[SOC] Improvements to the Camino tabbed-browsing experience

[delliott]

Everything that is in this thread before 00:00GMT on 7th June 2006 will be considered for implementation

First post alert!

Hello fellow Camino users, I am Camino's Summer of Code (SOC) student. I have been accepted by the Mozilla Foundation to overhaul the current tabbed-browsing code this summer. As such, this is a request for features topic. I will probably prefix all of my topics with [SOC] so they can be identified.

I would like you to reply to this topic every zany, inventive, interesting idea that you've ever had about tabbed-browsing, or that you've ever wanted to see in a tabbed-browsing environment and we (the rest of the developers) will decide if anything that you suggest should be implemented.

I have included the proposal that I sent to Google which details what I plan to do, and a link to the Blog that I will be using this summer if you want to keep track of my progress.

My original proposal

My Summer of Code Blog

Please do not fill up BugZilla with your ideas or we will all annoy the triaging group and they will shout at me for at least a week.

I hope to see some great ideas that might work with what I am trying to do.

Edit: I have received some feedback that reading the PDF document was difficult, I have now transferred this to a really basic HTML page; added the time frame for suggestions that fits in with my project schedule; June, not May; I have updated the URL of my Blog, please use this from now on.

[gray49]

@delliot,
I think a drop-down menu in each tab with the history of that
tab would be an good idea...making tabs an even more efficient
way of browsing.
Peace

[osono.design]

A preview of all opened tabs would be cool. Like in OmniWeb or Shiira... Here you get an idea: http://www.osono.ch/files/preview.gif (700 KB)

[jedik]

A preview of all opened tabs would be cool. Like in OmniWeb or Shiira... Here you get an idea: http://www.osono.ch/files/preview.gif (700 KB)

If it ever gets implemented, I like much more the Opera approach: using tooltips. I hate any movement in the browser content area...

Cheers

[Crazed Geek]

Undo closing tabs... that might be useful.

Also, a Bookmark All Tabs menu item would be pretty nice, and a stop-gap until something like Workspaces is (hopefully) introduced.

[Lost User 134544]

How about a keyboard shortcut to move among open tabs, maybe using the arrow keys?

[jedik]

How about a keyboard shortcut to move among open tabs, maybe using the arrow keys?

Like COMMAND+OPTION+RIGHT or LEFT? You already have it... Take a look at the Window meu.

Cheers

[phiw13]

I've tried to read your proposal, but it was a bit (cough) hard on the old eyes...

Some very quick thoughts:

* Undo close tab (multiple steps, not sure how heavy this might be on the browser)
* I can see a good case for a Tab Preview (more like Opera 9 beta or the tabpreview extension(s) in Firefox), but with option to hide it (required !:-)
Things you already mentioned, I think:
* tab reordering (!)
* improving the tab overflow - if I understood your proposal correctly, there is an idea to make it more like sliding back and forth, that doesn't sound very attractive to me.

For both last points: think about keyboard accessibility, which is quite reasonable already.

[encro]

Also, a Bookmark All Tabs menu item would be pretty nice, and a stop-gap until something like Workspaces is (hopefully) introduced.

There is actually already a Bookmark All Tabs feature. It's not a root level menu but if you have a few tabs open and then select 'Add Page to Bookmarks (cmd-d)' then you can mark a checkbox that will bookmark all the open tabs

[Old Macskeeball]

PSMTabBarControl

[Lost User 134544]

Thanks Jedik! I am such a fool.

[nufferkay]

Hey - congratulations! Summer of Code is such a great idea, and how cool is it that you get to work on Camino (and that we Camino users get someone helping out!)

Camino's tab implementation is actually pretty nice right now, but there are some remaining imperfections. My thoughts:

* How about an option to set how many tabs can go in the window before overflow, or a way to set the minimum tab width, ideally with an option to have unlimited tabs / not limit width? That way, those who can't stand the overflow interface could avoid using it altogether.

* One of the biggest problems with the current overflow implementation is that overflowed tabs don't support the options available for other tabs on right-click, some of which aren't available in the application menu. In particular, "move to new window" and "close other tabs" would be really useful to have, either somehow via a context menu or the menubar (BTW, per Apple's HIG, shouldn't all context menu options be available in the menubar?).

* Before the tab implementation was redone, I seem to remember there being "close all tabs to left" and "close all tabs to right" options, which are also kind of useful.

* I don't know whether this falls within the scope of your project, but if it were possible for sheets to be tab-modal rather than window-modal, that would eliminate another annoyance.

* Another item that may be out of scope: being able to "view image in new tab" instead of just "view image" would be nice.

* This is probably controversial, but dragging a bookmark folder from the bookmark toolbar into the viewport replaces current tabs instead of appending. For me, this is an unexpected behavior, and one that has occasionally resultted in lost work from an errant mouse-click.

* How about a way to choose whether the beginning, middle, or end of a page title is displayed in a tab when it's truncated? When, for instance, you're browsing a forum, and have a dozen tabs open with various threads and all you can see of each one is "ForumName :: Vi...", it's a bit frustrating.

I don't know if any of those are reasonable or feasible - just some ideas. Good luck, and have fun!

[Uncle Asad]

* I don't know whether this falls within the scope of your project, but if it were possible for sheets to be tab-modal rather than window-modal, that would eliminate another annoyance.

That's a summer project for someone like pink or smfr or mento, unfortunately It involves a complete rewrite of the entire Gecko alert infrastructure

* Another item that may be out of scope: being able to "view image in new tab" instead of just "view image" would be nice.

This is already possible in the nightlies. Cmd is the standard toggle in Camino for "open in new", so if you hold down Cmd when clicking a menu or context menu item that would ordinarily open in the same window, it will open in a new window or tab instead (depending on your setting for Cmd in the Tabs prefs).

Note that at the moment in the nightlies you have to hold down Cmd when you first open the menu, not simply when selecting an item (this is a bug that should be fixed by Camino 1.1).

* This is probably controversial, but dragging a bookmark folder from the bookmark toolbar into the viewport replaces current tabs instead of appending. For me, this is an unexpected behavior, and one that has occasionally resultted in lost work from an errant mouse-click.

Ditto above; Cmd toggles this behavior to append (or should; not sure if this fix has landed yet or not). A number of us disagree with the current default because it is destructive, but long ago Mozilla.org decided that is the correct default behavior and it has been strictly enforced in all the projects ever since At least Camino provides the alternate....

...And congrats again to delliott

Edit: make the sentence about the tab folder/tab group behavior make sense and say what I mean

[chrisgeleven]

How about something as simple as drag/drop tabs into a new position on the tab bar?

[nufferkay]

Well, the cmd shortcut is useful, but still doesn't fix the fact that accidental drag-n-drops from the bookmarks toolbar are destructive. I suppose we're stuck with that, though. Grr.

Thanks, though, for the tip about cmd-right-click!