How about they let us choose? I will stop using Firefox if I have to have the tabs on top.

Did you watch the video? They say it's entirely optional, it will just be the default position. You can just click a check mark to put it back to the old way of displaying tabs.

>> ^cybrbeast:

Did you watch the video? They say it's entirely optional, it will just be the default position. You can just click a check mark to put it back to the old way of displaying tabs.


I didn't. Good to hear. I was just going off of the information that the team had been giving last time I paid attention (that there would be no choice). They are, in general, not really big fans of choice when it comes to their attempts to Evolve the Platform or whatever their buzzwords are.

I'm always impressed by the way people get so fixated on doing things the way they've always done them in the past, regardless of whether what they're used to makes sense.

It's mostly harmless, and mildly annoying when talking about application UI, but it leads to absolutely crazy behavior when we start talking about things that are really important, like political and economic systems.

Even if a new method is universally and demonstrably superior to the old one, there's always a nontrivial number of people who put up massive resistance towards having to alter their behavior, simply because they don't want to have to do things in a new way.

Good video. At first I didn't see why the switch was even considered, but the given reasons are pretty good.

I figured that I would be highly resistant to the idea, but their arguments made quite a bit of sense. My holdout would be that I generally hate the trend towards hiding or moving away from menus.

Office 2007's tabs weirded me out, and while I am getting used to it, I think it basically resulted in a net loss of screen real estate and quite possibly an increase in mouse distance and clicks required to complete desired tasks when compared to menus.

Windows 7 defaults to no menus in file explorer windows, which I *hate* -- I am constantly hitting alt to show the menus after a fresh install. Fortunately that is easily remedied with a checkbox to always show them.

In Firefox, I use the menus enough less frequently that I imagine that hiding or eliminating them wouldn't be quite so bothersome to me as in those other apps. I use the Tools menu for managing or installing addons and setting options, but none of that is required frequently. I use View -> Page Source on very rare occasions. I use the bookmarks menu fairly regularly, so it could be a problem, but I imagine there are lots of addin options that add an alternate bookmarks button, say perhaps next to the seldom-used "Home" button. And by looking around just now, I discovered that I can add new bookmarks and make changes to them with the star icon in the URL bar.

So, I guess I'll be game for at least trying the change and seeing how it goes once Firefox 4 comes out.

Alt tabbing is king for me, and I've never gotten to the point where I enjoy using tabbed browsers.

Sounds like some very reasonable arguments. But I'm also quite interested in the evolution of the URL bar, and tabs on top seem to take it one more step to the eventual disappearance I predict. Like his example of an application showing a location bar, it's just not that relevant moving forward. It should be replaced with the title text. Of course it needs to keep the authenticity certification, but that is getting larger and more obvious already (and with good reason). Eventually the URL will be used as little as the "view source" tool. Perhaps for those who use it frequently it could be assigned a quick key like CTRL-U, the way CTRL-F works for "find". Also, I hate the wasted screen space to the right of "File ...... Help". It would be great if we could customize that space with bookmarks or something.

BTW NicoleBee, CTRL-Tab works great in tabbed browsers.

Hmm... just poked around IE and Chrome. CTRL-U is "view source" in Firefox and Chrome, but nothing for IE. Also, Chrome is already Tab-on-top. Didn't notice that before.

It took about a day or two of using Chrome before I got over it. For some people I assume the only hinderance will be getting past your initial discomfort, after that, really it's smooth sailing. I will never go back to tabs on bottom, it just feels ancient now. I hope they slim it down even more from the concept shots, still not quite Chrome level, they should take the full plunge and not half-step it.

Like most things do with software, it is about breaking your discomfort factor more than anything. It is amazing what people will stick with to avoid re-learning anything.

>> ^NicoleBee:

Alt tabbing is king for me, and I've never gotten to the point where I enjoy using tabbed browsers.


Properly behaving Windows programs, including Firefox, let you Ctrl-Tab through tabs. Windows' own control panel applets and such allow this too. For example, hit Ctrl-Alt-Esc to bring up the Task Manager and then hit Ctrl-Tab a few times. Ctrl-PgUp/PgDn also works.

Voice-over guy must be competing with the Zero Punctuation guy for most run-on sentences.

What I really dislike is Chrome's approach. The tabs aren't just on top, they're at the very top; where the title bar should be. I often double click the title bar to maximise/restore, or drag it to move the window around, and when you have a load of tabs open then that's no longer possible and gives unexpected results.

Grr!