Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Redesigning the browser window

blogg.antrop.se

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 104 posts

Re: Redesigning the browser window

#91

Post by etcet »

kragen wrote: post #84

I've thought for a while that we need to switch to multicolumn views for web browsing: http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-tol/2006-Novembe... , "multicolumn web browsers": > So the solution generally adopted --- in newspapers, dictionaries, and research papers --- is to lay out the text in multiple columns. > With Apple's 30-inch-diagonal 100dpi display widely available and > multiple-screen solutions becomi…

I'm going to use this opportunity to shamelessly plug a hack of Readability that I call Horizontability[0]. It just displays the usual Readability output in multicolumns with some javascript hooks to help navigation. For whatever reason, I can't seem to drag the bookmarklet in Chrome anymore[1].

Chrome's side tab implementation really needs some help. I appreciate being able to read more of the tab title, but they really don't save much space (the window bar is still present but it shrinks by like 2 pixels). I'm surprised it still doesn't work on Linux[2]. I checked out the source earlier and it's easy enough to understand but there's no way I can get chromium to build on my box.

[0] http://etcet.net/projects/horizontal/index.html

[1] maybe related to http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=12290

[2] http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=31763

Re: Redesigning the browser window

#93

Post by quizbiz »

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…

Thanks for the reading list insight. But I'm surprised reading list isn't paired with any kind of note taking system.

I have been dying for a sidebar solution where I can take notes and write while I read a webpage. As it is, I always have Notational Velocity open on the right and Safari open on the left.

Re: Redesigning the browser window

#94

Post by watmough »

beaumartinez wrote: post #4

The real problem isn't the browser. It's the screen. Large horizontal 16:9 screens are great for video but poor for text and pages. In similar iOS style, screens should be rotatable and shift their content accordingly. Watching a video? Great, put the screen to horizontal. Browsing the web? Writing a letter? Coding? Put the screen to vertical.

I have an external 1280x1024 screen, and I've switched it to portrait. I wish I'd done it long ago, as it's perfect for Xcode help docs, and for reading PDFs generally. It also runs the iPad simulator without scrollbars, but sadly only when it's the primary screen.

I totally agree with you.

Re: Redesigning the browser window

#95

Post by crazygringo »

tjoff wrote: post #89

You don't run applications maximized. You just don't. Sure there are exceptions, such as photoshop and similar but for browsing there is a reason for why the only thing you might miss with a width of no more than 1024 pixels (or even less) are commercials, and for why we have columns in newspapers... Thats why, even with widescreens, the horizontal real estate is very important and why you can't waste it. Sure, the v…

Maybe it's you and large monitors. On my laptop, I run everything maximized, and Alt+Tab is my best friend. My biggest gripe about OSX is that it's not built for this -- I literally need to define a separate space for every application I use, just so I don't have a horrible jumble of windows. And unfortunately still can't Alt+Tab between windows of the same app... :(

Re: Redesigning the browser window

#96

Post by a5huynh »

crazygringo wrote: post #95
tjoff wrote: post #89

You don't run applications maximized. You just don't. Sure there are exceptions, such as photoshop and similar but for browsing there is a reason for why the only thing you might miss with a width of no more than 1024 pixels (or even less) are commercials, and for why we have columns in newspapers... Thats why, even with widescreens, the horizontal real estate is very important and why you can't waste it. Sure, the v…

Maybe it's you and large monitors. On my laptop, I run everything maximized, and Alt+Tab is my best friend. My biggest gripe about OSX is that it's not built for this -- I literally need to define a separate space for every application I use, just so I don't have a horrible jumble of windows. And unfortunately still can't Alt+Tab between windows of the same app... :(

I'm sure if you're talking about Windows or OSX ( due to the Alt+Tab ambiguity ) but in OSX you can do Cmd + ` to tab between windows of the same app.

Re: Redesigning the browser window

#98

Post by jrockway »

2009 called. It wants conkeror and xmonad back:

http://web.mit.edu/nelhage/Public/conkeror-dir.png

(In other words, this browsing experience has been available for years. While that's not a picture of my desktop, that's pretty much what it looks like. No tab bar, no window chrome. Just the content and a tiny bit of state information. Emacs has also looked like this for ... 30 years or so.)

Re: Redesigning the browser window

#99

Post by derefr »

officemonkey wrote: post #39
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 woul…

> 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.

If you've ever gone on a Wikipedia/TVTropes/Everything2/other-heavily-intralinked-website-here binge, you'd be thankful for the fact that the reading list doesn't load the pages you hand it until you're actually reading them. 3000 open tabs will kill any web browser I'm aware of; 3000 reading list entries is just 3000 items in a list.

Re: Redesigning the browser window

#100

Post by adimitrov »

justinschuh wrote: post #55
adimitrov wrote: post #35

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 scr…

The address bar is the only security indicator you have in the browser. Hiding it to the extent you're suggesting leaves you pretty much defenseless against phishing attacks.

One could imagine some sort of indicator on the tabs. Or some sort of indicator around input/form fields, etc.
Post reply on HN