of reasons, but that's sort of also my point. A lot of these rely on how I use my computer, but that's also my point. This is what's comfortable for me, and it's fine if someone else uses it differently, but it's not like this is just some illogical "I just don't like change" sort of deal. Yes, that's a big reason (and it's probably actually the main reason), but there are other reasons too. Also this feels like a lot of words for such a stupid thing. e: I'm also just responding to opinion some people seem to have of "tabs on top is objectively better and the new wave of the future, you're just a dinosaur that doesn't like change." Maybe nobody on this board is actually saying this, in which case I should just shut up, but I've at least sometimes gotten that impression. As an option and a thing most people do I'm fine with it, but it's weird when people say "it's better," and it's really weird that Firefox is (apparently?) dropping official support for it. I'm having trouble believing it's that niche of a thing. \/\/ and I definitely get it for maximized browsing. Presumably if you're doing that you're in a situation where you want all the space you can get. zachol fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Sep 10, 2012 |
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Sep 10, 2012 01:39
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FRINGE posted:This "objectively better" thing that started popping up in regards to opinions the last couple years is loving dumb.
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Sep 10, 2012 01:44
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Side tabs are only acceptable if you also jam the navigation buttons and address bar into the Title Bar. I want ALL my vertical space. (edit) like so: 
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Sep 10, 2012 01:56
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Alereon posted:Please chill out, no one is throwing out "objectively" in the way you think. Fitts' law is a real thing, and a design that conforms to really is objectively better than one that doesn't. If you had read the page before excitedly posting, you would have seen that this has already been discussed, and it's a perfectly valid matter of opinion for un-maximized browsing. For maximized browsing, tabs-on-top is provably better, because the interface can be navigated more quickly and accurately with less mental attention paid. I am questioning the model in general as it implies to a UI that has so many "moving parts" and user-memory-driven tasks that need to be available. The pie-menu example fits into video games well because a twitch memory is easily adaptable to a single menu level for [whatever] selection. It fits poorly into a tools>options>advanced>encryption>security devices flow. zachol posted:I fundamentally disagree. The title bar is for the title. You don't stick other stuff there, regardless of what the program is. Anytime I see a program violating this it really irritates me. There needs to be a really good reason beyond "well you're just wasting space otherwise." It's part of the overall system UI remaining consistent. To me, overall system consistency is more important than taking advantage of that space. Having an area (and a fairly broad area) that I know I can click on to select and move the window around is more important. If there's no title bar, or if it's taken up by tabs, it's no longer clear what you can click on to move the window. FRINGE fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Sep 10, 2012 |
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Sep 10, 2012 02:11
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YggiDee posted:Side tabs are only acceptable if you also jam the navigation buttons and address bar into the Title Bar. I want ALL my vertical space.
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Sep 10, 2012 02:38
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I'm running Firefox 15.0.1. Personal Titlebar is probably what you're looking for here. The rest is an elaborate mangle of Tree Style Tab and Stratiform.
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Sep 10, 2012 02:44
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Let's be glad that Firefox still provides the option to have a full status bar and to move tabs from the title bar to anywhere else for those of us - like me - who don't like this new concept. But I already have issues adjusting to tabs anywhere else but the bottom (that's how Opera did it, that's how we learned it back in the day, goddamn kids!) Chrome's way of handling tabs (and not much tools to change it) is the reason why I stay with Firefox even if it is not as fast. Now if they manage to make FF Retina ready before President Hillary Clinton takes office I would the even more happy (it works most of the time with current tryserver builds, but Flash still runs four times the normal size with a hosed up coordinate system, so you can't click anything). Decius fucked around with this message at 06:20 on Sep 10, 2012 |
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Sep 10, 2012 06:10
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Can Firefox have multiple extension/tab styles on multiple windows? I have two monitors, one on a widescreen monitor and one tallscreen. The widescreen monitor would be good for having tabs down the side of the screen, but obviously on the tall monitor that would make things cluttered - so having one window with side tabs and another with top tabs would be pretty handy. Also, regarding the whole URL owns tab / tab owns URL thing - it's always made sense to me for the tabs to be on top. To me, the URL is a piece of information about the current status of just that tab, as changing the tab will change the URL, so the URL would be beneath the tab.
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Sep 10, 2012 09:06
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Question Mark Mound posted:Also, regarding the whole URL owns tab / tab owns URL thing - it's always made sense to me for the tabs to be on top. To me, the URL is a piece of information about the current status of just that tab, as changing the tab will change the URL, so the URL would be beneath the tab. I sort/remember the window information in a different way than you do.
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Sep 10, 2012 11:35
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Question Mark Mound posted:Can Firefox have multiple extension/tab styles on multiple windows? You can run two instances of Firefox using the -no-remote option, and can use different profiles for each of the two instances. This would be the only way I know of to have two different themes/extensions on different windows. Note that the two won't talk to each other very well, as they'll see each other as completely separate programs. That means no dragging tabs from one window to the other. You might be able to use Firefox sync to share histories and bookmarks, but that's about it.
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Sep 10, 2012 16:22
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Question Mark Mound posted:Can Firefox have multiple extension/tab styles on multiple windows? You'll have to drag it back everytime you close and reopen Firefox, though, since only one position is remembered in the settings.
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Sep 10, 2012 16:39
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Quick question - when I right-click on a tab, there's an option to "pin app as tab", which is handy for Google, for instance, but when I open a new window, it doesn't come with the google tab. Is there a way to make the tabs that I want pinned to stay there permanently, even for a new window?
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Sep 10, 2012 23:11
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Quick question - when I right-click on a tab, there's an option to "pin app as tab", which is handy for Google, for instance, but when I open a new window, it doesn't come with the google tab. Is there a way to make the tabs that I want pinned to stay there permanently, even for a new window? As far as I'm aware, no. My workaround is to remember tabs when I close the window, and make that site my homepage (so I can pin it right away) for when it forgets.
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Sep 11, 2012 07:21
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Quick question - when I right-click on a tab, there's an option to "pin app as tab", which is handy for Google, for instance, but when I open a new window, it doesn't come with the google tab. Is there a way to make the tabs that I want pinned to stay there permanently, even for a new window?  to check.Relevant link: If you're unable to keep your App Tabs after having restarted Firefox, see Troubleshooting Session Restore. Flipperwaldt fucked around with this message at 08:03 on Sep 11, 2012 |
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Sep 11, 2012 08:00
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Anyone got a recommendation for a tumblr posting extension? I was using "tumblr post" but tumbles changed their API about a week ago and hosed everything.
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Sep 12, 2012 14:53
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I accidentally clicked "Never allow extensions for this site" when trying to enable extensions for a site I frequently visit. Any idea how to change it back? I searched about:config for the site's name, but I'm not entirely sure what, if anything, would be relevant.
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Sep 12, 2012 21:53
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Right click, View Page Info, Permissions tab, "Install Extensions or Themes" option.
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Sep 12, 2012 21:57
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pseudorandom name posted:Right click, View Page Info, Permissions tab, "Install Extensions or Themes" option. I would have never thought to have looked there, thanks!
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Sep 12, 2012 23:30
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The discoverable version is Options/Preferences, Security tab, Exceptions button next to "Warn me when sites try to install add-ons" The secret version is about:permissions
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Sep 13, 2012 01:17
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