Why use tabs?
 

:o Safari is now out with the long rumored tab addition. I have already installed it. But, I still am not understanding, why, tabs are useful in a browser? Is there a tutorial somewhere and some screen shots so that I can get a feel for why some seem to think this is such a great idea?

I like the way my bookmarks work already in Safari. I have carefully arranged my bookmarks under a mere handful of folder titles. These folders are of course across the browser top. So any book mark is a drop down menu away already.

I really don't mean to imply that my solution is better than anyone else. But I wish someone could give me an explanation, and perhaps a visual pointer (link), as to why tabs should mean something to me in Safari? :confused:

Thanks
Dave

I'll give it a shot.

Let's say you open up the forums in Mac OS X Hints, to check out all the new messages.

As you scan through nearly 100 postings, tabs allow you to prepare for reading and gleaning..

While on the main window with all the post references, hold down the command and shift key (is that the right combo?) and select every message you want to browse. Each one will load up in a background tab as you continue on the main page.

When you are done, mark 'all as read' then close the main tab. Now in front of you is one browser window with twenty or so tabs, waiting for you to go through.

Imagine it's usefulness while checking out news articles, galleries, compilations of articles and references, etc..

For me, once I started using tabs I couldn't believe it hadn't been done before - sorta like LaunchBar!

I hope that helps a bit explaining it's advantage - not everyone will use it, but they are definitely welcome.

I appreciate your taking this on but I am not following al of what you said. I really need to see a screen shot so hat I can get a feel for what you mean. I still have no concept of what a tab bar even looks like in a browser, let alone what I can do with it. I checked the tab option in the preferences and one grey tab came down that showed the current address on it. This doesn't really mean anything to me so I am sure I am still grossly missing the point here.

I have the option to:
Enable tabbed browsing.
Then, to select new tabs as they are created
and/or to always show the tab bar.

In a database tabbed area I can place almost any information that I want to place there. Perhaps a contact manager has one tabbed area for a work address and tabbing on a second tab reveals the home address instead. So this much I understand about tabs. But how are you meaning to use a tab in a browser? Browsers would only store URLs so I assume this is what your put in the tabs, correct?

I'll give it a shot.

Let's say you open up the forums in Mac OS X Hints, to check out all the new messages.

As you scan through nearly 100 postings, tabs allow you to prepare for reading and gleaning..

While on the main window with all the post references, hold down the command and shift key (is that the right combo?) and select every message you want to browse. Each one will load up in a background tab as you continue on the main page.

Hmmm. I am slowly getting the idea. Is the pint that you can sort of keep the 5 or 6 urls that you are visiting alive on your menu bar until you are through with your session? Sort of like back arrowing but a direct link to where you wanted to go? Is this it?

When you are done, mark 'all as read' then close the main tab. Now in front of you is one browser window with twenty or so tabs, waiting for you to go through.

I don't understand how to mark all as read? Where is this found? I tried closing the second tab and all the tabs went away.

Imagine it's usefulness while checking out news articles, galleries, compilations of articles and references, etc..

For me, once I started using tabs I couldn't believe it hadn't been done before - sorta like LaunchBar!

I hope that helps a bit explaining it's advantage - not everyone will use it, but they are definitely welcome.

Perhaps it is so. I will keep trying to understand it. Then I will start trying it out. I will hold judgement until then. If you can take this further I appreciate it. And, thanks.

Dave

The biggest reason I like tabs is because my browsing experience is almost never focused on one single thing. For example, I always come to the Mac OS X Hints homepage and then open the forums in another tab. Then I'll usually open a few more tabs for various hints or forum threads. When this really comes in handy is I want to switch back and forth quickly to read about something else. Say I'm posting in one thread and want to be looking at another site for reference.

Of course, the talk about tabs is nothing compared to using them IMO. Before I tried Mozilla for the first time, I shrugged off tabs. However, now I don't know how I ever did without them. For a week, just force yourself to use tabs as much as possible. Command-click links as much as possible. If after a week you don't like them, you never will. However, my money says you get addicted. ;)

Apple has a quicktime thingy giving a pretty good show of what tabs do:

http://www.apple.com/safari/theater/tabs.html

Once I found tabs in Chimera/Camino I was hooked. For me it makes organizing a lot of the work I do on the web easier, and quicker. There is no need to minimize a window or to have to command ~ to cycle through... it is all there for me to choose right away.

I am sure there is a lot more that tabs can do then I do with them, but they are to me, like Caller ID... once I had it, I really didn't want to give it up.

with tabbed browsing, you can:

a. re-use the same window geometry

here's seven tabs vs. seven windows...

http://home.mindspring.com/~bduart/tvsw.jpg

b. create a bookmark collection, e.g., news sites, and put it in the bookmarks bar. when the collection is selected, the last entry is 'open in tabs'. selecting this will open each entry in the collection in a new tab.


window mgt is moved to tab mgt

merv's example is a good one.
Think about the nicely cascaded 7 windows in the bottom shot. What happens when you select a window from the middle of the pile? You can no longer 'see' all the windows. You quickly lose visual reference to some of them. Of course you can get a list of windows via the dock, or the 'window' menu, but that's extra work.
With the tab solution, you never 'lose' an open window.

They're nice organizational tools.
 

Tabs are like the Finder 'Column View' and non-Tabs are like the Finder 'Icon View'

Tabs are nice in that they organize the various links you open as you read through any web page. While reading a web page without browsers, each link is either opened within the same page (which interrupts you and forces you to read that page before you can click the 'back' button and read the original page you were reading at the time) or each link is opened as a separate page. After a number of links are opened as separate pages in this way, you have a proliferation of pages on your desktop and they can be difficult to navigate between. If you had tabs, then all the opened links which came from the page you are reading would be stored within the same window that you are reading from, and the name of each opened link would be visible to you as a tab above the page you are reading. Now you can go back and forth between these opened links and the original article just by clicking on these tabs.

Thus, you've opened every link you were interested in, you have immediate mouse access to every opened link/page through a title visible to you, and it has all happened with just one open window.

When I go to MacOSXHints, I scan down the page reading items I find interesting and opening links as tabs in the background as I go. If I am reading a hint, tabs allow me to open a tab with the member's responses and replies (and replies to replies) and still keep track of where the original page is and where I am on that page. Once finished with the responses and replies, I can kill those tabs and return to the still-open front page for MacOSXHints and continue down the page. If I am at the Forums, I can go down a the 'System' forum page opening links for all threads which I find interesting. When done, I know that I have exhausted any recent threads of interest within that forum and they are all within this one window of multiple tabs. Then I read each tab, choosing the most interesting one first and then killing it when I get done.

Re: They're nice organizational tools.
 

and command-shift-(left/right)-arrow will navigate among tabs.

wish it would defer to command-` when there is only one window with more than one tab.

or maybe one better would be cmd-shift-` to cycle windows, cmd-` to cycle tabs

bug report it!

[edit: shortcut help file file:///Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/Shortcuts.html hasn't been updated? bug report it!]

All right. I am getting a clearer picture. I will have to work with it a while to fully grasp the idea but I think it is making more sense now. Thanks all. One last point/question. It sounds like tabs are great devices for organizing the pages you are on in a current session. But They don't stay attached after closing Safari, do they? Even if they did you could get cluttered very fast if you couldn't strike them after a browsing session, I would think.

I was starting to think that tabs are for here and now work with pages that have many links in them. But the bookmarks I already use aren't duplicated as tabs are a method of tracking what you are "Currently" navigating through. So tabs are not for replacing bookmarks, right?

Yes? No? Almost, but not quite there?

Dave

Tabs do not replace bookmarks, they just organize different pages you are currently browsing.

Correct No, unless you have them together in a bookmark folder, in which next session, you scroll down to the bottom of the folder, and it prompts 'open in tabs'
No, that is the new snapback feature of safari You lost me there. In a nutshell, no

Almost, but not quite there :D

In Mozilla, you can set a number of tabs to have a single bookmark. For example I visit a number of online comics, and I have a single bookmark for all of them. When I click on the bookmark it opens a whole slew of tabs.

So tabs don't necessarily replace bookmarks, but some bookmarks are enhanced via tabs...

Seems to me that is the same example that merv made with a bookmark collection opening in tabs.

Doh!

You are correct, I missed that part of merv's post. Got sidetracked with the image comparison between multiple windows and multiple tabs...

I like them because I only have to have one window open, and I very often like to have more than one site accessible at any given time.

And when I want the browser out of the way, so I can look at/work with something else, I only have ONE window to minimize, not four or five or more...

My 2 cents. :)

G.--

Schwartze said:

Apple has a quicktime thingy giving a pretty good show of what tabs do:

http://www.apple.com/safari/theater/tabs.html

Wonderful! Went there and got a page with "Tabbed Browsing" and nothing else. Safari v73, OS X 10.2.4, and the latest JAVA and QT stuff installed. No QT window or movie.

Also, went up to http://www.apple.com/safari/ and didn't get any movie link to work.

Anyone else?

Works fine here. v73, 10.2.5.

Yep. Had to restart to get QT to load. Something was hosed. BTW, anyone get sound? I'm not, just the video.

The Quicktime movie worked flawlessly on my 10.2.5 iMac with Safari v73. It was worth the trip because I was up in the air about needing tabs; as it turns out, I don't think I'll need them much even though they seem to work well.

I didn't hear any audio either.

Donna

Only one downside to Safari Tabs
 

Like others have mentioned, I use tabs a lot because I have multiple sites that I like to view simultaneously.

The only downside is that links opened from other apps can only spawn new windows but not new tabs.

Re: Only one downside to Safari Tabs
 

not true.

in the general pref pane:

open links from applications: (o) in the current window

then the page opens in a new tab in the current window.

It would be nice if links within an html page opened in tabs though.

Re: Re: Only one downside to Safari Tabs
 

You're right! I didn't even try that, just assumed that it didn't. Thanks. That tip made my day.

Ahh, why didn't any one tell me if I control click a link it will open in a new tab??

Because they would be telling an untruth. Control clicking a link brings up the contextual menu whereas command clicking opens in a new tab ;)

I hadn't been a fan of tabs until i read this thread, formerly when reading threads in a forum, i'd open thiem in a new window, so i'd end up with 10 or so windows open.

now i go through the new posts, open every thread i want to read in a new tab, and have a nice row of tabs of all the threads. by the time i've finished opening tabs, the first ones have loaded and i can start reading. less messy windows everywhere and no waiting around.

and apple-shift-left/right and apple-click: keystroke heaven.

thanks everyone


supernaut