Detached tab functionality killed with 9.5/9.6

Detached tab functionality killed with 9.5/9.6

Although 9.5 has improved a few things, unfortunately it also killed a few important things in UI.

Luckily single key shortcuts can be enabled, but the detached tab functionailty has disappeared.

In 9.27 you could detach a tab by dragging it to the window taskbar. It gave you the page in a nkaed child tab without anything else (no adressbar, no menu etc).
It had some marvelous characteristics:
- You could give it a place on your desktop (or second monitor), and it would remember that place!
- You could save it all as a session and it would restore nicely when opening that session.
- All keyboard shortcuts went to the main window, as (F2 opening a new page/nick) or a shortcut to the unread mail inbox. Very important! (strangely in a new window though in 9.27, but on the right spot)
- shift click opened the link (strangely in a new window) but on the place of the main window
- it had a different icon in the window taskbar, so you could easily recognize it.

It was made for:
-internetbanking
-investmentcharts
-specific mail views
-any page that was important to have it's own special place and be open all day
-irc chats (according to Rijk)

Especially nice if you have a large desktop, because there was no need anymore to switch tabs to read information. Simply detach the tab.

Why was it killed? As I understood because people got confused because it was possible to close the main Opera window and be left with the naked child tab?
Next time Opera opened without menu, toolbars etc.

Solution: let the close main window trigger closing all child tabs first!

Now we have a unworkable situation in 9.5/9.6, because detach tab is now `open tab in new window`
Awful:
1 It's always starts in front
2 It always starts on the wrong place, you always have to drag
3 Saving sessions can now on several places, you have two windows/menu's. It really acts confusing now
4 Shortcuts go to the window that has focus. Same as external links from pdfs or opening local files. So a you end up opening pages on several places/windows, mailboxes on several places/windows etc. That's confusing!!!!!
5 Dialogues start opening up on wrong places

Why not restore the old 9.27 behaviour (and add a detach page in new window possibility for people that don't understand the power of child tabs). And improve:
- shift clicked links/shorcuts in the child tab will open in the mother window
- close main window is close child tabs first.

Jan

Nobody seems to be interested in this matter, but I want to make on additional comment to clarify on the shortcuts.

IMHO A detached tab should act exactly like a normal tab, just positioned outside the opera window somewhere on desktop
9.27 wasn't bad, but all keyboard shortcuts should also go to the main window not a new window.

This may or may not be related.
I just upgraded to 9.62 from 9.21 and noticed that the ctrl+tab to recycle thru the tabs has lost its highlighting. I no longer know which tab I'm switching to.

@Redwald ... that's some sort of a skin issue, try another skin.

This thread didn't receive much comment as there's an older thread on the original topic. There's also another thread on your skin issue.

Originally posted by JanGen:

Nobody seems to be interested in this matter...

That's only seemingly true, there are some threads and lots of complaints but OPERA devs don't give much on those wishes!
Why they do act so reluctantly is unclear to me, as V9.27 is working fine with regard to this detaching...

Also V9.27 has correct indication of completed downloads and lots of other things, e.g. those automatic email tracking with active contacts and threads, which they dumped recently...

Therefore my preferred version has still to be V9.27, if all these features don't come back again I'll give up on OPERA.
Once and forever, presumably ...

I also stopped recommending OPERA since a long time as some useful browser to others, simply because of its policy regarding
always changing user interfaces and removing useful features W/O any reasons or explanations.

A stance, many longtime users of OPERA could not follow, which really made their life -- and mine --- sour!

Therefore my preferred version has still to be V9.27

Same here. I still using 9.27 as main browser at work.

oh yes, i have really missed this

…not very helpful, I know… But, if you save a detached tab from 9.27 as a named session, 10 (and presumably others) will open it in the old style.

Originally posted by OakdaleFTL:

…not very helpful, I know… But, if you save a detached tab from 9.27 as a named session, 10 (and presumably others) will open it in the old style.

Cool discovery! Will try this.
But don't tell Rijk about it, because he will call this a bug and they will wipe out even this.

You could even attach the session file here, then we can all see what it is your moaning about.

@FataL: Yikes! I hadn't thought of that…

Here's the file: old test. (This will open the Opera for Mac forum in an old-style detached window, if opened via Opera's sessions menu.)

Originally posted by OakdaleFTL:

Here's the file: old test. (This will open the Opera for Mac forum in an old-style detached window.)

Works!

Amazing, isn't it? Does this reproduce the detach behavior you want?

Originally posted by OakdaleFTL:

Amazing, isn't it? Does this reproduce the detach behavior you want?

Shure it is! And your tip can be useful sometimes.
But I want detach any tab without 10-steps procedure:

1. Run Opera 9.x
   
2. Open a link in Opera 9.x
   
3. Detach a tab
   
4. Save a session
   
5. Close Opera 9.x
   
6. Copy that session .win file to Opera 10 sessions dir
   
7. Open that session in Opera 10

Now that I tried it I can see why this feature has been disabled, and hope it never sees the light of day again.

Open the detached tab session, close the main Opera window, then close the detached tab, and restart Opera from last time.

Great! No main toolbar, no menu, no speed dial, no personal bar, just an address bar. Almost impossible for a noobie to recover from this situation. In the end I did Ctrl Alt Delete and started Opera with my Home page.

Originally posted by FataL:

I want detach any tab without 10-steps procedure:

You don't need to follow all of those steps. Just browse to the desired URL from the detached tab, and save the session again, or as a new session if you wish. F2 will show the Go To URL dialogue.

Didn't you see anything interesting in the .win file? (It's only a text file…) There are Opera users who bemoan the lack of an add-ons API… You've got the information you need to create the function you miss; it obviously still works — you just need to implement it to suit: The sessions file I posted was actually created by Opera 10, which shared (some) installation folders with 9.27… (A goof, on my part!) If your OS includes a decent scripting language, you should be able to create a "does it all in one click" button easily enough!
(And I don't see anything particular or peculiar to 9.27 in that file.)

Let's see if Firefox can offer something like it…

The image is of that window, whose sessions file was opened in Opera, as a local-host text file; source opened in Opera, and changes made (window size…) and saved (yes, I knew where…); then opened via the sessions menu (no restart required). Go figure!
The one-click out-of-the-box mentality is killing computer literacy!

Originally posted by Pesala:

Now that I tried it I can see why this feature has been disabled, and hope it never sees the light of day again.

Because people who don't know what they're doing, don't really know what they want to do, don't know when what they're doing isn't what they wanted or why, and have pre-conceived notions they'll cling to, no matter what.
You're not a multiple-monitor guy, are you, Pesala?

Originally posted by OakdaleFTL:

You're not a multiple-monitor guy

It makes no difference. If you have two monitors, then open another Opera Window, i.e. detach a tab the way it works now.

Opera has a reputation (well deserved IMO) as an "only for Geeks" browser, which it needs to get away from if it is to become a major player in the browser market. Detached tabs without any menus or toolbars, and no easy way to recover from that situation, is just the kind of thing that reinforces that perception of Opera that new users often have. Any new program is hard enough to learn, even for experienced PC users, without cul-de-sacs like detached tabs.

Experienced Opera users can always find a work around, as this thread shows, but to reintroduce this detached tab behaviour would be foolish.

Originally posted by Pesala:

even for experienced PC users

I'm prejudiced: "experienced PC users" means –to me– inexperienced computer users… Sorry, but that's what I've seen.

Originally posted by Pesala:

to reintroduce this detached tab behaviour would be foolish

As the default behavior; there, I'd agree. But noobs might appreciate a speed dial window that doesn't go away… (Just one use of this function.)

Originally posted by Pesala:

Open the detached tab session, close the main Opera window, then close the detached tab, and restart Opera from last time.
Great! No main toolbar, no menu, no speed dial, no personal bar, just an address bar.

True. But this should have been fixed instead just killing unique (creating simple widget from a page in one click) and useful feature.
For example, such GUI-less windows should convert to normal ones on startup if there is no normal window presented.

or simply restore the function as a display mode (similar to Full Screen mode)... I'll called it Compact Window mode.

Then, add a command/shortcut to allow user to toggle all active toolbars inside a window to HIDE/RESTORE at once.

BTW, about noobs. Noobs have much worse problem here. Lets say someone opened 20 tabs in one window (window #1) and has "Continue from last time" option enabled (this is default). All is good until a noob will open another window (#2) and opened couple tabs in it. He switching back and forth between these two windows and finally end up closing window #1 before #2. What will happen on next startup? Our noob will be highly surprised to loose all important tabs! Now lets kill the windows?

Originally posted by Pesala:

You don't need to follow all of those steps. Just browse to the desired URL from the detached tab, and save the session again, or as a new session if you wish. F2 will show the Go To URL dialogue.

So what you propose is that I should have session called say "gui-less" and when I want to open some site w/o GUI I should open this session and then navigate anywhere?
This is pretty good optimization of initial "10-steps solution". Now it is just two steps.