IE7 to have tabbed browsing, aparently

http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/ie7_preview_1.asp

Paul Thurrot wrote:

NEW! IE 7 will include tabbed browsing. Microsoft will include tabbed browsing, along with other new features, in IE 7.

Me, what with being from the Firefox camp, is just going to say "HA!"

....It took them this long to go public about it?

The next thing will be that Microsoft would claim credit for the concept.... even worse... try to (and succeed) in getting a software patent for it)

What do you guys think?

so should ff take credit for tabs? I thought a previous browser had them.

to me win95 was all about tabs
especially the silly ones where the back row moves to front.. bad gui bad gui

i see no use for tabs - except p2p searches - where the tab is automatic

I think Opera was first. Firefox never claims it invented tabs, just innovated by having them (although innovation may be bit of a strong word).

Its a good idea, as long as the IE team don't think it is the *only* thing that sets Firefox apart.  The simple extensibility model is also important.

Firefox will always have one advantage over IE - will work cross platform on non-Windows OS's. There is an IE for MAc, but that is no longer developed (and Safari is meant to be better than it anyway).

Gee, why does this not surprise me.

I think IE itself is probably the last MSHTML app to have tabs. Besides Maxthon and similar third party browsers, there's already a few MS applications as well that combine tabs and the IE engine, like Visual Studio and Document Explorer (the VS help system).

With all the talk being about Firefox and its tabs (at least, when the talk isn't about Firefox and its support for webstandards, or Firefox and its presumed security ), it comes as no surprise this one trivial to implement feature would be added to IE7.

Me, I have no use for tabs. I find them mildly useful in Visual Studio... lets just say it beats MDI. But every once in a while I just have to "close all documents", because the amount of tabs gets out of hand. And most of the time I just use the Solution Explorer to switch files anyway.

I fail to see why tabs in the browser are useful. Taskbar grouping serves practically the same purpose, and all tabs succeed in doing is creating more places where I can lose stuff I was working on (if my mind is on a problem, it tends to forget to do other, less important stuff, like remembering which window was used to do what. I often end up switching to every window that is open, then halfway through forget what I was looking for in the first place, rinse and repeat; tabs only add to that mess, because now ALT-TAB alone is no longer sufficient to come across everything). Even when I use Firefox, I rarely use tabs.

But its a simple, nonintrusive feature, and if it makes other people happy, I'm glad for them that IE's going to have it.

winsupersite misses more often than slashdot, so I wouldn't take too much from what he says.

However, what I will say is that I hope IE 7 DOESN'T have tabs.

There are far better solutions than tabs for the "browser MDI" issue.  I'd hope they would be more innovate and go for something like a left-frame treeview that allows you to see thumbnails of sites, full site names, easily seen "parentage" of links and a clearer and easier way of opening/closing a new "tab".

I know there was an off-shoot of IE that did something similar (Bruce Morgan linked to it on here...) but in IE, it would be great.

You don't have to use tabs in Firefox (links with target="_blank" will still open in a new window). Unless you actively want them, you do not notice that tabs are a feature (if only one web page is loaded, no tabs show).

When you use a tabbed browser, memory usage is not as great. With IE, each Window takes up its own process AFAIK and so more memory is used. RAM is cheap and plentiful now though, so you may not notice. For me a new tab in Firefox loads quicker than a new IE Window, plus Ctrl+(Shift+)Tab makes switching between tabs quick and effortless (quicker than Alt+(Shift+)Tab).

Tabs are a personal preference, so like them some don't. Including them does not impact those that don't like them. It seem tab users do not know why some don't know why others don't like them (and vice versa). Like Marmite- you either love them or hate them.

sbc wrote:

With IE, each Window takes up its own process AFAIK and so more memory is used.

Not true. When you open a new Windows by clicking the IE icon on the desktop/quicklaunch/startmenu/whereever, it will start a new process, but when opening a new window via target="_blank", javascript, ctrl-click, ctrl-n, and other "in-browser" methods, the process is reused.

W3bbo wrote:

What do you guys think?

I think MDI is the worst thing to happen to a browser.  And yes, I don't care that they are "tabs" now, it's still a remake of a 1989 MDI application.

I hate tabs for browsing and will always hate tabs for browsing.  In fact, the only place I have a use for tabs are in compilers, where you will almost always have mutliple documents open per window - I did a happy dance when Office went SDI.

I have no idea why people are spoodging over tabs in any browser - I just don't get it.

Then again these might be the same people that run every application in a full screen/maximized window: very DOS of them to do so

Sven Groot wrote:

sbc wrote:With IE, each Window takes up its own process AFAIK and so more memory is used.

Not true. When you open a new Windows by clicking the IE icon on the desktop/quicklaunch/startmenu/whereever, it will start a new process, but when opening a new window via target="_blank", javascript, ctrl-click, ctrl-n, and other "in-browser" methods, the process is reused.

Does seem to take up more memory for me though. IE 5MB more RAM than Firefox (with two windows/tabs open). The more web site open, the bigger the gap. Firefox can be sluggish on graphics/flash heavy pages though. Could be faster, but it is free and has extensions that I can no longer do without (Web Developer, View Cookies, Live HTTP Headers). Not seen the equivalent tools for IE (for free and with as much functionality).

Beer28 wrote:

what about NDI? No document interface?
IE7 has nothing on lynx and wget.

I think Sun patented NDI with Star Office 5.1 when loading the application didn't give you documents to write or whatever but just decide it wanted to take over your entire desktop, start button, taskbar and all.

I saw that on Paul's site.  I don't know where he's getting his data from, because we haven't gone public about IE7 feature set.  

It's not hard to be right or wrong about IE7 and tabbed browsing.  It's a boolean - you have 50% chance of guessing correctly.  Throw in all you know about what we say about listening to customers, and you have a better chance of guessing correctly.

Paul also some interesting screenshots that are purported to be Longhorn builds, as well as Office builds.  Looks like somebody leaked a Powerpoint deck, because those don't like like real builds to me.

EDIT: BTW, Netcaptor was first back in 1997 with a feature that would be recognizably called "tabbed browsing".  Opera had regular MDI, as did a few others, but the UX was not a row of tabs at the top of the page.

I wonder how not including tabbed browsing would be a benefit (all I can see are downsides). You don't have to use it just because it is there. I'm sure there are Firefox users that do now even know about (or know how to use) tabbed browsing.

As all alternative browsers (except ones like Lynx) have tabbed browing I would say it would be a good idea to have it.

BruceMorgan wrote:

I saw that on Paul's site.  I don't know where he's getting his data from, because we haven't gone public about IE7 feature set.  

It's not hard to be right or wrong about IE7 and tabbed browsing.  It's a boolean - you have 50% chance of guessing correctly.  Throw in all you know about what we say about listening to customers, and you have a better chance of guessing correctly.

Paul also some interesting screenshots that are purported to be Longhorn builds, as well as Office builds.  Looks like somebody leaked a Powerpoint deck, because those don't like like real builds to me.

Thanks for joining the conversation Bruce, we were wondering where you had got to I appreciate your keeping us informed.

BruceMorgan wrote:

EDIT: BTW, Netcaptor was first back in 1997 with a feature that would be recognizably called "tabbed browsing".  Opera had regular MDI, as did a few others, but the UX was not a row of tabs at the top of the page.

Yeah I think that is generally accepted. FF never claimed to be the first to do it, just the best (actually I prefer Safari's tabs with the close tab icon on the tab itself rather than the tab bar).

I am sure if IE does have tabs then those who don't like them will be able to turn them off like FF and Safari.

sbc wrote:

Does seem to take up more memory for me though. IE 5MB more RAM than Firefox (with two windows/tabs open). The more web site open, the bigger the gap. Firefox can be sluggish on graphics/flash heavy pages though. Could be faster, but it is free and has extensions that I can no longer do without (Web Developer, View Cookies, Live HTTP Headers). Not seen the equivalent tools for IE (for free and with as much functionality).

The per-app memory usage statistics from Task Manager are not to be used for such comparisons. They have a tendency to be wrong. For one thing they include everything that has been mapped into an apps process space. If the same DLL is mapped into 42 processes, that memory will show up for all those processes, even though its only in memory once.

I haven't compared the memory usage directly, nor do I have any reason to. I have no complaints about the performance of either IE or Firefox. And a few bytes lower memory usage is definitely not going to convince to use tabs. Memory is the one thing I've got plenty of.

So, its safe to say with IE7 people will actually start using tabbed browsing.