17 Dec 2003 | Darrel said...

Does Expose not help with some of this? Not sure what the exact problem it is you're trying to resolve. Dragging tabs would be nice, I suppose...but doesn't Adobe have a patent on that silly bit of UI functionality? (Remember the lawsuit against Macromedia?)

17 Dec 2003 | Neil said...

I'd also like the ability to be able to open external links in an existing window, but still get new tabs if I command+click on a link. This is how Gecko browsers handle tabs, and I really do prefer it.

17 Dec 2003 | Dr_God said...

I so find myself wanting to rearrange the tab order once in a while. However, I wouldn't really need that so much if the following problem of mine was fixed.

My biggest problem with Safari tabs is the order in which new tabs are created if you already have multiple tabs open. I would like new tabs to open up directly next to the current tab, instead of opening up at the far right of all the tabs. This causes a headache when want to just quickly open up a new tab, read it, close it, and then go back to the original page/tab that spawned it.

17 Dec 2003 | JF said...

I would like new tabs to open up directly next to the current tab, instead of opening up at the far right of all the tabs.

Yeah, that's another thing!

17 Dec 2003 | Derek Rose said...

There is an applescript to combine open windows into a single tabbed window...

http://www.apple.com/applescript/safari/

Opera can reorder tabs... but not safari yet...

17 Dec 2003 | Darrel said...

patent on that silly bit of UI functionality

Er...should have read: silly patent on that useful bit of UI functionality

17 Dec 2003 | Aragorn said...

Neil: To make external links load as a new tab in your frontmost Safari window check "Open links from applications in the current window" in the General section of Safari's preferences.

17 Dec 2003 | Eby said...

Neither of those features really interest me. The main feature I miss compared to other tab browsers is the ability to bookmark sets of tabs as a single bookmark. It was a handy feature from mozilla I used quite a bit for some daily reads.

17 Dec 2003 | Darrel said...

main feature I miss compared to other tab browsers is the ability to bookmark sets of tabs as a single bookmark.

You can't do that with Safari? Guess I'll be sticking with Camino for a bit longer (though I'm eyeing Firebird more and more these days...)

17 Dec 2003 | mikes said...

Those are 2 great ideas I'm sure we will see eventually.

I know the only way to get things changed as far as safari development goes -> bugtraq. They pay very close attention to it.

18 Dec 2003 | ek said...

Eby, doesn't the "Open in Tabs" feature for items added to your bookmarks bar do what you're asking for?

For example, the "News" item in the bookmarks bar. If I select "Open in Tabs," all of the sites under "News" open up simultaneously as tabs in one window. It sounded to me like that's what you are looking for, but I could be wrong.

18 Dec 2003 | Geoffrey said...

Eby: The "open in tabs" function works great, especially if you use folders in your bookmark bar. I have a folder of NEWS for instance, and I open them as tabs all at once and proceed to browse.

18 Dec 2003 | Neil said...

Aragon said To make external links load as a new tab in your frontmost Safari window check "Open links from applications in the current window" in the General section of Safari's preferences.

Actually, that's backwards from what I want. I want external links to open in the same window without opening a new tab. In otherwords, to reuse the existing window. But I still want the ability to command+click on a link and open it in a new tab... something that is only available if you turn tabs on.

With tabs on, however, all external links open in new tabs, and don't reuse the existing window.

18 Dec 2003 | brennen said...

If I have a window open with, say, 8 tabs, and I accidentally hit the red "close window" button, it closes the window and takes all 8 tabs down with it.

I would like Safari to double check my intent and ask "Are you sure you want to close all 8 tabs?"

18 Dec 2003 | Bob Denver said...

I would like new tabs to open up directly next to the current tab, instead of opening up at the far right of all the tabs.


I'd like to be able to fly. I'd like to sing pretty well. I'd like to tele-transport myself across continents in the blink of an eye, wrestle the mouse away from weasels who make poor websites, and then send them to the seventh ring of hell, where their souls will burn and the earth will be cleansed of their weakness.

18 Dec 2003 | Steven Garrity said...

Seeing Expose in action makes a thumbnail-tab-browsing replacement seem more feasible. For context, Dave Hyatt has thoughtful criticism of the idea.

18 Dec 2003 | ek said...

Great links Steven!

Part of me agrees with Dave Hyatt's assessment, that a thumbnail-based tabbed browsing UI is of questionable utility and is a solution in search of an audience. But then another part of me thinks that it could help less technical users "get" the concept (he seems to consider that unlikely).

I think he also makes a good case for opening new tabs to the right of the right-most existing tab.

18 Dec 2003 | Andy said...

Given that everyone wants something different from tabbed browsing wouldn't it be good to have the option to tell the browser to behave the way you want it to?

Firebird + Tabbrowser extensions does exactly that - I like Google searches to open up in a new tab, the guy I sit beside doesn't. We both get what we want, yet we're using the same browser.

I really like Safari (and it does look prettier than Moz Firebird) but it needs Firebird's levels of flexibility before it will become my default.

18 Dec 2003 | MrBlank said...

The thing I dislike most about Safari are how close the back button and close/maximize/minimize buttons are. To many times Ive been in a hurry to jump back a page and accidentally closed the browser. Is there a way to move those buttons apart?

18 Dec 2003 | Darrel said...

Seeing Expose in action makes a thumbnail-tab-browsing replacement seem more feasible

That's a bit like IE/Mac's thumbnail pane, isn't it?

18 Dec 2003 | Stefan Seiz said...

Sure would be nice. I had also expected (since stuff like this usually works on a mac) to be able to just drag-and-drop TABS around, be it from one window into another or inside a window to reorder them.

What they got right already is, that you can just throw a URL onto a TAB to make it load a new address...

18 Dec 2003 | Eby said...

Yeah I got the open in tabs fine. The feature I was missing was the ability to easily bookmark all the open tabs into such a folder so I can open it later. Right now I have to go to each tab and bookmark it to that folder. Maybe there's an option or applescript I missed. Would like to be able to just hit "Bookmark set of tabs" or something like Mozilla had.

19 Dec 2003 | SU said...

Not related to tabbed browsing... But Safari has added visible tooltips for TITLE tags in the latest release from Apple (v1.1.1). I must have gotten it when I updated to Panther v10.3.2. Small but nice improvement over only using the status bar.

19 Dec 2003 | losmadden said...

No to mention the inherent ability to import bookmarks after the initial startup (without downloading Safari Enhancer or running perl scripts). I'd also like to override any instance of target="_blank" or taget="_new" so that it opens in a new tab instead of a new window (without me having to Control-click).

01 Jan 2004 | Steven Garrity said...

Looks like we'll be able to try out that thumbnails-instead-of-tabs idea. OmniWeb is doing it.