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Redesigning the browser window

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Re: Redesigning the browser window

#31

Post by tiddchristopher »

dagw wrote: post #19
tryp wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except now your fonts are rendered like trash because the subpixel rendering and hinting assumes each RGB pixel triplet is in a horizontal line.

I know nothing about the technical details of font rendering algorithms, but isn't that just an implementation detail? How hard would it be to write a font rendering algorithm that works when each RGB triplet is a vertical line? And having done that how hard would it be to implement a font renderer that switches between the two algorithms depending on screen orientation?

My gut reaction is that well-made typefaces for digital use, which are often designed with hinting in mind, would lose their benefits. For most fonts, though, it shouldn't make a difference whether antialiasing or subpixel rendering is done vertically or horizontal, and I know you can manually specify your subpixel information in Linux.

Edit: natesm posted a response to the grandparent of this comment with a screenshot of the subpixel orientation selection in Ubuntu.

Re: Redesigning the browser window

#34

Post by Tomek_ »

skrebbel wrote: post #12

Opera allows you to set the tab bar on your left (with little page screenshots) for years already. Works pretty well on large, wide screens.

It's quite buggy though, e.g. with many tabs opened the "open new tab" button disappears or that you can't switch easily between thumbnails/no-thumbnails view, etc. Hope the good guys and girls at Opera will take notice of the OP and will work on some improvements in this area.

PS. also worth noting that Opera allows for easily grouping of tabs in the manner similar to the one described in OP (no naming though, fortunately (in my opinion at least)).

Re: Redesigning the browser window

#35

Post by adimitrov »

I'm already doing this with Opera, and I think Opera has it figured out a bit better, too. The curious thing here is, I guess, that I not only don't have an Apple Cinema display, I don't have a wide-screen display at all, and I even pivot my monitor by 90 degrees (the one I browse the web on.) I've made the experience that having a tall browser window is much more useful than having a wide browser window.

See the screenshot: http://imgur.com/3lFAN

I like the big pictures on the tab buttons — gives me a visual idea of what I'm clicking on. I also like the tab stacks Opera implemented a while ago, even though I still have a couple of peeves with 'em.

One thing he's totally right about, though: address bars are largely wasted screen space. I'd like to only see them on newly opened tabs or so…

Re: Redesigning the browser window

#36

Post by adimitrov »

ristretto wrote: post #3

i would vouch for a "page-only" browser window with hover controls. like a video player

Video player's hidden controls react to mouse movement in the screen area though, a web browser would need a different heuristic — like moving the mouse close to where the controls should be or somesuch.

There's people arguing, of course, that that's really poor usability, because you can't see what you can do. I guess it's a matter of taste as much as anything, and it's probably more of a power-user thing.)

Re: Redesigning the browser window

#38

Post by shapoopy »

jokermatt999 wrote: post #25
ristretto wrote: post #3

i would vouch for a "page-only" browser window with hover controls. like a video player

This is probably possible through some extensions and Firefox. The much loved TreeStyleTabs already has an option for "autohide the tab bar". If Pentadactyl/Vimperator don't already have an option for autohiding, it's probably pretty easy to script something up.

Pentadactyl/Vimperator do absolutely have that (set showtabline=never).

I use Pentadactyl, and a Shift-B (show buffers) followed by a gt will get me to wherever I need to go.

This is, of course, not discoverable, and therefore not really suitable for the demographic whose problems this article is hoping to solve, but for someone who's willing to put some time into learning a program (or who already uses vim), it's pretty spot-on. I, for one, love it.

I should add that the problems this article is trying to solve really ought to be solved through a thorough integration of the browser tab-system with the window manager. That, of course, necessitates a thorough rethinking of the window manager, also. But that was the problem tabs alleviated in the first place, right?

The WIMP model really is the walking dead.

Re: Redesigning the browser window

#39

Post by officemonkey »

derefr wrote: post #11

Regarding the use of horizontal space: This is what the Reading List feature of Safari 5 is for. (Example for comparison: http://i.imgur.com/x2tkl.png ) Tabs are really only supposed to be used for things you're actually looking at simultaneously ; any time you're just middle-clicking everything on a page (e.g. the HN frontpage), in order to queue those pages up for reading after you close the index page, you should…

I just booted up Safari (for the first time since I installed Lion) and tried out the "Reading List".

The main reason I don't like it is that the reading list doesn't load the page until you click on it. When I create a tab, it loads and opens the page and it's ready when I navigate to it. I navigate to a reading list page and I have to wait a non-trivial amount of time for the page to load.

I understand why you would do this for a mobile browser (to reduce data charges for pages that might never be opened), but that doesn't matter to my desktop machine.

Safari could mostly fix this by preemptively loading the neighboring pages in your reading list. Until then, I'll stay with my tabs in Chrome, thanks.

Re: Redesigning the browser window

#40

Post by rplnt »

ristretto wrote: post #3

i would vouch for a "page-only" browser window with hover controls. like a video player

Some browsers do that in full-screen mode now. By the way, in Opera you can configure browser that way so toolbars will auto-hide. You can assign shortcut or a gesture to them. Hovering isn't a good idea because it will eaither have to move the page (which is distracting and annoying when you do it on accident) or cover the page (which could block some content). So having it on gesture and/or shortuct would be the best way in my opinion. If you want the toolbarless experience. (I personally don't)
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