Showcase

Showcase

Hello Opera developers, hello users.

I was glad to hear Opera started to work on Tab Manager, but when I tried the new feature it made me worried. I suggest Opera should implement Showcase, which is present in Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox, the reason I sometimes use those browses. It is very convenient to have 4-9 tabs in one browser window, previewable all at once:




The preview refresh rate could be made customizable. I ask for this feature in Opera 10, PLEASE.

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If Opera allow Visual tabs to work on multiple lines wrapping, then we can actually make it look like Quick Tabs or Showcase...

What the... ?

Opera can tile it's webpages. That's called an MDI interface and it's been there forever. Just right-click a tab and go into "Arrange" menu.

Hi malsumis,

Originally posted by malsumis:

What the... ?

Opera can tile it's webpages. That's called an MDI interface and it's been there forever. Just right-click a tab and go into "Arrange" menu.

The [...] is that the MDI interface is very inconvenient, really different from Showcase: you every time have to right-click > choose arrange > left-click again in order to arrange tabs. Then if you choose (maximize) a tab, the rest stay reszed to small ones. This is rather inconvenient, unlike Showcase.

Best regards.

Don't forget you can use multiple windows as well as tabs, allowing you to organise and group your tabs together.

As another poster mentions, once visual tabs support wrap to multiple lines, as well as tab-bar left/right placement (instead of at the top), we will have the most flexible tab & preview system there is.

For this reason I voted "no"; although Opera's implementation is different, it feels more flexible for me, especially when it's finished. It would be nice if the auto-refresh options for speeddials were a little more refined though.

Seb

Originally posted by Opera-Browser-Fan:

Hi malsumis,

Originally posted by malsumis:

What the... ?

Opera can tile it's webpages. That's called an MDI interface and it's been there forever. Just right-click a tab and go into "Arrange" menu.

The [...] is that the MDI interface is very inconvenient, really different from Showcase: you every time have to right-click > choose arrange > left-click again in order to arrange tabs. Then if you choose (maximize) a tab, the rest stay reszed to small ones. This is rather inconvenient, unlike Showcase.

Best regards.

If the only thing that is bothering you is that you have to click two times, instead of one, please drop a button onto a toolbar of your preference.

Also, theres an option to maximize all tabs, so I guess you never tried what I proposed. For this, you can also have a button. I think theres no "maximize all" button in the default set so please use the really simple Opera Button Maker tool for all you button needs: http://nontroppo.org/tools/buttonmaker/

Hi sebt, hi dude09 again.

Originally posted by dude09:

If Opera allow Visual tabs to work on multiple lines wrapping, then we can actually make it look like Quick Tabs or Showcase

This would be better than nothing, great idea and I second it, yet I would insist on Showcase too.

Originally posted by sebt:

Don't forget you can use multiple windows as well as tabs, allowing you to organise and group your tabs together.

As another poster mentions, once visual tabs support wrap to multiple lines, as well as tab-bar left/right placement (instead of at the top), we will have the most flexible tab & preview system there is.

For this reason I voted "no"; although Opera's implementation is different, it feels more flexible for me, especially when it's finished. It would be nice if the auto-refresh options for speeddials were a little more refined though.

I'm looking forward to "the most flexible tab & preview system there is", but I also would like Showcase, to see all tabs within a browser's window, to navigate on them with mouse wheels and cursor keys. I too know of the ability to open several tabs in several windows, but I do prefer no more than 2 Opera windows open with 4-12 tabs. Thank you for the tip and for voting.

Is there a huge problem with the Showcase-like (or Expose-like) implementation in Opera, perhaps as an option ? The preview engine there is, why not to enable a Showcase-like layout!

I'm not gonna criticise Opera its Showcase is not 1:1 Firefox's replica, but I do request these please:

1. Showcase-like, or let's say Expose-like tab preview layout, with all previews on one sheet, with scrollbar when needed
2. Ability to navigate along the preview tabs with the keyboard left/right/up/down keys and mouse wheels
3. The tab previews should be live, live enough to see a web-page loading progress

This idea has been brought up before, by me too in other users' posts. But my own poll shows now nobody wants it but me. Well, too bad for me, or shall my hope die last ?

Seems to me that thumbnails are limited in size, what they probably ought to do is just have a way to "maximize" the new tab bar and automatically add extra lines if the tab bar is bigger than one row of thumbnails would support.

Maximize all is an option on the tab bar context menu (under Arrange) or on the Window menu (if enabled - or that's the context menu on the background when all tabs are minimized).

I would appreciate it if thumbnails actually showed the part of the page that is in view, if you've scrolled the page the thumbnail still shows the top of the page.

Originally posted by sgunhouse:

Seems to me that thumbnails are limited in size, what they probably ought to do is just have a way to "maximize" the new tab bar and automatically add extra lines if the tab bar is bigger than one row of thumbnails would support.
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That's great, just try Firefox with the Showcase add-on, really ty it for a couple of hours, then try Opera 10 Beta and judge for yourself which is better.

Ok, I see, dead idea for cookies, dead idea for showcase, thank you very much guys. See you then.

You give up too easy. Have any of the developers commented? We have our opinions, but we don't make decisions on this stuff.

Hi sgunhouse,

You give up too easy. Have any of the developers commented? We have our opinions, but we don't make decisions on this stuff.

I didn't give up, in fact, this is not the first time I bring this up. This tiime I made my own thread where I suggested, illustrated, described what I suggest and why, replied - does this mean I gave up? If you mean not to lose hope, ok, I am looking forward to showcase.

Apart from the thumbnail size, adding the wrapping/placement options (mentioned by me) and showing the part of the page in view (nice, mentioned by steve), it really doesn't seem that Opera's visual tabs are much different to showcase (except that I prefer the idea, especially when placing on the left for widescreen real-estate, and supporting wrapping, works)

I can see a few problems with the "showcase" model:

1. It's a confusing bedfellow with speed-dial. Users may get confused visually between the speed-dial and showcase views ie. are the page previews for my tabs or are they for favourites?

2. It doesn't really sit well with Opera's existing UI. I suppose "showcase tab" activated by a key or button, could work in Opera, but it would have to be visually distinct from speed-dial to avoid the confusion in (1)

Seb

Originally posted by sebt:

it really doesn't seem that Opera's visual tabs are much different to showcase

Showcase will activate selected tab with just a single click & then closed the showcase tab automatically - allow you to access the chosen tab immediately. But visual tabs will only activate a tab, the whole screen will be still covered with thumbnails - you need to hide the visual tabs manually after selected a tab...

Also, showcase can display ALL tabs from all windows, but Visual tabs can only display ALL tabs in current window.

Originally posted by dude09:

Showcase will activate selected tab with just a single click & then closed the showcase tab automatically - allow you to access the chosen tab immediately. But visual tabs will only activate a tab, the whole screen will be still covered with thumbnails - you need to hide the visual tabs manually after selected a tab...

Good point, exactly what I think about the advantage of showcase, it is very convenient to be able to navigate along tabs with mouse wheels\keyboard arrows, and when selecting (click, space, or enter) a tab to have the chosen tab activated with the rest of tabs restored to their size (they were before showcasing). In this, Opera's visual tabs are really different from showcase, and they don't give you the ease and the expose-like convenient picture of tabs open. This ishandy indeed: showcase > see what yo have > pick one > and there you are, UNLIKE the current opera 10 visual tabs or this MDI tiling interface.

Originally posted by dude09:

Also, showcase can display ALL tabs from all windows, but Visual tabs can only display ALL tabs in current window.

Good idea too, as an option to see the tabs from all Opera windows or only from the active Opera window.



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Originally posted by Seb:

It's a confusing bedfellow with speed-dial. Users may get confused visually between the speed-dial and showcase views ie. are the page previews for my tabs or are they for favourites?

First of all, all points are good including the opponents', but come on Seb, are you gonna really get confused if the opera showcase window has somewhat differnt design and tab arrangement than that in Speed-Dial? If the showcase gets invoked by a speciall icon/menu/hotkey, won't you be able to realize what's going on? Last, the showcase can have a title on top, "SHOWCASE."

Originally posted by Seb:

It doesn't really sit well with Opera's existing UI. I suppose "showcase tab" activated by a key or button, could work in Opera, but it would have to be visually distinct from speed-dial to avoid the confusion

Using FF's both the speed-dial and the showcase can give the feel, just as an example of using the both. Sure there's a chance they're gonna look different. Just in case if not, I too second the idea to make them distinguishable.




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I think showcase would be very good, and there can be both the Showcase and the Visual tabs, two ways of tab arrangements, whichever you like better. Noone is gonna be forcd to use either type, if you don't want you can remove the button and not use the feature.

Showcase is a very good idea to implement, I think:

- it'll show previews and give convenient access to all tabs. No need to open 5 or 7 Opera wndows to Flip3D between them, tabs will be exposed instead. I like to Flip3D sometimes, but I definitely prefer to showcase in diffeent browsers.

- it should allow to move between the tabs exposed with a mouse wheel and wth left\right\up\down. I personally often use my simple 4-wheel mouse with keyboard, which makes my interaction with the OS faster

Showcase is a very good idea, it proved usable in other browses, although it does not come exclusivey from IE or FF.

Opera must finally get this feature.

Originally posted by Opera-Browser-Fan:

First of all, all points are good including the opponents', but come on Seb, are you gonna really get confused if the opera showcase window has somewhat differnt design and tab arrangement than that in Speed-Dial? If the showcase gets invoked by a speciall icon/menu/hotkey, won't you be able to realize what's going on? Last, the showcase can have a title on top, "SHOWCASE."

Not personally, no, but also I deal with lots of people who are new to Opera, and don't see the browser has anything more than "the internet". For them, such confusion would be inevitable. It's a bit like explaining the difference between the system tray, the running programs buttons, and the system tray buttons, to a newbie who's never before used Windows.

Opera has in the past been criticised for having too many features on display for new users to handle. This is the appeal of Firefox; basic, IE-like browser interface that doesn't frighten people. Using the tab metaphor for page-previews is more intuitive for new users and converts, imo.

It's not that I think the idea is all bad, it has more to do with the fact that I just don't think it's very important. Given the choice between spending limited development resources on yet another tab preview system, or refining the existing one to support thumbnail wrapping, LHS/RHS placement and some kind of preview update is a better use of resources for the 10.0 release, imo.

This is one of those issues that comes from the perspective of being used to and liking how another browser works, and wanting Opera to clone that behaviour. I have used showcase on IE8 and the FF extension, and it doesn't really excite me so much. Developing a browser is more about innovating rather than pandering, and Opera has mainly been about innovation. I think it would be better to pour energy into improving the tab system as a whole - because at the moment, all browsers suffer the same issue, that when we have more than 15 tabs open, the whole system becomes counter intuitive regardless of preview method. Perhaps tab groups, and some way to manage and connect tabs during a browsing session. In any case, this discussion is should probably not continue in this forum.

Seb

IMHO, showcase is pretty much useless if you have less than 10 tabs opened... Visual tabs are perfect for this.
But showcase will become a good solution when you have a lot of pages opened, because tabs will become too small to be useful in this situation.

Personally, I browse without the Page bar most of the time because it's not very useful to me, as I always have more than 10 tabs opened. Thus I setup shortcut to toggle between Window Cycle list & Page bar. The visual tabs are quite useful as it allow me to jump between tabs quickly & organize tabs more precisely... Now, I'm just waiting for Visual tabs to support multiple lines wrapping & preferably hover activation UI.

Let's face it, Tabbed browsing have it's limits & it failed miserably when you have a lot of pages opened... We'll have to wait & see if the Visual tabs can solve this problem. If Visual tabs is not good enough (when it's officially completed), then Showcase just might be the solution for those who constantly have a lot of pages opened.

Another useful idea for Showcase would be combined it with parallel browsing function (aka Multi-page browsing), it's very nice to be able to pick the pages you want to display together from a group of thumbnails, instead of some half-cropped titles inside small blocks of tabs... A picture is worth a thousand words - IMHO, a group of pictures can describe multiple different contents better than a bunch of titles.

Showcase is by far the nastiest way to do this. Safari's method or even http://www.foxtab.com/ (Firefox's cheap ripoff) is infinitely better.

I can see the appeal of showcase,however,if the Opera Visual Tabs grabber had a single short cut key (I have not found one ) and wrapping of the tabs then there would be no need for a showcase type option.

Seb :

Originally posted by Seb:

Not personally, no, but also I deal with lots of people who are new to Opera, and don't see the browser has anything more than "the internet". For them, such confusion would be inevitable. It's a bit like explaining the difference between the system tray, the running programs buttons, and the system tray buttons, to a newbie who's never before used Windows.

Opera has in the past been criticised for having too many features on display for new users to handle. This is the appeal of Firefox; basic, IE-like browser interface that doesn't frighten people. Using the tab metaphor for page-previews is more intuitive for new users and converts, imo.

No, no, I did not mean you personally. I don't see why showcase and speed-dial have to look the same, they can be given different looks. What if a new user confuses tab manager previews wih the speed-dial grid ? Or what if a new user starts the speed-dial and can't quickly figure out what to do with it, how to proceed to web browsing ?

Would it be worth then to deprive Opera of its features to prevent new users' confusion ? I think not.

Originally posted by Seb:

It's not that I think the idea is all bad, it has more to do with the fact that I just don't think it's very important. Given the choice between spending limited development resources on yet another tab preview system

Ok, it doesn't have to be huge resources, simply rearrange the tab preview to showcase like.





Dude09 :

Originally posted by Dude09:

IMHO, showcase is pretty much useless if you have less than 10 tabs opened... Visual tabs are perfect for this. But showcase will become a good solution when you have a lot of pages opened, because tabs will become too small to be useful in this situation.

Let's face it, too small showcase previews versus the "large ones" in Opera 10:

(click on thumbs below to enlarge)

IE:



Opera:



Firefox:




To me those are the showcase's that definitely look better, both when many and when few.







dertbox :

Originally posted by dertbox:

Showcase is by far the nastiest way to do this.

I cannot agree with you. On the contrary, a browser without showcase feels like Vista Aero without Flip 3D.







John164:

I can see the appeal of showcase,however,if the Opera Visual Tabs grabber had a single short cut key (I have not found one ) and wrapping of the tabs then there would be no need for a showcase type option.

(Feel free to vote, if you haven't.)

Could be, but what is it gonna look like when say 6 of them on one level and 1 another goes wrapped to the second line, the rest of the second line's space being what - part of the current active tab ?

Anyway, wrapping of the tabs would be a plus.

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Let me point this out, just in case, again:

Originally posted by me:

Ok, it doesn't have to be huge resources, simply rearrange the tab preview layout to showcase like.

Now we have a good chance to bury this idea forever, but think if you miss it then.

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Ok, I have given arguments and perhaps presenting the same reasoning over and over again wouldn't be good. I will be hoping for showcase.


Thanks to all who read and replied.

Best regards.

Originally posted by Opera-Browser-Fan:

Could be, but what is it gonna look like when say 6 of them on one level and 1 another goes wrapped to the second line, the rest of the second line's space being what - part of the current active tab ?

I can see your point to wrapping the tabs, what if the tabs just moved on the horizontal plane with a forward & back button ? forward one on the left side and the back on the right side enabling one to scroll back and forth.

John, thank you for the comment, I'm just not sure if I'm allowed to carry on with my thread here, some time later, or others will be mad at me for repetition of same ideas.

Originally posted by John164:

Originally posted by Opera-Browser-Fan:

Could be, but what is it gonna look like when say 6 of them on one level and 1 another goes wrapped to the second line, the rest of the second line's space being what - part of the current active tab ?

I can see your point to wrapping the tabs, what if the tabs just moved on the horizontal plane with a forward & back button ? forward one on the left side and the back on the right side enabling one to scroll back and forth.

Hm, isn't it what it is already in Opera 10 Beta1 ? I mean you get 6 tabs on line 1, the 7th goes to line 2 and there should be what next to the 7th on the right (if there is just 7 of them open) - a piece of graphics of the tab open, a background picture ? I mean unlike the line wrappings discussed, a showcase is to have a seperate temporary layout sheet for tabs, which will disappear when you pick one.



To add, there is no need to fear of too many tabs open, this is what the scrollbar is for:



Just compare it in IE or FF with the Opera's, compare to the Opera's tab manager.


Ok, sorry, I have already tried twice not to post more in this thread, 'cause everyone knows what I'm talkig about. This is actualy more than I ever posted in my native russian language, LOL. I'm gone. Other users but me feel free to vote and to discuss it. And, everybody, if you like the idea of showase layout, perhaps as another option, give yor voice please.

It's all cool OBfan, and certainly not pointless to discuss. But I think perhaps the mods should move this thread to the wishlist forum.

Seb