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Side-scrolling tabs are one of the worst UI innovations I've suffered in recent years. They wreak havoc on spatial tab organization, make it impossible to see h

Side-scrolling tabs are one of the worst UI innovations I've suffered in recent years. They wreak havoc on spatial tab organization, make it impossible to see how many tabs are open, and slide out from under the mouse cursor unpredictably when clicking. The original Safari behavior of a vertical overflow list of tabs, favicons included, keyboard searchable and navigable, was much more usable. https://i.stack.imgur.com/eyXum.png https://i.stack.imgur.com/eyXum.png

mi100hael 9y ago
Strongly disagree. That list menu made it hard to reorganize tabs, required a mouse click, and arbitrarily split your tabs into those visible and those relegated to some obnoxious menu.
- bangonkeyboard 9y ago
  Every one of those downsides was addressable without flushing the baby. Sessions (https://sessions-extension.github.io/Sessions/ https://sessions-extension.github.io/Sessions/) provides a keyboard-controllable vertical tab popover with draggable tabs from all open windows.
eridius 9y ago
Spatial tab organization is already lost any time you open or close a tab.
- detaro 9y ago
  It really isn't, human brains are clever enough to deal with that quite well.
  - eridius 9y ago
    And they're not clever enough to deal with Safari's tab bar? Just as humans can adapt to the tab bar shifting when tabs are opened and closed, humans can also adapt to the concept the tab bar focusing on the left or the right and collapsing the opposite side. The point of my previous comment is you've lost literal spatial organization already, as the exact same position isn't guaranteed to be the same tab after other tabs have opened/closed, so we're already talking about dealing with relative positioning of tabs instead of absolute positioning. And Safari's tab bar does not screw with relative positioning.
    - detaro 9y ago
      It gives you less clear landmarks though. Spatial navigation through 20 items with no differentiation isn't easy. Even if you know "9 items from the right", you can't do easily do that subconsciously. "The tab next to the Stack Overflow one" or "The third Stack Overflow tab" is a lot easier in comparison. At least for me, navigating a lot of sites without favicons or large amounts with the same one decreases efficiency a lot, for exactly this reason.
      - eridius 9y ago
        This particular thread isn't about favicons at all. It's about Safari's side-scrolling (once you have enough) tab bar.
        detaro 9y ago
        Then I misunderstood your original comment (which I took to mean spacial navigation doesn't work, scrolling or no scrolling), my mistake.
chrismorgan 9y ago
If your tabs scroll in Firefox, there’s a dropdown at the right which lists all tabs. I find this decidedly superior to the overflow behaviour you describe.
- bangonkeyboard 9y ago
  I'm not seeing any differences between the two.

mi100hael 9y ago

Strongly disagree. That list menu made it hard to reorganize tabs, required a mouse click, and arbitrarily split your tabs into those visible and those relegated to some obnoxious menu.

bangonkeyboard 9y ago
Every one of those downsides was addressable without flushing the baby. Sessions (https://sessions-extension.github.io/Sessions/ https://sessions-extension.github.io/Sessions/) provides a keyboard-controllable vertical tab popover with draggable tabs from all open windows.

eridius 9y ago

Spatial tab organization is already lost any time you open or close a tab.

detaro 9y ago
It really isn't, human brains are clever enough to deal with that quite well.
- eridius 9y ago
  And they're not clever enough to deal with Safari's tab bar? Just as humans can adapt to the tab bar shifting when tabs are opened and closed, humans can also adapt to the concept the tab bar focusing on the left or the right and collapsing the opposite side. The point of my previous comment is you've lost literal spatial organization already, as the exact same position isn't guaranteed to be the same tab after other tabs have opened/closed, so we're already talking about dealing with relative positioning of tabs instead of absolute positioning. And Safari's tab bar does not screw with relative positioning.
  - detaro 9y ago
    It gives you less clear landmarks though. Spatial navigation through 20 items with no differentiation isn't easy. Even if you know "9 items from the right", you can't do easily do that subconsciously. "The tab next to the Stack Overflow one" or "The third Stack Overflow tab" is a lot easier in comparison. At least for me, navigating a lot of sites without favicons or large amounts with the same one decreases efficiency a lot, for exactly this reason.
    - eridius 9y ago
      This particular thread isn't about favicons at all. It's about Safari's side-scrolling (once you have enough) tab bar.
      - detaro 9y ago
        Then I misunderstood your original comment (which I took to mean spacial navigation doesn't work, scrolling or no scrolling), my mistake.

chrismorgan 9y ago

If your tabs scroll in Firefox, there’s a dropdown at the right which lists all tabs. I find this decidedly superior to the overflow behaviour you describe.

bangonkeyboard 9y ago
I'm not seeing any differences between the two.