[Paranoid Randroid]

Originally Posted by Jon Hicks

Personally, I wouldn't like the interface to be disconnected like that.

Well, it takes all kinds, of course; I think that the separate window should be an option, just like it is for bookmarks. (And I think it has less chance of being adopted than the option for the standard tab bar, so I don't suppose there's any reason to worry anyway.)

You would also have to find a way of making the tabs window active all the times, or else you would you have click on it to make it active and then click a tab etc.

Not necessarily - you could support click-through behavior, so that you could click on a tab without giving that window focus. (The "zoomed" iTunes does this - you can play, pause, switch tracks, et cetera without giving that window focus.)

[Forrest]

Originally Posted by Jon Hicks

http://www.hicksdesign.co.uk/images/omniweb/mockup.png

403

As far as having the drawer be detached, I still don't understand how this would work. Let's say I have 20 windows open, and each one has 40 tabs, how do I tell which floating tab pallet is connected to which window? Or is the suggestion to have all the tabs be in one window? In which case, how would they be organized so that I know which tabs belong to which windows?

[Paranoid Randroid]

Originally Posted by Forrest

Let's say I have 20 windows open, and each one has 40 tabs, how do I tell which floating tab pallet is connected to which window?

That's a good question: I'll admit that it hadn't occurred to me. But couldn't something be done like in the formatting options in OmniOutliner, where any browser window's corresponding tab window would be visible only when its browser window has focus?

Or is the suggestion to have all the tabs be in one window? In which case, how would they be organized so that I know which tabs belong to which windows?

You could have each browser window's tabs in a labelled column or row, but I don't think it would work very well; it would quickly become difficult to browse.

[JKT]

I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what advantage a split pane view would have over a drawer in the OmniOutliner thread. There still hasn't been a single answer that tells me why, other than to essentially say "everything else uses them." There are just too many functional benefits to a drawer over split pane view for them to be dropped on the basis of it either a) looking better (subjective opinion anyway) and b) because everything else has them. For a working example of why a split pane just doesn't work any better than a drawer for tabs in a browser, try SafariStand and Safari.

A separated tab palette, while on the face of it, a nice idea if you only use one window at a time becomes really ugly, very fast when you have two or more windows. In theory, you could have the tab palette show you the tabs in context for each specific window as you gave them focus, but does the palette resize if e.g. you only have one tab in that window versus forty in the other, or does it leave the acres of blank space that would occur when you switched? If it resizes, where does it leave the fixed point for the window - a fixed point in the top left corner or top right? If it's the top left, it wouldn't work very well if you had your palette on the right of the main window(s) and if it was top right, vice versa for palette on the left. Also, how would you share tabs between windows if you wanted to?

[Paranoid Randroid]

Originally Posted by JKT

I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what advantage a split pane view would have over a drawer in the OmniOutliner thread.

The only advantage that I can think of is that the Cocoa drawer slows down window resizing pretty severely. This isn't so bad in OmniWeb, though. (For really bad, I point you to iCal.)

In theory, you could have the tab palette show you the tabs in context for each specific window as you gave them focus [...]

There would be problems in this approach, I agree. But many of them would be resolved immediately by giving each browser window its own tab window, which disappears when the browser window loses focus. This has its own problems, I guess, namely:

Also, how would you share tabs between windows if you wanted to?

I believe you have defeated me. The only way around this, s'far as I can think, would be to allow tabs from one window to be dragged into another browser window itself.

[Forrest]

I can think of one way this might be useful, for people with multiple monitors. They could put a window that has all their tabs (in columns, and organized to display which window they're from) on one screen, and then their actual browser windows on the other display. Then my tabs would always be visible.

[daiyi666@yahoo.com]

Originally Posted by warp

Also, I'm glad to hear that the Text Zoom feature is intended to return in 5.5.

I would love to be able to use OmniWeb again! (used it since OS X 10.0 Public Beta and only recently switched to Safari)

Text Zoom: That's just the news I was looking for now. Not yet implemented in the SP versions, right?

I, too, am glad to be using OW again.

[TommyW]

I'd be curious about having my Favorites bar be a vertical list at the top of the Tabs drawer. It could be in a pane in the drawer the way Styles are in OOP. I can see clicking and holding on a name to reveal a list of tabs within folders.

Sorry I'm obviously suffering from Path Finder-itis.

[jfly123]

I like the look of the tabs that Jon Hicks did, maybe the Omniweb guys could do something similar to that. It gives the interface such a cleaner, streamlined look. Apple's designers came to the same conclusion when they ditched the drawer for the mail app and conceived the way sleeker looking mail w/ the sidebar (in Tiger).

-joe f

[Flounder]

Originally Posted by jfly123

I like the look of the tabs that Jon Hicks did, maybe the Omniweb guys could do something similar to that. It gives the interface such a cleaner, streamlined look. Apple's designers came to the same conclusion when they ditched the drawer for the mail app and conceived the way sleeker looking mail w/ the sidebar (in Tiger).

-joe f

I personally still like the tabbed drawer. Esp when I want the window full screen that way if I need to see the tabs I just pull out the tab drawer and hide it when necessary. The window will change size to accommodate accordingly.