Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
>>. . . MSFT is responding (finally!) by adding tabs to IE . . . 

Whoa! News! 

I can't imagine not using tabs.
  

    
Hmmm. I've never been a tabs person. Tried it in both Safari and
Firefox, and didn't like it. I have multiple overlapping (often
cascading) browser windows, sharing the desktop with 1 or 2 Terminal
windows, a Mail window, and any other app I have running. (This is on
a Mac, of course.)

Tabs seem to be very important to people (mostly from the Windows
world, I guess) who use full-screen browser windows. Otherwise
switching contexts would be much more difficult. It's weird how
full-screen (maximized) windows got very popular on Windows but not
Macs. 
  

    
I don't know where that old nickname followed me here from, but
this is me.

As for why I don't use tabs, I've kept my bookmarks on a web page
for many years now, so that I can get at them from any computer,
any library, any hotel, any friend's house, etc.  So I have a
great collection already.  The thing about tabs is, nobody has
ever been able to tell me *why* they are good.  There are tab
proselytizers, for sure.  But I don't get it.

So, is there a tutorial somewhere that explains just what the
advantages are?  A tab.faq?  I have a weekend off work, and I
might consider spending a little time studying how tabs will
change my life.
  

    

My browser does not take up the entire screen and I'm a tab freek.  I very
often have two or more browser things going and love switching back and
forth easily. Also, with many windows the one I want gets lost but with
tabs I just look at one line to find what I want.
  

    
I couldn't live without tabs ever again either.


I do exactly what sbmontana does - a lot of people rely on me for their
basic pc support, and they all have to use FF. No discussion.
  

    
A brief detour from tabs -- I just switched to Mac. My new iBook came
on Wednesday. It's got 512 mb RAM, nice big hard drive -- and Firefox
has crashed repeatedly. 

??
  

    
The trouble with tabs is, you can't switch between windows with Alt+Tab; you
have to use the mouse.
  

    

Firefox uses 'control'-'tab' to switch tabs.
  

    
Ooo, I did not know that.
  

    
I use Ctrl-T to create a new tab, Ctrl-W to close a tab, Ctrl-PgUp or Ctrl-
PgDn to move from one tab to another.
  

    
Tabs-r-great :-)

I like them because all my browser pages are in one window, so it's easier and
faster toi switch between them - with separate windows I "lose" windowes
behind other windows.

I didn't know aboutr control-tab either!
  

    
Also, my "home" page is about eight different sites. I love that. 
  

    

I cannot figure out how to delete old search terms from the drop-down
list that appears when I enter letters in google. I think that this is
a Firefox and not a Google issue; because in IE I could simple click
delete on an item in the drop-down and it would disappear from the list
thereafter.
  

    
Ooo, I knew the Ctrl-tab, like the Ctrl-PgUp/PgDn.
  

    
Ctrl-Tab is a two-handed stroke, unlike Alt-Tab, but it's good that there's
some sort of keyboard shortcut.
  

    
On my keyoard I can do it with one hand.
  

    
You can also use CTRL+n where 'n' is the number of the tab you want to
go to directly.
  

    
Sharon Brogan, you're right about Ff making it easy for your home page
to actually be several sites. For those of you who don't know what
Sharon is talking about, I blogged about that a while back at
http://opensource.weblogsinc.com/entry/1234000613033538/. It's a
wonderful trick, & based on what I've read, the new tabs feature in IE
doesn't do it at all. 
  

    
Yaki Beja, I customized my tabs so that numbers appear, making it even
easier to use Ctrl+#. I use the instructions given at
http://boxofchocolates.ca/archives/2004/09/17/numbered-tabs-for-firefox,
but I see that there is now an extension which does all the hard work
for you. Being a lazy good-fer-nothin', I'd probably use that
extension, which you can find at
http://www.boxofchocolates.ca/archives/2005/01/30/numbered-tabs-extension.

Firefox & innovation: two great tastes that taste great together!
  

    
Michael Rosenthal, I've often wished that Ff had the same feature as
IE in that regard. I like being able to just press Delete & remove an
entry. Unfortunately, Ff doesn't have that feature. Perhaps someone
knows of an extension?

In the meantime, I believe that deleting the info that Ff has saved
will take care of that. Granted, you're burning down the forest to
remove a tree, but it does work. In Options (or Preferences), go to
Privacy & press Clear next to Saved Form Information. For the Address
Bar drop down list, press Clear next to History.

Does that help?
  

    
Sharon Brogan, re: your Ff crashes on your new Mac. Are you using Ff
1.0.4? Have you installed any extensions? Plugins? 

To test what the problem is, create a new Ff profile & use that. If Ff
stops crashing, then it's something you installed, probably a
poorly-coded extension. If Ff crashes even in a new, virgin profile,
then you had a bad install of Ff. Re-download, & re-install.

I cover creating a new profile in detail in my book; if you don't have
it, then I recommend MozillaZine's Knowledge Base article at
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Manager. It'll tell you what you need
to know to make a new profile.

I've had crashes before too, btw, & the Profile Manager has saved my
bacon. It's a wonderful feature!
  

    
Chuck Charlton, I cover tabs in depth in my book. If you want to know
more about why tabs are so great, you could start there. :)

MozillaZine has a really good page on tabs & their uses at
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Wordsmiths/Tabs_Overview.

Folks in this discussion have covered several of the cool things you
can do with tabs, like use fewer windows. For me, I like to group tabs
inside different windows, which reduces clutter. I have one window open
with several tabs for one topic, and another window open with several
tabs on another topic, and a 3rd window open with tabs for things I'm
writing (blog, web site, class notes, etc.). 

Other uses for tabs:

* bookmark multiple tabs, & then when you select a bookmark, all the
tabs open up (http://kb.mozillazine.org/Bookmark_multiple_tabs &
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Bookmark_or_save_multiple_tabs)

* mouse tips for tabs (http://kb.mozillazine.org/Mouse_Tips#Tabs): my
fave - right-click on a link to open it in a background tab.

* keyboard tips for tabs
(http://kb.mozillazine.org/Keyboard_shortcuts#Tabs)

* change how your tabs look
(http://kb.mozillazine.org/Change_the_style_of_tab_markers) - it's
advanced, but still cool

* oodles of extensions for Ff tabs
(https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/showlist.php?application=firefox&categor
y=Tabbed%20Browsing)

I hope that this gets you going!
  

    
Gail Williams, I love love LOVE Greasemonkey!

For those of you who don't know what Greasemonkey is (& I always want
to call it GreaseMinkey, in honor of Inspector Cleaseau), it basically
does nothing on its own. Instead, it provides a framework for Ff that
enables people to write scripts that change specific web pages on the
fly. It sounds kind of weird until you do it, & then it makes a lot
more sense.

For instance, let's say you're visiting Site ABC, & you get annoyed
that the web designer set the width of the page display at 500 pixels,
which looks really narrow on your screen. Let's assume that lots of
folks are annoyed by that, including someone who can write a Gm script.
So this person writes a Gm script & makes it available to fix the 500
pixel limit, & instead set the width of the page to the width of your
browser window. You install the script, & the next time you visit ABC,
Gm notices that you're on ABC, sees the script you've installed for
ABC, & causes the page to display not at 500 pixels in width, but
instead at the width of your browser window.

Now images 100s and 100s of scripts being written for sites all over
the Web. Scripts that fix minor annoyances, or even add new featues,
for Google, Amazon.com, Yahoo!, Netflix, IMDB, Slashdot, & on & on. All
free, all easily downloadable & installable. 

NOW do you see why Gail & I are so excited about Gm? 

Wanna try it yourself? 

1. Install Gm at
https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=748.

2. Go to the Gm Script Archive at
http://dunck.us/collab/GreaseMonkeyUserScripts & download a couple of
scripts (load the script in your browser window, then go to Tools >
Install User Script). For instance, go visit http://www.paulgraham.com,
look at one of his essays, note how dang narrow his text is, install
the Gm script at
http://sharedobject.org/greasemonkey/paulgraham.user.js, go back to
http://www.paulgraham.com, look at that same essay, & note how that his
text is much wider now. 

3. Install other Gm scripts for the sites that annoy you.

Is that not cool or what?

Want to make your own scripts? Why then, check out
http://diveintogreasemonkey.org, which will tell you all that you need
to know.

If you know CSS & HTML, you MUST check out Platypus after you get
familiar with Gm. Basically, Platypus is a WYSIWYG editor/creator for
Gm scripts. Let that sink in for a minute. Yup. I've used it, and it
rocked me like a hurricane.

So yes, Gail, I too have a license for that minkey! 
  

    
About the future: what is -- or should be -- in the next major release
of Firefox? And beyond that?
  

    



Richard Banks writes:


Hello.

I routinely use Firefox for browsing the Web. Nevertheless, I am often forced
to use IE due to a variety of plug-in issues that arise and due to missing
features I consider "basic". For example, IE has a File/Send Page as Email
function that has no obvious corollary in Firefox. Also, the daily download
in Salon's AudioFile column does not work with Firefox whenever the file must
be downloaded from iTunes. There any number of similar gotcha's I have run
into over the last year.

I expect, at this point, you might be thinking "well, have you installed
Firefox release x.y.z?" Well, no. If there are important upgrades then the
browser itself might as well alert me, because I'm not one to run out an
download new releases all the time just in case it might fix whatever quirk
I've just discovered.

I will probably continue to use Firefox, because my needs are relatively
simple. But it has some pretty annoying limits.

Thank you.

Richard Banks