== Overview == We should add a "Open link in foreground tab" menu item to the context menu for hyperlinks.
== Use Cases == There are two main use cases for opening a link in a new tab: 1) Breath-first: You're viewing the Digg home page and you'd like to open up a number of articles to read. This use case is well-served by opening links in background tabs (the current behavior). This use case treats the tab strip as a queue of pages to read. 2) Depth-first: You're reading a Wikipedia article and you come across a link that interests you, but you know you'll later want to read the rest of the Wikipedia article. This use case is well-served by opening links in foreground tabs. This use case treats the tab strip as a stack of pages to return to. Another common variation on the depth-first use case is comparison shopping. Imagine a page listing a number of similar products, such as refrigerators. You select a mid-range model, read the information, and return to the product list to view information about a higher-end model. == Existing Behavior == Currently, we do not offer to ability to open links in new foreground tabs. To support the depth-first use case, the user can either open a background tab and then activate the tab or use the back button to return to an earlier page. Opening links in background tabs and then activating the tab is slow and irritating because it requires the user to shift their focus to the tab strip and hunt down the newly opened tab. The user can use the back button to perform a depth-first traversal, but the back button gives the user no visual reminder that there is a page to return to. For example, in exploring Wikipedia, the user could easily forget to return to an earlier article on refrigeration. Additionally, the comparison shopping use case is poorly supported by the back button. Compare these two flows: Back button: 1) View product list 2) Click mid-range product description 3) Read description 4) Click "Back" 5) Click high-end product description 6) Click "Back" 7) Remember which mid-range model was viewed in step (2) 8) Remember which high-end model was viewed in step (5) 9) Open mid-range model in background tab 10) Open high-end model in background tab 11) Compare models Foreground tabs: 1) View product list 2) Open mid-range product description in new foreground tab 3) Read description 4) Activate product list tab 5) Open high-end product description in new foreground tab 6) Read description 7) Compare models Notice that the gap in complexity between these two flows grows as the user compares more models because the user has to remember which models he or she has already compared. In the foreground tab flow, the tab strip maintains this state for the user. (Visited hyperlink coloring address the memory issues to some extent, but only the first time the user views these items.) Creating new windows is an alternative flow for this use case, but then the user is forced to use the Window's task bar to manage the tabs and the experience becomes unmanageable if the user wishes to compare more than a handful of items. == Proposal == Other browsers offer users an option to open all new tabs in foreground windows. This forces users to make a global choice between the breadth-first and the depth-first use cases. Instead of offering users a global choice, we should add a menu item to "Open link in new foreground tab" to the hyperlink context menu. The menu would then look as follows: Open link in new background tab Open link in new foreground tab Open link in new window Open link in new incognito window Save link as... Copy link address Copy --------------- Inspect element This has the cost of increasing the complexity of the context menu. However, I believe the benefit of supporting the depth-first use case outweighs this cost. Adam --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Chromium-dev" group. To post to this group, send email to chromium-dev@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
