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There are a couple of things to point out jtaby's critique of Chrome: 1. There's no small, unobtrusive way to monitor the progress of downloads. Actually, in

There are a couple of things to point out jtaby's critique of Chrome: 1. There's no small, unobtrusive way to monitor the progress of downloads. Actually, in OS X, the Chrome icon in the dock has a small pie chart overlay during downloads that indicates both the number of pending downloads as well as the aggregate progress of all downloads. If your dock is hidden, you can quickly and easily check the progress by hitting Cmd-Tab. In Windows 7, the "tile" in the Windows "Dock" fills from left to right, like a progress bar, to show the aggregate status of downloads. You can also click on the in-progress download, dismiss the dialog, and the file will open once the download completes. 2. The large number of options makes finding what you want hard. As mentioned, the search feature is handy, but not always sufficient. One nice aspect that gets overlooked is that the in-tab preferences are fully addressable: you can actually link to specific pages and panels. Though this doesn't help you find a preference in the first place, it does make communicating the location of known preferences much simpler. 3. The search field covers the content of the site, if you were searching and a match was under the field, or you wanted to click a link/button under the search field, you’re out of luck. Actually, the search field will intelligently slide out of the way to reveal matched content that it covers. If you need to click something underneath it, you can hit Escape to dismiss it, and your previously entered text will be saved and pre-filled the next time you hit Cmd-F.

jtaby 15y ago
Thanks a lot for your comment, callahad. I'll try to respond to your comments. 1. You're right, I hadn't actually noticed that until after I wrote the blog post. I think it's because I hide the Dock by default (still doesn't explain why I didn't notice it in the app switcher) My point was, there are three places to manage downloads. I have to manually close the Downloads bar. Worst of all (and this is something I forgot to point out in the post) is that closing the downloads bar actually makes the browser window smaller! 2. You're right, there are nice parts of having the preferences be in the tab. 3. I didn't mean the search field covers search results, it covers the website's UI. Here's another example of it blocking the UI, this time in github: http://cl.ly/1t450T1S0s2J2V0I3O1W http://cl.ly/1t450T1S0s2J2V0I3O1W
- deleted 15y ago
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- treeface 15y ago
  I see your point about #3, but to be honest, I've been using Chrome since v1 and I have never once had this be an issue. Not a single time. There is simply never a case where what I'm searching for is in the very top right 10 pixels of a page. In your github example, why would you ever be searching for "dashboard", "inbox", "account settings", or "log out"? Also I don't really understand your complaint about the bookmarks bar. Why do you have it up at all if you don't like the UI? If I want to go to a bookmarked page, I hit ctrl-shift-b to bring up the bar or, much more often, I open a new tab. I think the thing that separates Chrome from other browsers is the huge content real estate, and keeping the bookmarks bar up there takes away from this in a big way.
  - carussell 15y ago
    > There is simply never a case where what I'm searching for is in the very top right 10 pixels of a page. In your github example, why would you ever be searching for "dashboard", "inbox", "account settings", or "log out"? I think jtaby made it very clear that he wasn't referring to cases where it covers search results, but that it covers the website's UI. In fact, those were his exact words.
    - treeface 15y ago
      In that case, I don't really see any validity in the complaint. The search function is a temporary UI addition with a single purpose that goes away the moment you hit escape. Better yet, if you hit ctrl-f again, it comes back with the same text already entered.
      - carussell 15y ago
        Okay. These are all facts with respect to the find UI; yes, the things you say regarding hitting the escape key and the keyboard shortcut to make the find UI reappear—these are all true, factual things. But this isn't a concession. You can say these things, but every one of them is immaterial to point that the find UI, when present, obscures parts of the page, where potentially those parts are functional UI for that page.

jtaby 15y ago

Thanks a lot for your comment, callahad. I'll try to respond to your comments. 1. You're right, I hadn't actually noticed that until after I wrote the blog post. I think it's because I hide the Dock by default (still doesn't explain why I didn't notice it in the app switcher) My point was, there are three places to manage downloads. I have to manually close the Downloads bar. Worst of all (and this is something I forgot to point out in the post) is that closing the downloads bar actually makes the browser window smaller! 2. You're right, there are nice parts of having the preferences be in the tab. 3. I didn't mean the search field covers search results, it covers the website's UI. Here's another example of it blocking the UI, this time in github: http://cl.ly/1t450T1S0s2J2V0I3O1W http://cl.ly/1t450T1S0s2J2V0I3O1W

deleted 15y ago
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treeface 15y ago
I see your point about #3, but to be honest, I've been using Chrome since v1 and I have never once had this be an issue. Not a single time. There is simply never a case where what I'm searching for is in the very top right 10 pixels of a page. In your github example, why would you ever be searching for "dashboard", "inbox", "account settings", or "log out"? Also I don't really understand your complaint about the bookmarks bar. Why do you have it up at all if you don't like the UI? If I want to go to a bookmarked page, I hit ctrl-shift-b to bring up the bar or, much more often, I open a new tab. I think the thing that separates Chrome from other browsers is the huge content real estate, and keeping the bookmarks bar up there takes away from this in a big way.
- carussell 15y ago
  > There is simply never a case where what I'm searching for is in the very top right 10 pixels of a page. In your github example, why would you ever be searching for "dashboard", "inbox", "account settings", or "log out"? I think jtaby made it very clear that he wasn't referring to cases where it covers search results, but that it covers the website's UI. In fact, those were his exact words.
  - treeface 15y ago
    In that case, I don't really see any validity in the complaint. The search function is a temporary UI addition with a single purpose that goes away the moment you hit escape. Better yet, if you hit ctrl-f again, it comes back with the same text already entered.
    - carussell 15y ago
      Okay. These are all facts with respect to the find UI; yes, the things you say regarding hitting the escape key and the keyboard shortcut to make the find UI reappear—these are all true, factual things. But this isn't a concession. You can say these things, but every one of them is immaterial to point that the find UI, when present, obscures parts of the page, where potentially those parts are functional UI for that page.