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macOS Monterey Beta 3: Apple Redesigns Safari Tab Interface Following Complaints

133 points by cpeterso 5y ago

skavi 5y ago
Why is there so much padding around each tab? I guess it makes for clear click targets. Honestly was a fan of the old initial design, though I do lean towards compromising for more screen space.
- amirmasoudabdol 5y ago
  This is basically the side-effect of the rollback, and it really sucks. Now, they have to keep this wasteful design, and less tabs will _nicely_ fit into the bar. I don't think the initial design was great, but I like it more over this!
- samtheprogram 5y ago
  An assumption, but it seems to me and many others that they’ve been slowly moving to make macOS more touch interface friendly. I’m typically anti-touch screen on laptops as it drives the price up for a feature I personally almost never use, but there’s so many use cases particularly for a large portion of Apple’s user base working with digital media. Aside: A Lenovo Yoga -like MacBook would be cool, although I do like the Touch Bar for quickly moving around in media I’m listening to in the background (but I don’t think that’s enough to justify it).
  - cabalos 5y ago
    I have a theory that they’re not actually intending to make it more touch friendly but rather they are trying to unify the interfaces between MacOS and iPadOS for when iPadOS supersedes MacOS. Slowly boiling the frog, so you don’t notice when they move iPadOS to the desktop.
    - eyelidlessness 5y ago
      It’s almost this but less extreme. They’re trying to unify the interfaces because they want to return to offering one app platform that isn’t sharply split. iOS started as an OS X variant with special consideration for touch, but forked Cocoa. The unification that’s happening now isn’t about bringing iOS to Macs, it’s about merging Cocoa-next back into upstream.
      - cabalos 5y ago
        I could see that. The reason I think it could be more extreme is the AppStore. I don’t have stats to back this up, but I would assume they make far more money from the iOS/iPadOs AppStore than Mac AppStore. It never truly caught on with the Mac, likely due to the long history of loading your own apps. Apple would love nothing more than to break this cycle.
  - mr_toad 5y ago
    Management types seem to love poking at things. I’m not entirely joking - most of the Surface and iPad users I see at work are management/project-management.
- npunt 5y ago
  Your eyes deceive you. Prior MacOS versions have more overall padding (50pt) but it's put entirely within the tab itself. The new tabs have some margin between each tab and a much smaller padding within tabs, for overall what looks to be ~40pt. The new design sacrifices the 'X' hover-over on the left side of each tab, presumably in favor of an 'X' that overlaps the tab title.
  - eyelidlessness 5y ago
    This happens every time a significant redesign moves visual edges around in a way that has better visual separation. It’s almost always more space efficient, but with better affordance for poor eyesight and/or poor pointer coordination.
- Austin_Conlon 5y ago
  Maybe Apple designers tend to test on 32-inch Pro Display XDRs.
- grishka 5y ago
  > Why is there so much padding around each tab? Because it was designed by iOS people.
beezischillin 5y ago
I might be alone with this but I really dislike Apple increasing the overall height / element margins on the top controls of Safari. They've been consistently doing it bit by bit with each new release and it constantly feels like I'm losing screen estate that could be filled with content to bits that are not and that I rarely interact with enough to justify it taking up so much space. I really liked the slim header part of Safari previously, especially switching from Windows and its set of browser design conventions. I rarely if ever use the cursor to do anything with these controls because macOS has great gestures and it also has keyboard shortcuts to make the process feel a lot more result-oriented, rather than process-oriented with extra steps.
- vptr 5y ago
  On top of that add websites that take up half of your screen with adds and other marketing or paywall crap.
- andyfleming 5y ago
  It feels like they’ve been slowly moving towards a touch-friendly interface on MacOS. I’m not sure if they intend to have a desktop OS that truly supports a touch screen or if it’s more about slowly merging iOS and MacOS in general.
- npunt 5y ago
  I believe they've only increased the height once with the transition to Big Sur. And they reduced the height from Mavericks->Yosemite, so it's back to where it was during 10.1-10.9 days, just with one UI row + tabs instead of two + tabs. Are you thinking about something else?
  - beezischillin 5y ago
    Yes! The Big Sur change, it annoyed me a lot. This new design also looks like it's continuing the trend.
- psychometry 5y ago
  Why do you use Safari then, the least extensible and customizable option for MacOS?
dilap 5y ago
Ah, too bad, I've grown to quite like the previous beta! I don't tend to have a gazillion tabs open though. I want my webpage to be as much page as possible, w/ as little chrome. I think there's some danger in listening to internet outrage as your design process -- every big change generates a lot of dislike, but that doesn't mean it's actually a bad change, or that most people dislike it, or even that the people who hate it at first won't come to like it.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- robertoandred 5y ago
  The previous design is apparently still the default. This new design is an option.
  - dilap 5y ago
    oh, sweet!
  - syspec 5y ago
    Opposite. The new design is the default according to the article, but the old one is available by unchecking a setting
- yunohn 5y ago
  There was outrage all across the Internet, not just HN. I tried it out myself, and it was majorly disorienting. It was the sole reason I reverted from the public beta.
  - joshmanders 5y ago
    On the flip side, this new Safari design was the sole reason I even installed the beta.
- mark_l_watson 5y ago
  You can reset compact mode from the View menu.
dom96 5y ago
wow, that design looks surprisingly Firefox-like.
- wejick 5y ago
  It is, the floating tab design
_jal 5y ago
I've really had enough of the minimalist, whitespace-everywhere trend. I've been turning off most notifications, because since the controls were hidden, they're basically useless noise that just hides useful controls. I know many designer-types want to get rid of the URL bar, but either butch up and fucking do it, or leave it as a useful tool. Quit shrinking it, overloading use, making it jump around another otherwise trying to make people not want to use it. Iphone screens waste a ton of real estate, and (at least to my eye), it isn't even pretty, it frequently just looks unfinished, like the designer gave up on the job. And so on.
- PostThisTooFast 5y ago
  Apple has long since given up on proper design. Instead of working through the necessity of presenting numerous options to the user and coming up with a proper hierarchical design, Apple punts to disgraceful shit like peek-a-boo UI, undisclosed hotkey combinations that reveal mystery menus, or "gestures." We were supposed to get a "total rewrite" of Finder years ago. What happened? And Spotlight is a clinic on shitty UI: WTF is the use of a search facility that doesn't show you WHERE it found things? How degenerated is design acumen (or even just basic sense) there that allows a design like this to not only make it out the door, but persist for a decade or more? Then again, Apple offered up a windowing GUI in which you couldn't resize windows from their edges... or even 3/4 of their corners... for 30 years. But Windows is far, far worse today. At least Apple is stepping back from the idiotic "flat" design fad and reintroducing a bit of proper GUI. Microsoft is just lost and flailing in the weeds.
  - FabHK 5y ago
    > Apple punts to disgraceful shit like peek-a-boo UI Just had to teach a relative how to save images attached to an email into Photos with macOS Mail: move around the mouse cursor somewhere above the email body and below the headers towards the middle, and a magic menu will appear with a paper clip on the right that reveals "Export to Photos". Why?
  - grishka 5y ago
    > At least Apple is stepping back from the idiotic "flat" design fad and reintroducing a bit of proper GUI. Looking at the screenshots of Big Sur (my mac is too old to install it), I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, they're doing more skeuomorphism in some places, especially icons. But in some other places, buttons are losing borders for this godforsaken "clean" look. But I do hope that the departure of Johny Ive is going to help with them going back to a good design. And it's very unfortunate that Apple doesn't have a visionary CEO any more. Tim Cook feels more concerned with investors than anything else.
neilsense 5y ago
Arghh, they should have conviction and pushed this one through. The latest design wastes so much space.
basisword 5y ago
This thread is the perfect example of why you should mostly ignore internet “outrage”. Some people disappointed because they liked the new (previous) design. Others bemoaning aspects of the new (beta 3) design. Others who have never used either bitching based on a couple of screenshots. You can’t please…anyone.
- montagg 5y ago
  When there are enough people, you'll see a plurality of every opinion.
- pindab0ter 5y ago
  That's why I'm hoping they'll stick to retaining the option—though knowing Apple, they'll probably axe that, too. I personally prefer the compact design, but I also understand people being confused over it or just not liking it. Giving people the option serves both groups.
cbmuser 5y ago
It would have been nice if the article contained screenshots of the current and the upcoming design so non-macOS users can get a impression of the changes.
- jackson1442 5y ago
  Here's what tabs in Safari look like now: https://media.welsh.cc/2jGRw1 https://media.welsh.cc/2jGRw1 And what the Monterey design was to start with: https://media.welsh.cc/ghhD24 https://media.welsh.cc/ghhD24 Worth noting that the tab bar in Monterey will adapt based on the site's `theme-color` meta tag.
robertoandred 5y ago
Note that the combined address/tab bar is the default, this separate bar redesign is now an option.
- om2 5y ago
  Other way around. Separate tab bar is now the default, combo bar is an option.
asdff 5y ago
All of these issues would be gone if companies like Apple offered the reigns for users to modify their software as needed. I'm running firefox with a competent ad blocker, no tab bar on top, and a sidebar of tabs that appears when I hover the mouse. Sure, it took some finagling with config files, but this sort of stuff should be possible and accessible on a computer. I really wish Safari and Apple in general took a different approach. Firefox shouldn't be the only game in town.
anthk 5y ago
Add slight 3D bezels and throw up that flat crap to the trash.
juancampa 5y ago
Personal computing won't be truly "personal" until we, the users (not $BIGCO's lead UX designer) get to decide how things look and behave on an individual level
- kevindong 5y ago
  One of Apple's core values is delegating very few choices to the end user. But the choices that are present are generally good. There is such a thing as too many choices.
  - juancampa 5y ago
    I agreed, but what if I don't like the way something works because it doesn't match my mental model or whatever? Why can't I change it? Or why is it prohibitively expensive to do it? The core issue is cost of course.
  - eyelidlessness 5y ago
    Agrees in 2003 KDE
- andybak 5y ago
  I lived through the days of skinnable apps and I never want to go back there again.
- sxg 5y ago
  There's a lot of value in NOT having to make those decisions. Most users don't want to think about how their computer or phone should work—they just want it to work out of the box. That requires sensible defaults and slowly introducing changes to adapt to evolving user behavior.
  - bellyfullofbac 5y ago
    To point a change I hate, Chrome on mobile now displays tabs as thumbnails instead of stacked like index cards: https://9to5google.com/2019/09/19/chrome-android-tab-grid/ https://9to5google.com/2019/09/19/chrome-android-tab-grid/ , a change I really dislike. I really wonder how that's adapting to evolving user behavior...
rubyist5eva 5y ago
That's unfortunate. I liked the new design and it made sense for saving vertical space. Whatever happened to "think different"?
- angulardragon03 5y ago
  I think the biggest issue for me was that you couldn’t consistently find your current tab in one single place - you could scroll away your active tab amongst the rest of them, hiding the address bar.
  - seumars 5y ago
    Same. I really liked the new approach, but from the screenshots I figured all tabs would stack from the left making their position more predictable. Instead the entire tab field starts at the center and moves to the left for each new tab making all tabs moving targets.
- wingworks 5y ago
  I believe you can still select the old (well new/old design) design.
  - gsnedders 5y ago
    The new design is still the default in Beta 3; the change is just the addition of the "Separate Tab Bar" option.
- grishka 5y ago
  Some things just work well the way they are and don't need change.
leucineleprec0n 5y ago
Thank God they did this, as is it was going to have me switch to chrome lol
cunthorpe 5y ago
This was obvious from the start. The new design was beautiful but it was an accessibility nightmare. This change looks pretty awful so I hope they just reach the Chrome v1 style and be done with it. Let's be honest, Chrome v1 was the peak of browser design and browsers are still trying and failing to improve it.
- bigbizisverywyz 5y ago
  Ironically enough I remember seeing the Chrome style tabs and thinking, hey, they really look like the NeXT tabs - cool! But I could be wrong.
- kitsunesoba 5y ago
  I dunno, I was never enamored with Chrome style tabs. They work ok, but they’re awkwardly tall (more so than needed for adequate hitbox size IMO), and visually they don’t fit in on anything but ChromeOS.
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  I haven’t heard any complaints about accessibility. Was it a usability nightmare? (Probably! I definitely winced looking at screenshots imagining all the moving targets.)
  - fregante 5y ago
    Each tab is a checkbox (selected or not), an input field, a drag handle for the page and a drag handle for the window, depending on how fast you start dragging and in which direction. If you hover it it shows a set of buttons, but if it’s focused the buttons disappear entirely and can’t be dragged or closed at all. They hid a few buttons in a tiny dropdown that appears on hover; They kept a completely useless clickable lock icon in the middle-ish of field so now there’s a little chance that, while trying to do any of the above, you’ll end up with a popup that you have to close instead.
  - zimpenfish 5y ago
    One example: You can't close other tabs directly once they've shrunk - you need to bring up a menu on the tab. If you do click on the left side of the tab (where the x would be), it'll expand and now your cursor is ... somewhere. Maybe over the x! Maybe over an extension icon! Maybe over another tab! Never mind, move the cursor to the x and oh no, you've missed it by a pixel and now you've activated the address box which also disables the x. Which means you now have to click somewhere else outside the address box and navigate back to the x for closing. (On a system where you have the infinite Fitts width of the menu bar, it seems perversely insane to have these tiny shifting boxes that mess you around.)
po 5y ago
I was really hoping for them to fix it but keep the toppy-tabs... Exactly this design but switch the url bar and the tab bar. If you think about the logical hierarchy of controls on a browser it should be: - global stuff (extensions, sidebar reveal button, etc...) - tabs - url, forward/back/reload buttons, etc.. If you're going to mix the global controls with url I still think the tabs should go on top (like real-world tabbed folders). Chrome gets this right and Safari should just copy them.
alex_smart 5y ago
Oh so this is where Firefox got their new tab design from!? Finally it makes sense, I kind of knew that this must be copied.
CPLNTN 5y ago
2030: Browsers tab bars take half of the vertical space of the screen
mark_l_watson 5y ago
I like the compact display, and was pleased to see that I could change Safari back to this mode from the View menu. Best of both worlds: if you only have a few tabs open, use the compact display, otherwise give up some vertical space for non-compact mode.

133 points by cpeterso 5y ago

Why is there so much padding around each tab? I guess it makes for clear click targets. Honestly was a fan of the old initial design, though I do lean towards compromising for more screen space.

amirmasoudabdol 5y ago
This is basically the side-effect of the rollback, and it really sucks. Now, they have to keep this wasteful design, and less tabs will _nicely_ fit into the bar. I don't think the initial design was great, but I like it more over this!
samtheprogram 5y ago
An assumption, but it seems to me and many others that they’ve been slowly moving to make macOS more touch interface friendly. I’m typically anti-touch screen on laptops as it drives the price up for a feature I personally almost never use, but there’s so many use cases particularly for a large portion of Apple’s user base working with digital media. Aside: A Lenovo Yoga -like MacBook would be cool, although I do like the Touch Bar for quickly moving around in media I’m listening to in the background (but I don’t think that’s enough to justify it).
- cabalos 5y ago
  I have a theory that they’re not actually intending to make it more touch friendly but rather they are trying to unify the interfaces between MacOS and iPadOS for when iPadOS supersedes MacOS. Slowly boiling the frog, so you don’t notice when they move iPadOS to the desktop.
  - eyelidlessness 5y ago
    It’s almost this but less extreme. They’re trying to unify the interfaces because they want to return to offering one app platform that isn’t sharply split. iOS started as an OS X variant with special consideration for touch, but forked Cocoa. The unification that’s happening now isn’t about bringing iOS to Macs, it’s about merging Cocoa-next back into upstream.
    - cabalos 5y ago
      I could see that. The reason I think it could be more extreme is the AppStore. I don’t have stats to back this up, but I would assume they make far more money from the iOS/iPadOs AppStore than Mac AppStore. It never truly caught on with the Mac, likely due to the long history of loading your own apps. Apple would love nothing more than to break this cycle.
- mr_toad 5y ago
  Management types seem to love poking at things. I’m not entirely joking - most of the Surface and iPad users I see at work are management/project-management.
npunt 5y ago
Your eyes deceive you. Prior MacOS versions have more overall padding (50pt) but it's put entirely within the tab itself. The new tabs have some margin between each tab and a much smaller padding within tabs, for overall what looks to be ~40pt. The new design sacrifices the 'X' hover-over on the left side of each tab, presumably in favor of an 'X' that overlaps the tab title.
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  This happens every time a significant redesign moves visual edges around in a way that has better visual separation. It’s almost always more space efficient, but with better affordance for poor eyesight and/or poor pointer coordination.
Austin_Conlon 5y ago
Maybe Apple designers tend to test on 32-inch Pro Display XDRs.
grishka 5y ago
> Why is there so much padding around each tab? Because it was designed by iOS people.

beezischillin 5y ago

I might be alone with this but I really dislike Apple increasing the overall height / element margins on the top controls of Safari. They've been consistently doing it bit by bit with each new release and it constantly feels like I'm losing screen estate that could be filled with content to bits that are not and that I rarely interact with enough to justify it taking up so much space. I really liked the slim header part of Safari previously, especially switching from Windows and its set of browser design conventions. I rarely if ever use the cursor to do anything with these controls because macOS has great gestures and it also has keyboard shortcuts to make the process feel a lot more result-oriented, rather than process-oriented with extra steps.

vptr 5y ago
On top of that add websites that take up half of your screen with adds and other marketing or paywall crap.
andyfleming 5y ago
It feels like they’ve been slowly moving towards a touch-friendly interface on MacOS. I’m not sure if they intend to have a desktop OS that truly supports a touch screen or if it’s more about slowly merging iOS and MacOS in general.
npunt 5y ago
I believe they've only increased the height once with the transition to Big Sur. And they reduced the height from Mavericks->Yosemite, so it's back to where it was during 10.1-10.9 days, just with one UI row + tabs instead of two + tabs. Are you thinking about something else?
- beezischillin 5y ago
  Yes! The Big Sur change, it annoyed me a lot. This new design also looks like it's continuing the trend.
psychometry 5y ago
Why do you use Safari then, the least extensible and customizable option for MacOS?

dilap 5y ago

Ah, too bad, I've grown to quite like the previous beta! I don't tend to have a gazillion tabs open though. I want my webpage to be as much page as possible, w/ as little chrome. I think there's some danger in listening to internet outrage as your design process -- every big change generates a lot of dislike, but that doesn't mean it's actually a bad change, or that most people dislike it, or even that the people who hate it at first won't come to like it.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
robertoandred 5y ago
The previous design is apparently still the default. This new design is an option.
- dilap 5y ago
  oh, sweet!
- syspec 5y ago
  Opposite. The new design is the default according to the article, but the old one is available by unchecking a setting
yunohn 5y ago
There was outrage all across the Internet, not just HN. I tried it out myself, and it was majorly disorienting. It was the sole reason I reverted from the public beta.
- joshmanders 5y ago
  On the flip side, this new Safari design was the sole reason I even installed the beta.
mark_l_watson 5y ago
You can reset compact mode from the View menu.

dom96 5y ago

wow, that design looks surprisingly Firefox-like.

wejick 5y ago
It is, the floating tab design

_jal 5y ago

I've really had enough of the minimalist, whitespace-everywhere trend. I've been turning off most notifications, because since the controls were hidden, they're basically useless noise that just hides useful controls. I know many designer-types want to get rid of the URL bar, but either butch up and fucking do it, or leave it as a useful tool. Quit shrinking it, overloading use, making it jump around another otherwise trying to make people not want to use it. Iphone screens waste a ton of real estate, and (at least to my eye), it isn't even pretty, it frequently just looks unfinished, like the designer gave up on the job. And so on.

PostThisTooFast 5y ago
Apple has long since given up on proper design. Instead of working through the necessity of presenting numerous options to the user and coming up with a proper hierarchical design, Apple punts to disgraceful shit like peek-a-boo UI, undisclosed hotkey combinations that reveal mystery menus, or "gestures." We were supposed to get a "total rewrite" of Finder years ago. What happened? And Spotlight is a clinic on shitty UI: WTF is the use of a search facility that doesn't show you WHERE it found things? How degenerated is design acumen (or even just basic sense) there that allows a design like this to not only make it out the door, but persist for a decade or more? Then again, Apple offered up a windowing GUI in which you couldn't resize windows from their edges... or even 3/4 of their corners... for 30 years. But Windows is far, far worse today. At least Apple is stepping back from the idiotic "flat" design fad and reintroducing a bit of proper GUI. Microsoft is just lost and flailing in the weeds.
- FabHK 5y ago
  > Apple punts to disgraceful shit like peek-a-boo UI Just had to teach a relative how to save images attached to an email into Photos with macOS Mail: move around the mouse cursor somewhere above the email body and below the headers towards the middle, and a magic menu will appear with a paper clip on the right that reveals "Export to Photos". Why?
- grishka 5y ago
  > At least Apple is stepping back from the idiotic "flat" design fad and reintroducing a bit of proper GUI. Looking at the screenshots of Big Sur (my mac is too old to install it), I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, they're doing more skeuomorphism in some places, especially icons. But in some other places, buttons are losing borders for this godforsaken "clean" look. But I do hope that the departure of Johny Ive is going to help with them going back to a good design. And it's very unfortunate that Apple doesn't have a visionary CEO any more. Tim Cook feels more concerned with investors than anything else.

neilsense 5y ago

Arghh, they should have conviction and pushed this one through. The latest design wastes so much space.

basisword 5y ago

This thread is the perfect example of why you should mostly ignore internet “outrage”. Some people disappointed because they liked the new (previous) design. Others bemoaning aspects of the new (beta 3) design. Others who have never used either bitching based on a couple of screenshots. You can’t please…anyone.

montagg 5y ago
When there are enough people, you'll see a plurality of every opinion.
pindab0ter 5y ago
That's why I'm hoping they'll stick to retaining the option—though knowing Apple, they'll probably axe that, too. I personally prefer the compact design, but I also understand people being confused over it or just not liking it. Giving people the option serves both groups.

cbmuser 5y ago

It would have been nice if the article contained screenshots of the current and the upcoming design so non-macOS users can get a impression of the changes.

jackson1442 5y ago
Here's what tabs in Safari look like now: https://media.welsh.cc/2jGRw1 https://media.welsh.cc/2jGRw1 And what the Monterey design was to start with: https://media.welsh.cc/ghhD24 https://media.welsh.cc/ghhD24 Worth noting that the tab bar in Monterey will adapt based on the site's `theme-color` meta tag.

robertoandred 5y ago

Note that the combined address/tab bar is the default, this separate bar redesign is now an option.

om2 5y ago
Other way around. Separate tab bar is now the default, combo bar is an option.

asdff 5y ago

All of these issues would be gone if companies like Apple offered the reigns for users to modify their software as needed. I'm running firefox with a competent ad blocker, no tab bar on top, and a sidebar of tabs that appears when I hover the mouse. Sure, it took some finagling with config files, but this sort of stuff should be possible and accessible on a computer. I really wish Safari and Apple in general took a different approach. Firefox shouldn't be the only game in town.

anthk 5y ago

Add slight 3D bezels and throw up that flat crap to the trash.

juancampa 5y ago

Personal computing won't be truly "personal" until we, the users (not $BIGCO's lead UX designer) get to decide how things look and behave on an individual level

kevindong 5y ago
One of Apple's core values is delegating very few choices to the end user. But the choices that are present are generally good. There is such a thing as too many choices.
- juancampa 5y ago
  I agreed, but what if I don't like the way something works because it doesn't match my mental model or whatever? Why can't I change it? Or why is it prohibitively expensive to do it? The core issue is cost of course.
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  Agrees in 2003 KDE
andybak 5y ago
I lived through the days of skinnable apps and I never want to go back there again.
sxg 5y ago
There's a lot of value in NOT having to make those decisions. Most users don't want to think about how their computer or phone should work—they just want it to work out of the box. That requires sensible defaults and slowly introducing changes to adapt to evolving user behavior.
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  To point a change I hate, Chrome on mobile now displays tabs as thumbnails instead of stacked like index cards: https://9to5google.com/2019/09/19/chrome-android-tab-grid/ https://9to5google.com/2019/09/19/chrome-android-tab-grid/ , a change I really dislike. I really wonder how that's adapting to evolving user behavior...

rubyist5eva 5y ago

That's unfortunate. I liked the new design and it made sense for saving vertical space. Whatever happened to "think different"?

angulardragon03 5y ago
I think the biggest issue for me was that you couldn’t consistently find your current tab in one single place - you could scroll away your active tab amongst the rest of them, hiding the address bar.
- seumars 5y ago
  Same. I really liked the new approach, but from the screenshots I figured all tabs would stack from the left making their position more predictable. Instead the entire tab field starts at the center and moves to the left for each new tab making all tabs moving targets.
wingworks 5y ago
I believe you can still select the old (well new/old design) design.
- gsnedders 5y ago
  The new design is still the default in Beta 3; the change is just the addition of the "Separate Tab Bar" option.
grishka 5y ago
Some things just work well the way they are and don't need change.

leucineleprec0n 5y ago

Thank God they did this, as is it was going to have me switch to chrome lol

cunthorpe 5y ago

This was obvious from the start. The new design was beautiful but it was an accessibility nightmare. This change looks pretty awful so I hope they just reach the Chrome v1 style and be done with it. Let's be honest, Chrome v1 was the peak of browser design and browsers are still trying and failing to improve it.

bigbizisverywyz 5y ago
Ironically enough I remember seeing the Chrome style tabs and thinking, hey, they really look like the NeXT tabs - cool! But I could be wrong.
kitsunesoba 5y ago
I dunno, I was never enamored with Chrome style tabs. They work ok, but they’re awkwardly tall (more so than needed for adequate hitbox size IMO), and visually they don’t fit in on anything but ChromeOS.
eyelidlessness 5y ago
I haven’t heard any complaints about accessibility. Was it a usability nightmare? (Probably! I definitely winced looking at screenshots imagining all the moving targets.)
- fregante 5y ago
  Each tab is a checkbox (selected or not), an input field, a drag handle for the page and a drag handle for the window, depending on how fast you start dragging and in which direction. If you hover it it shows a set of buttons, but if it’s focused the buttons disappear entirely and can’t be dragged or closed at all. They hid a few buttons in a tiny dropdown that appears on hover; They kept a completely useless clickable lock icon in the middle-ish of field so now there’s a little chance that, while trying to do any of the above, you’ll end up with a popup that you have to close instead.
- zimpenfish 5y ago
  One example: You can't close other tabs directly once they've shrunk - you need to bring up a menu on the tab. If you do click on the left side of the tab (where the x would be), it'll expand and now your cursor is ... somewhere. Maybe over the x! Maybe over an extension icon! Maybe over another tab! Never mind, move the cursor to the x and oh no, you've missed it by a pixel and now you've activated the address box which also disables the x. Which means you now have to click somewhere else outside the address box and navigate back to the x for closing. (On a system where you have the infinite Fitts width of the menu bar, it seems perversely insane to have these tiny shifting boxes that mess you around.)

po 5y ago

I was really hoping for them to fix it but keep the toppy-tabs... Exactly this design but switch the url bar and the tab bar. If you think about the logical hierarchy of controls on a browser it should be: - global stuff (extensions, sidebar reveal button, etc...) - tabs - url, forward/back/reload buttons, etc.. If you're going to mix the global controls with url I still think the tabs should go on top (like real-world tabbed folders). Chrome gets this right and Safari should just copy them.

alex_smart 5y ago

Oh so this is where Firefox got their new tab design from!? Finally it makes sense, I kind of knew that this must be copied.

CPLNTN 5y ago

2030: Browsers tab bars take half of the vertical space of the screen

mark_l_watson 5y ago

I like the compact display, and was pleased to see that I could change Safari back to this mode from the View menu. Best of both worlds: if you only have a few tabs open, use the compact display, otherwise give up some vertical space for non-compact mode.