[Jon Hicks]

Well personally I prefer diagonal tabs, vertical and horizontal tabs are so last year.

I also want my tabs to give off smoke AND be navigable via sudden motion sensor. Slap left side to go to previous tab, slap right to go to next, and shake to reload.

[zottel]

That one was great. :-) *chuckle*

[cakey]

I can't really add much to the argument for a horizontal tabs option, but it is the only thing keeping me from buying this browser.

[atheos]

I love omniweb, but on my 12" powerbook, the tab drawer is a HUGE waste of space. Just give me the option to switch between the horizontal and vertical...On my larger imac, I use the vertical tabs, because I do find them more useful, but I shrink the drawer on my powerbook just to save screen space, making the tabs useless to read. I tend to go back to Safari on my laptop for that reason alone. Using 5.5.2 beta 2. Just adding my 0.02 cents worth...

[ndegruchy]

I just wish they'd ditch the drawer UI element and use the much sexier side pane (ala iTunes/Mail) and make it collapsible.

Edit: or make it so when there is one tab remaining to auto-hide the tab bar (even temporarily show it if you drag a link to either side)

[Handycam]

Originally Posted by ndegruchy

I just wish they'd ditch the drawer UI element and use the much sexier side pane (ala iTunes/Mail) and make it collapsible.

Edit: or make it so when there is one tab remaining to auto-hide the tab bar (even temporarily show it if you drag a link to either side)

I vote for both of what he said.

[Forrest]

I don't like the auto-hiding bit. That sort of stuff gets annoying on multiple displays.

[ndegruchy]

Originally Posted by Forrest

I don't like the auto-hiding bit. That sort of stuff gets annoying on multiple displays.

an easy fix to make it optional.

[diamondsw]

Okay, responses like this just piss me off. "I don't like your opinion, so I'm going to say it's completely wrong to have such an opinion."

OmniWeb has always been about giving power and choice to the user. We don't use it for its rendering (we could use Safari for that) - we use it for the interface and its extensive preferences and customization. In other words, we use it because it fits the user well.

A traditional tab bar would be very useful, for the simple reasons that have been pointed out ad nauseum - limited screen real-estate (especially iBooks), muscle memory for key combinations in other applications and platforms, and its better suitability to a small number of tabs. There could even be an option to convert from one tab method to the other as one becomes better suited than the other, or automatically switch from the tab bar to a tab drawer once a certain threshold is reached. How's that for more innovative features OmniWeb could tout?

So why the excessive hostility and obstinance to those who want the option of a traditional tab bar? It doesn't take anything away from those who don't like it, and it satisfies probably the most requested feature since OW went to WebKit.

As for the argument that "time is better spent elsewhere", I disagree. Can anyone come up with something that affects a larger number of current or potential users (those who consider this the single block to their adopting OW)? Furthermore, I find is extremely hard to believe that such a thing would be difficult to implement, given that OmniWeb already has a tab infrastructure - all this would be is a different UI to that underlying code. That's supposed to be one of the major points of Cocoa and OOP/MCV design. If OW isn't designed that way, then you have far more serious problems on your hands.

Now as to your arguments against:

Originally Posted by JKT

1. How many tabs do I have open? Is it 6 or is it 60?

Answer: Why do I care?

Originally Posted by JKT

2. What is the difference/similarity between all those tabs - is the Untitled page the same in each or different?

Answer: Why do I care?

Originally Posted by JKT

3. Why do the tabs constantly change size depending on how many I have open and therefore mess with my mousing memory?

Mousing memory my ass. The tabs on screen will almost never be constant, and it's not like you're using Fitts Law or some other HCI tenant to back it up. Meanwhile, I use the keyboard - it doesn't affect me in the slightest. Screen real-estate devoted to a silly drawer does.

Originally Posted by JKT

4. How do I quickly scan through all those tabs to find out what their content is?

Sigh, another completely contrived example. When do you actually DO any of these things? Seriously.

Originally Posted by JKT

5. Which of those tabs have I looked at since they loaded, which haven't I looked at?

And is there a reason this can't be implemented for a tab bar?

Originally Posted by JKT

6. Which ones can I close because I don't need them anymore, which ones should I leave open?

Again, what does this have to do with a tab bar?

Originally Posted by JKT

7. How do I even close any of the tabs that have dropped off the screen into the side menus and are no longer occupying the tab bar?

Finally, a valid criticism. However, for the use case that has been presented repeatedly (that of a user who uses a dozen tabs or less - an extremely common case, I might add), it's moot.

Originally Posted by JKT

Personally, I think the people who constantly bring up the few flaws in the vertical thumbnail tabs are far guiltier of ignoring the several horrible usability flaws in horizontal tabs. Putting it simply, horizontal tabs eat donkey's balls in terms of usability. The only advantage they have is size, but that is also their biggest flaw as well, as amply demonstrated above.

Since three of your examples were contrived, two were completely non-applicable, one is simply incorrect ("mousing memory" - you cannot make a serious argument that it exists in a web browser in the way you are suggesting). Only one makes any sense - one that people asking for a tab bar have generally said is not the case for them (a bazillion tabs).

Originally Posted by JKT

The only people for whom horizontal tabs are remotely useful are those that only ever have up to six to eight pages open at any one time, and if you are one of those people, then OmniWeb is likely to be overkill for you anyway.

Of course - how many tabs we display is a proper and useful gauge of how advanced a user we are. It has nothing to do with per-site preferences, workspaces, saved sessions, etc.

Essentially, your argument here is "mine's bigger".

Originally Posted by JKT

8. Why is it that everyone who complains about the size of the drawer never, ever bother to try making it smaller?

Ahem, who says we haven't (except for your assumption). Tell you what - make it take up as little screen real-estate as a tab bar, and see how "usable" it is.

[JKT]

Contrived? Absolutely not. Every single point I made is something I need from my tabs. Look, I am constantly moving between a lot of tabs (and I mean tens to hundreds spread over many Workspaces) so I do need to be able to see what is in each of them, I do need to be able to access each of them as quickly as I can. So I do care about each and every one of those points I made and the fact that the vertical thumbnail tabs solves each and every one of them for me is great. At work I have to use a PC and I am using Firefox (thankfully I don't have to use IE6 which doesn't even have tabs!). Now that I am using 2.x, the one extension that I found that mimicked the vertical tabs doesn't work and I am SOL, suffering from a completely inferior implementation for my needs, that slows me down greatly when I need to switch between tabs.

Hands up to expressing some assumptions in last two points (and elsewhere) though, but it is comments like this that really get my goat:

The thing is the Horizontal top of browser Tabs is a time proven method, it doesn't require a different method just to be different much like the start button in windows so why bother implementing and wasting so many resources designing an inferior poorly thought out concept with other things just work better.

...and it isn't just here that I have read similar kneejerk "yah booh, vertical tabs suck" reactions.

FWIW, for my points 5 and 6 - it can be implemented with a horizontal tab bar, but look at the screenshots... it hasn't been in Safari or Firefox (1.5 at the time)! If you exceeded a certain number in FF 1.x you can't even see a title on the tab, nevermind see what is unique or different about each - how on earth can you pick the one you need to close or view without clicking through the whole lot? (This is now semi-solved in FF2.0 where the tabs don't go below a certain size so you can at least see some of the title, and the Tab Mix Plus extension lets you colour code the titles to show their status, but AFAIK, Firefox still doesn't do this by default).

Anyway, as people seem to continue to misunderstand the tone of my posts. I apologise in advance for those that take offence. OmniGroup please implement horizontal tabs for those that want them so that I no longer end up expressing myself like an arrogant twat on the subject.