undo new tabbed browsing behavior

Discussion about official Mozilla Firefox builds
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ColdFusion650
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Post by ColdFusion650 »

whether close buttons on tabs are good or bad, doesnt really matter. if you dont wan them, use tab no x. but please, stop complaining. no one is forcing you to use them (anymore).
stevebell001
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Post by stevebell001 »

Let's take a step back and look at the situation. There were a few browsers such as Netscape, Opera, IE. Microsoft grew and as IE worked it became the "master" browser, even now I find sites that maintain that fact, write their code specifically for their MS audience and will not invest any effort in change.

While IE grew in dominance there were other browsers there but they were not taken up on a massive scale but remained in their niche market.
IE had problems and a few of us tried this new fangled Firefox thing, got into tabbed browsing rather than the ridiculous multi-opened windows scenario of IE or just sticking backwards and forwards with one window.
Firefox WAS brilliant for searches and forums where you could open many tabs from the main page and then work your way through them simply.
By hovering the mouse over the X you could read or scan the content and click on the X if it was irrelevent you are then onto the next and the next etc.

Although the X was not in the normal place for full screen sub windows which is under the main X it did stick out and was easy to find and use.

We then touted this to people who were having browser problems in the forums and they tried the new browser liked the tab behaviour and so became "firefox" users and told their friends in other forums.
This caused the massive expansion of users not the full page ads in some unread US paper.

This large userbase is currently unaware of the proposed change but as I have found out this change completely detracts from the major plus point of Firefox and my thought processes are now interrupted, I find it unfriendly and I am technically competant.
A few years back I had a massive argument with a large UK company over usability and it went on for a while but eventually to shut me up they produced a fix. Two weeks later they rang to say thanks as their prime customer had just raised the issue and was very impressed by the "return of post" fix as they were expecting major problems. So although I stand on my own a lot over usability, I quite often highlight the issues first.

The people in the report I read appeared to be Google employees who had their browsers fixed against their will.
As they were not previous users and had not therefore already decided how they wanted to use the product there would have been animosity.
If they had already used the product and been used to the tab closing location as it was always in the same position there would not have been a problem finding it.
Also because they have come from some other product they would be trying to force it into that mould which is probably when I went looking for this thread I found one, same argument for etc, a couple of years old about another mozilla product.

When IE 7 comes out with tabbed browsing and an X on each tab, it will work on most web sites, it will be pushed by Microsft to all windows users, it will become mainstream, so what will distinguish Firefox in the minds of the "ordinary user", not the geeks, not the ones who use non MS products on principle, but the many out there now using Firefox 1.5 to browse their forums and search the web.
As far as I can see - nothing.

In my own experience this change which will become the default for Firefox 2 has caused me to lose the edge that I gained by switching to Firefox as even when I revert to the old system I still now automatically glance at the tabs to check, something I never did before. If IE did tabbed browsing I would revert and I think that when FF2 and IE7 go head to head the geekies will possibly go FF but the MR and Mrs Average will stick with Microsoft. Don't forget that this is a geek type forum and this causes controversy here. The average user wont complain they will walk.

I have a mathematics degree which includes statistics and I can make statistics say what I want, which is why I never use them, so my illustration was to show that the conclusion of any exercise is as ridiculous as its parameters.
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malliz
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Post by malliz »

For **** sake get over it
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stevebell001
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Post by stevebell001 »

I have got over it, as I said on a previous post, I will be off shortly when anything better comes along unless I can regain faith. there is no point fropping back to the production version as that is just killing time.
Cussler raised an issue and rather than fire back unintelligent one liners, I tried to present a reasoned argument. However it is a sad fact of life that since the media manipultators came up with "one liners", "bullet points" etc etc, the reasoned argument is a thing of the path and well beyond the comprehension of many today.

All I can say is that if I saw a blind person walking towards a cliff top I would have to do something about it and I don't mean get the mobile out and start snapping.
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ColdFusion650
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Post by ColdFusion650 »

stevebell001 wrote:This caused the massive expansion of users not the full page ads in some unread US paper.

wow. even though the new york times has an extreme left wing bias, people all over the country read it.

stevebell001 wrote:IE 7... will work on most web sites, it will be pushed by Microsft to all windows users, it will become mainstream

no it wont. ie7 will only be available to xp and vista. and believe it or not, that is only a small portion of windows users. if they really wanted to push ie7, they would make it work on other os's.

stevebell001 wrote:I will be off shortly when anything better comes along unless I can regain faith.

good. i want you gone. if all youre going to do is complain, leave. if you dont like close buttons on tabs, use tab no x. get over it. you have an option.
stevebell001
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Post by stevebell001 »

I had to remove tab x as I got fed up with Firefox crashing whenever I closed it down. I couldn't see anything on the threads about the problem or a fix so reverted one PC to the mainstream and left the other as default instead.

Grayson, you cannot tell the difference between a reasoned argument and a complaint. That is not a question so doesn't need a reply.

You highlight one of the problems when you say "it is read all over the country". Firefox and the Firefox phenomenum is not just a US thing as far as I am aware.

In terms of numbers this forum and the developers make up a very small percentage of the userbase and it is very easy in those circumstances to get locked into a small minded mind set accidentally.

I don't want to give up on FF for a couple of reasons and live with the never ending stream of blank web sites that have to be opened in IE to work correctly. I report in both directions ie to FF and to the web site.
Since coming on to this forum, I have been disappointed and have no confidence in the future path, but if we do not raise the issues complete with arguments what is the point of the forum. Just so people can pat each other on the back?

Again if it was just a personal thing I would take it on the chin, agree that we disagree even if you are wrong (that is light humour to save further aggravation), and go my own way with add ons, knock offs whatever, however there is still a large base of users that have not been exposed to this and will not be until FF2 hits the stands. In my opinion this is a serious usability degradation issue, which has not been taken on board by the developers with the correct amount of thought.
If there was an install time option to choose new or old behaviour or if there was a run time option to choose new or old behaviour, the situation would have minimum impact however the first most will know is when they have closed the wrong tab for the second or third time. That they then have to go and find a plug in is insult to injury time. The amount of concern raised here is the only chance many of us will get to put forward this point of view. If you don;t like it change the name to Firefox back slappers forum and ban us.
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Post by Thumper »

I would like to point out to everyone that this is a perfect example of what you all sounded like over the luna thing.

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BenBasson
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Post by BenBasson »

stevebell001 wrote:Cussler raised an issue and rather than fire back unintelligent one liners, I tried to present a reasoned argument. However it is a sad fact of life that since the media manipultators came up with "one liners", "bullet points" etc etc, the reasoned argument is a thing of the path and well beyond the comprehension of many today.

You raised an argument, but I don't follow the reasoning. Having a statistics degree doesn't mean you can discredit someone else's work based on reading a report. Having a personal opinion of usability doesn't, either.

The fact here is that a study was conducted into tabbed browsing and one of the fundamental problems that people had was related to closing tabs. If the new interface solves the issue, you'll have to find a workaround or get used to it. The fact that tabbed browsing was "forced" on people is neither here nor there. Any good scientist knows that you need to keep most factors constant in order to measure the results.

Calm down, Grayson, it's just a forum thread.
stevebell001
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Post by stevebell001 »

Agree with you Cusser, but I maintain that if the people had willingly gone to FF and learnt how to use tabs, then participated in the exercise the outcome would have been very very different.

The userbase who will be presented with this issue on version 2 are not a captive audience but seasoned users used to a way of working. The majority are home users, not professionals.

On the usability front I maintain that if I get p'd off with the way something works, I am not going to be on my own and I did actually make a living doing it once.

So I maintain that if the test had been carried out correctly then the outcome would have not concentrated on the Tabbed Browser Close Button postion, which would have been readily accepted or requested to have been moved up to the top right corner although personally I prefer the 2 Xs to be apart.
As the test was flawed the outcome was flawed.
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Post by Deafult Luser »

ColdFusion650 wrote:no it wont. ie7 will only be available to xp and vista. and believe it or not, that is only a small portion of windows users. if they really wanted to push ie7, they would make it work on other os's.


I'll choose not to believe it, as will any rational individual... because it's a fabrication of your making. XP is the dominant OS, has been for a long while. Every major software maker is dropping support for 9x and 2k, and no matter how much FUD you and your ilk push out, this won't change.

ColdFusion650 wrote:
stevebell001 wrote:I will be off shortly when anything better comes along unless I can regain faith.

good. i want you gone. if all youre going to do is complain, leave. if you dont like close buttons on tabs, use tab no x. get over it. you have an option.


Jesus, you are a self-aggrandizing jerk, eh? 1. No one cares who you want gone. 2. you seem to run around a few forums pretending to be important. If you've got nothing of value to add, don't feel that you have to play forum cop, cause you're authority is sorely lacking. 3. There's many other options besides your tab extension, many MANY options, so how about you drop the advertisement for a while.
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Post by pikaunforgiven »

Deafult Luser wrote:I'll choose not to believe it, as will any rational individual... because it's a fabrication of your making. XP is the dominant OS, has been for a long while. Every major software maker is dropping support for 9x and 2k, and no matter how much FUD you and your ilk push out, this won't change.


actually, microsoft itself is one of the FEW companies who is dropping support for win2k. most of the underlying code in XP is the same as 2k, and at this point in time it doesnt make sense for most companies to drop support for it just because microsoft is. 9x/ME is another story on the other hand, they are fundamentally different code-wise when compared to 2k/XP and require a lot more thought when making code compatible with them as well as 2k/XP. in corporate environments, last i checked NT/2k/2k3 combined with unix/linux are the dominant OS'es, not XP.
stevebell001
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Post by stevebell001 »

This again highlights that this is a forum for technical people. Firefox has eaten into the UK home user market heavily and I am sure the number of NT/2K/2K3/Unix/Linux systems could be counted on 1 finger.

Fair enough there is a big corporate sector, there is a large tech sector, but there is also the home sector which is being neglected as not important.

I have no particular beef, Firefox is not a commercial application, it doesn't need to succeed to succeed, if it is dropped heavily at V2 it will not make much difference to the world. But if I find something I and others like that works the way we want it to, we have a choice, either make our feeling known and try to get something done about it, or keep quiet and suffer.
0live
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Post by 0live »

I think this "luna close window" button looks bad when over every tab. Even IE7 use a nicer one IMO.
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jbaker6953
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Post by jbaker6953 »

Cusser wrote:
stevebell001 wrote:no regard for users or the general target audience

Considering that the motivation for including this was a usability study, that's an interesting theory.


Do you mean an unpublished study? I haven't seen any link to the full text of any study. If it isn't public, it doesn't exist.
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ColdFusion650
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Post by ColdFusion650 »

Deafult Luser wrote:No one cares who you want gone.

i didnt mean that i wanted him to leave. i meant that if he wants to leave, then feel free. ill be more than happy to let him go.

Deafult Luser wrote:you seem to run around a few forums pretending to be important... don't feel that you have to play forum cop, cause you're authority is sorely lacking.

ive never pretended to be important. ive never tried to police these forums. and ive never pretended to have any authority.

Deafult Luser wrote:There's many other options besides your tab extension, many MANY options, so how about you drop the advertisement for a while.

no other options have been mentioned in this thread. and i created this thread specifically for this extension. dont be suprised if i bring it up. and i keep bringing it up because people keep bloviating as if they have no other option than to use the close buttons on tabs.

Cusser wrote:Calm down, Grayson, it's just a forum thread.

i am calm. thats the hard thing about forums. you cant convey emotion, or tone of voice, or any of that stuff you can pick up in real life.

stevebell001 wrote:Firefox has eaten into the UK home user market heavily and I am sure the number of NT/2K/2K3/Unix/Linux systems could be counted on 1 finger.

im pretty sure that there is more than 1 unix based or older windows computer in the uk. considering that bsd, linux, solaris, and mac os x are all based on unix, the only major os not based on unix (that i can think of at the moment) is windows. and to say that everyone in the uk (besides 1 person) uses xp, is really crazy.
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