Rijk - Google & Firefox think Opera got it right after all

Google & Firefox think Opera got it right after all

Sunday, November 6, 2005 2:20:06 AM

Firefox user interface developer Ben Goodger, payed by Google, tells about usability tests they have been doing. Conclusions: a close button that is not on the tab is hardly noticed, and returning to the originating page after closing a tab is often expected behavior.

The title of this posting is a bit cheeky, after all Opera is not the only browser that opted for close buttons on tabs. Safari and Epiphany preceded us.

Merlin: shortcuts and buttons for all settingsMost used commands in Opera

Comments

scipio # Sunday, November 6, 2005 9:26:22 AM

I like his reply to the comment pointing out that Opera already is like that:

(...) LOL. I just tested Opera 8.02 and you're right. And we thought we were so clever for coming up with this heuristic. -_-;

He really didn't know...

Danieldan1el # Sunday, November 6, 2005 12:20:19 PM

Nice!

Rijk # Sunday, November 6, 2005 6:26:51 PM

I predict that, if this change goes into 1.5 (which might not be the case BTW), it will be as popular as Opera 9's Ctrl+N/Ctrl+T switch.

We get enough users that come from Firefox to Opera asking if tab-closing-order can be done the Firefox way, I think both ...

saito # Monday, November 7, 2005 9:59:01 AM

Next, they will have 'Alt+Z' and 'Alt+X' soon

Or trash can beside URL bar, instead of 'x'

'Inspired' is useful expression for such a kind of people

Przemysławarkeo # Saturday, November 12, 2005 5:04:28 PM

In Konqueror is the option to show close button on a tab.

Anonymous # Wednesday, November 30, 2005 9:40:25 AM

cr0ft writes: Personally that's the first thing I hunt down in the settings windows after a new install - disable the close button on all page tabs. Just wastes space on my screen when I have tons of pages (not tabs darn it...) :)

Rijk # Wednesday, November 30, 2005 10:57:45 AM

Research shows ... You are not a newbie

Dariodalu # Monday, December 5, 2005 7:31:24 AM

close button: ugly
close with middle mouse key: nice

returning to the originating page: I don't like it. Usually when reading forum posts i tend to keep a lot of tabs open, wich makes going back to the original list "on close" a little awkward: i just selected the topics to read, no need to return to the homepage BEFORE reading them all...

Anonymous # Saturday, December 10, 2005 3:03:52 AM

Anonymous writes: if you use niftywindows, the middlebutton is useless. option to turn on close buttons on tabs is heavily recommended! cheers