New Opera tabs
 

The latest Opera 10 beta has a nice way of dealing with tabs.

First of all, it shows regular tabs by default:

[IMG]http://img.skitch.com/20090603-fs4feigfn8r7k385khww7a2ypd.jpg[/IMG]

Which show a large thumbnail when hovered over:

[IMG]http://img.skitch.com/20090603-1xtgx8jhh4nacc51d7k1wckt9w.jpg[/IMG]

Or, you just drag the divider bar down to turn the tabs into thumbs:

[IMG]http://img.skitch.com/20090603-fi8r548kwy9uy2fs6rwggb7fct.jpg[/IMG]

Awesome.

I agree! This is a nice view for horizontal tabs!

Maybe it is worth to think about this for OmniWeb 6.

Personally i prefer OmniWeb's vertical tabs. I have more free space on the right or left side of a window, than i have on top of it.
Every pixel of window hight i lose, means more scrolling! But usualy it is no problem to add width to the browser window until no horizontal scrolling of the page is necessary. I have even more free space on the right or left side of the window, which can be used for the tabs.

In addition to that, horizontal tabs just get unusable when 10+ tabs are opened in one window and thumbnails are just a "must have"!

I know there are many people who have a different opinion. So it would be good to have the option to position them on top, or on the right side of the browser window.

I don't know, these thumbnails still seem pretty useful even with a lot of tabs open:

[IMG]http://img.skitch.com/20090603-khx7iba32x96qdsfr9fdfig1au.jpg[/IMG]

Oh, and that icon at the far right pops up a menu of ALL recently closed tabs.

The alt-tab switcher is nice too, when you have a lot of tabs:

[IMG]http://img.skitch.com/20090603-qxtp1p8iu6fft6jcqwkrgba4bg.jpg[/IMG]

Its definitely an improvement. Jon Hicks' design mojo has clearly gone a long way to improving the interface as well. But still, it seems like putting lipstick on a pig, doesn't it? Just opening a preferences pane or using the mail interface betrays the many layers of UI mistakes that still exist. I get the same feeling when I use Firefox on the Mac. Wonderful browser technically, but the interface just does not work.

With the "Mac native" skin, I think it looks pretty good.
[IMG]http://img.skitch.com/20090603-cy7naeawseqkfwc4xpq4qmyks2.jpg[/IMG]

And if the true measure of the interface is utility, it has that. Mouse gestures, the many ways to use tabs, lots of shortcuts, etc. A lot to like. I am pretty impressed.

Opera's UI is horrendous. They couldn't pay me to use it. (I admit, I'm a long-time Mac user that demands and appreciates "better-made" applications.)

[QUOTE=frankiec;60802]Opera's UI is horrendous. They couldn't pay me to use it. (I admit, I'm a long-time Mac user that demands and appreciates "better-made" applications.)[/QUOTE]

I always used to agree with this, and have used Macs since the 1980's.
But using 10b1, with the Mac Native skin doesn't feel any different from other browsers on the Mac. All the dialogs, panels, etc just look like Mac now. They have done a nice job.

My point for bringing all this up is to show some of the thinking that has gone into a different approach to features that everyone has, as well as adding new and innovative features that enhance browsing.

Can't please everyone...! :)
 

Ironically enough, given the complaints that have sometimes been levelled at OmniWeb's tabs, there are more than a few Opera users looking for their new tabs on the side, a la OmniWeb.

[URL="http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=277908"]http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=277908[/URL]

OW's tabs aren't perfect, but to my mind, on a widescreen vertical tabs simply make the most sense.

While there's an aesthetic, and familiar, appeal to horizontal trip of thumbnails, this is most suited to horizontally oriented content, like video and images (i.e. iMovie, iPhoto), whereas websites do still tend to be longer than they are wide.

As at least one of Opera user in the thread above would like to see the Tab preview pane to be shown on mouse-over, akin to iPhoto's Full Screen mode, where the Photo Album contents is shown in a 'filmstrip' along the top of the screen, when you move the mouse to the top of the screen.

This would balance the space-saving of traditional text-only tabs, with the visual recognition of tab previews. While I quite like OW's Tab Drawer, if the Drawer were to hypothetically become an integrated sidebar, a la iTunes, there might be the possibility of a similar collapsed/expanded mouse-over toggle, as an option to maximise space for the web page.

Finally, FWIW I'd really like to see a Full-Screen mode in OW, very much like the iPhoto Full-Screen mode above, though with the 'pop-out' tabs appearing on the left or right.

BTW - Shirra's method of showing a loading progress-bar in the tab-preview is a nicely visible loading display, esp. in Expose mode, that would be a nice addition to OW (with some refinement.)