* Gareth Redman <gred...@gmail.com> [2008-06-18 10:40]: > The content of the address field changes. Back/forward buttons > change. Content of the search field changes. Text zoom status > changes. Stop/reload status changes. > > Those are all the controls I use and they're all dependent on > the current tab, so I think it's more logical to place them > inside the tab content.
That criticism has been leveled against tabbed browsing in general, but other than arguments about logical consistency I find no compelling reason in favour of that position (pun intended). Certainly users do not seem to be confused by the implicit connection between those controls. I think the difference here is that Opera has an actual MDI interface (or at least used to), whereas Firefox has just tabs. Full-bore window-in-window MDI, coincidentally, is pretty much the worst UI metaphor ever devised. It combines the worst of the overlapping and tiling window metaphors but none of either's benefits and then squares the result for good measure. It is so mindbogglingly hateful that I am surprised no rift in spacetime opened up to swallow the guy who came up with it along with his computer. > There is one application I know that does things like Firefox > et al. and that's Visual Studio. The toolbars displayed depend > on the current document, which has the frustrating side effect > that the tab bar *moves vertically* as you change tabs. Well in Firefox it does not. Regards, -- Aristotle Pagaltzis // <http://plasmasturm.org/>
