Give Safari the tabs it deserve

Apple's new KHTML-based browser Safari is a wonderful addition to the first-party suite of applications that makes the Mac my platform of choice, but it's missing one critical feature that's holding back my switch from Chimera: Tabs! Once you get used to browse by tabbing, there's no turning back, which renders every non-tab browser (or even editor) close to useless.

But. Safari is just in beta. There's still time to make Apple go the tab route. Put in your signature for pressure at Pertion Online: Safari Tabbed Browsing. I signed as number 993. Let's take that number up an order of magnitude and Apple will surely listen.

It seems to be my mission in life to disagree here :-). Tabbed Browsing is a bad ida(tm). I often use Opera these days, but I was considering it for along time. The turning point was when they made tabbed browsing deselectable.

Even Microsoft no longer advocates the MDI application scheme as it has shown itself a bad usability choice. The only good thing about the newer version of the bloatware Microsoft Office is the SDI approach to multiple open files.

Why tabbed browsing is heralded as the Best Thing Since Sliced Bread is plain wierd.

On the other hand: It is really nice to see Apple contributing to the Open Source comminity with their effort to improve the khtml component of the kde application suite.

Go Safari, go!

As with Chimera, tabs shouldn't be forced upon you. My primary criticism for Netcaptor (tabs for IE) is that it forces you to use tabs always. I haven't heard anyone scream for Netcaptor-like tabs.

People want choice. When I read my daily 10+ content sites, I can't live without the tabs. It's just so much easier. When I'm using web-applications, though, it's often I don't want that to happen in a tab.

Chimera has the perfect model, imho. You can start as many windows as you like and each window can have it's own set of tabs. Oh yearh, and they did the tab groups (launch X tabs at the same time) beautifully.

Safari with Chimera tabs would be a wonderful combination.

Something puzzles me, though. Why do you think tabs are suitable for editing code but not for browsing information? On your Unix Editors post it looks surprisingly much like you're editing PHP from a bunch of tabs. Or is this just a stock photo and you actually don't use the tab feature?

Well I'm pro choice in most situations; including this. So please somebodyimplement tabs in Safari as long as you don't force them on users. I'd recommend them turned of by default because that's what I prefer (and I truly believe that its the better choice).

Hmm, my editor... That is a good point. I sometimes uses tabs where the consequences of not using them is worse. With editors I'd usually start them from the shell. Ie. /home/mk/vi mypage.php and the like. Unfortunately a lot of editors have a huge startup penalty and may require a completely new program instance just to run in another window. Then I use tabs because they are sort of force upon me.

With Bluefish (the editor mentioned) I got a more standard compliant editor than vi and a nice syntax highligthning feature too (vi has one too but the default colours suck rock and I'm to lazy to change them). I've only recently begun my switch to Bluefish and havn't completly made up my mind yet.

At work I use Visual Studio which forces me to use a tree-view of all files/objects/whatever in the project file. It's even worse than tabbed browsing. But then again: Visual Studio violates just about everything I want in a browser.

There. I signed as #2669.
Regarding the tab-enabled editors, I find that a big minus in BBEdit. I'd have loved to see all files in one window.
I use UltraEdit on my Windows workstation and I consider it one of the greatest editors on the market.
Considering getting rid of my PC UltraEdit will be the biggest loss.

My my. Not only does Visual Studio violate everything I want in a browser; it violates everything I want in an editor too :-).

One of the things that I do not like in tabbed editors is the inherint inability to compare the content of two different views. I realise that in most desktop systems you can split the pane, but that is not quite as flexible as having two different windows you can move around.

Inability to compare when using tabs? Are you a Chameleon ? :) Both your eyes look at the same thing at the same time. So looking at one window and then switching to another window seems like an even bigger transfer than flipping a tab?
Anyways . I think it's all about habits.