Web App Tabs

Web App Tabs

This topic has been cross-posted from my blog.

Back when Mozilla first released screenshots of Firefox 4.0, I could have sworn I saw a similar concept as I describe below. Apparently I was remembering a concept first promoted in Chromium OS. Nonetheless, Firefox, Chrome OS, and Windows 7 all demonstrate pieces of this concept. This is likely a feature we'll see incorporated in all browsers in the near future, especially as the web browser replaces the operating system as the focal point of the computer.
Click for full-size screenshot

Problems:
1) Multiple instances of a web app can get lost among a dozen tabs.
2) Web apps must be reloaded for every new instance.
These are inconsistent with classical desktop applications. The browser should make a web app feel more like a desktop app. Because web apps and web pages have different workflows, the browser should differentiate them.

Concept:
With web apps replacing desktop applications, there are a handful of tabs that are accessed frequently and left open for hours on end. This greatly differs from classical web pages, which are seldom open for more than 10 minutes before being closed on navigating to a new page¹. Depending on the user, this could be their Gmail inbox (or M2 inbox), their Google Docs dashboard, Google Calendar, a web portal like iGoogle, Google News, a weather portal (or maybe a weather widget), RSS feeds, and social sites including Facebook or Twitter. Sites that don't migrate from a home page are better suited for web app tabs, while sites that migrate from a home page like Wikipedia or Google Search are not well-suited for web app tabs.

For some, web app tabs might overlap Speeddial's niche or Toolbar bookmark's niche, like using a web app tab for the user's YouTube Subscription page. But for a people who regularly spend three hours on YouTube every day, maybe the convenience of having consistent placement of their YouTube web app tab and having quick access to the subscription page would be worth it.

How it Works:
Web app tabs act just like regular tabs, with a few exceptions.
1) They stay on the left side of your tab bar, similar to the new taskbar in Windows 7.
2) You can't close an app tab. You can change focus to a different tab, but your web app is always there—no more reloading Gmail or Facebook. It's ready whenever you are.
3) You can get thumbnail previews just like a regular tab.
4) It's possible that we could see Jump-List-like behavior in web app tabs.


Benefits of web app tabs:
1) Your most frequently accessed sites—web apps—are quicker to find. You don't have to hunt through 15 tabs.
2) Web app tabs take up less space than a full-size tab in your tab bar. For sites that are always open, this saves space.
3) Web app tabs are heavily cached and can never be closed, so you won't have to wait two seconds for an app to load. This makes a web app feel more like a desktop app. Ideally, the browser should also tell you if you have received a new Gmail or Facebook message, perhaps by overlaying a number or using an indicator dot.
4) Web app tabs can be a great launching point for widgets. With Opera's recent first-class upgrade of widgets, having a dedicated tab for widget applications (Pandora widget, MultiWeather widget, Instant Messaging widget) may be a welcome addition.


¹With AJAX, the concept of "page" has been rethought. One page may have a chat application that hides itself when you aren't using it, but doesn't require the user to navigate to a new page to use said feature. Thus, as pages become more feature-rich, technologists have been led to differentiate web apps (associated with XMLHttpRequest) from web pages (associated with navigating to a new URL). Even still, modernized pages that have incorporated AJAX into their code may not necessarily qualify as a web app.

+1

+1, but ofc optional

+1

I was just about to start a new thread myself dedicated to this. My recent usage patterns have emphasized to me just how useful this would be. I did see this on opvard's twitter the other day :



so who knows....

Looking forward to it... I'm really impressed how quickly and efficiently Opera was when it bumped up its desktop team staff for 10.50.

Any hints on what Opera's UI team is brewing up? Waiting for Opera to throw me a bone

Is it possible making an app tab glow when theres a notification on facebook/twitter like it is on firefox? If not, it would be a nice feature request IMO