More Details on IE7 Tabs

GraemeDonaldson writes "Another member of the IE dev team, Tony Schreiner, has revealed details of IE7's tabbed browsing implementation including the fact that the user will retain control over how tabs are handled." From the post: "Regarding script, there is no "target='_tab'" feature or any direct access to tabs from script beyond what is available with multiple windows today. We are working on balancing the default behavior for whether a window opened from script opens as in a new frame or a tab. Currently, windows that have been customized, such as hiding a toolbar or making the window non-resizable, will default to opening in their own standalone frame, whereas ordinary pop-up windows will open in a new foreground tab. CTRL-clicking and middle-clicking links will open those links in a background tab."

middle-click

[nocomment]

A touch off-topic but...Just for clicks I tested middle-click in safari and sure enough it opened a new tab. nice

Re:sounds like...

[DanteLysin]

Firefox was not the first browser to use tabbed browsing. I love Firefox too, but they folks there didn't invent tabbed browsing.

Re:middle-click

[Toad McFrog Esq.]

Yes, Opera opens a back ground tab with middle click as well. Also, both Firefox and Opera allow you to close a tab with a single middle click.

Re:Adblock?

[packetl0ss]

I can't believe how much nicer the Internet is with Firefox and this single extension.

and a nice adblock filterset [geocities.com].

Re:middle-click

[Kesh]

If you have a mouse with a middle-button or a scroll-wheel, clicking that button down tells Safari "open this link in a new tab."

If you don't have a mouse with those features, just hold down Option when you click, and it'll do the same thing.

New features creating bugs in old features?

[goneutt]

Okay, I'll admitt that I use IE. And I know it's full of bugs and glitches. Most of which I never see.

Since the tabs have been a function used in other web browsers for some time, the new mass deployment will give new reason to abuse users tabs by hijack-sites, hackers, and other undesirables. I know they say there are no commands to control tabs, but that doesn't mean they aren't tamper proof.

In esscence, will IE's incorporation of common features lead to bugs (or flaws) being found in other browsers.

Re:middle-click

[pomo monster]

In a hurry to post? :-) Option is the shortcut to download the link, actually. To open it in a new tab, you want to command-click.

Re:middle-click

[Professor_UNIX]

You can use the CTRL and Apple buttons while hitting the mouse button to simulate the same effect as a middle click or a right click. Or just attach any old 3 button USB mouse. I've got a Logitech Marble trackball on my PowerMac at work and it works fine.

Re:middle-click

[line.at.infinity]

Maybe you have your mouse configured so that middle click == command click.

Safari middle click, shift click == same as left click
Firefox Mac middle click, shift click == opens link in new window

On Safari and Firefox Mac:
* cmd-click == open link in new tab
* option-click == download link

On Firefox Win:
* ctrl-click == open link in new tab
* shift-click == download link

revised

[line.at.infinity]

Actually, it should be like this:

On Safari and Firefox Mac:
* middle click, shift click == same as left click
* cmd-click == open link in new tab
* option-click == download link

On Firefox Win:
* ctrl-click == open link in new tab
* shift-click == download link

I just plugged in a mouse with three buttons that I haven't configured and tried.

Re:no more ie7 tab news!

[__aaitqo8496]

for those interested to know more about support for application/xhtml+xml mime type, let me sum it up for you:

basically, every time something loads in your browser, several headers are sent before the content, letting the browser know what to do with it. this is how it knows to display web pages in the viewport versus downloading compressed files. specifically, xhtml pages are to be served to the browser as application/xhtml+xml. now, for xhtml 1.0, you MAY serve them as the old html4.0 way (text/html), but you SHOULD use the newer way.

xhtml1.1 doesn't allow such a variance. they SHOULD be served as application/xhtml+xml (the alternative being application/xml which would be interpreted as a straight xml file)... except IE doesn't support such a mime type, thus making it IMPOSSIBLE to correctly serve a xhtml1.1 document to any IE browser. this has severly limited the ability for the web to transform to support documents within several namespaces (such as xhtml, mathml, svg all integrated into a single web page)

for more info, see http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-media-types/ [w3.org]

stick that in your pipe and smoke it microsoft

Re:no more ie7 tab news!

[binary paladin]

Yeah well... I expect hell to freeze over first. However...

1. I'm a sad, sad person but I would rather see everyone else support IE's box model. It's proposed that CSS3 will allow a person to choose which box model they are using. (I'm all for web standards and test my sites on Windows, Linux and Mac and about every browser I can, but the wc3 box model sucks ass.) Or hell, you could even add something like total-width: to CSS. I don't care. Having no way to create one object with a % width that also has padding and borders of a specific size is retarded.

Honestly, the world would be better off in this case if non-IE browsers supported the IE box model and forced the w3c to buckle on it. For liquid layouts IE's is vastly superior. In fact, I can't see ANY advantage to the standards compliant box model.

2. I forget where, but I seem to remember reading multiple times that PNGs will FINALLY be supported properly in IE7. Though, the behavior: bit and some .htcs have made this less hellish than it used to.

3. Not gonna happen. I'll be pleasantly surprised if it does, but it's simply not gonna happen. Right now I'm just rooting for selectors. If they get those going I'll be REALLY happy. +, >, [attrib=], etc, that's be great.:hover working on all elements would be a nice addition too.

4. Dunno anything about that in IE7.

Hell. I'd be happy if they'd fix the fucking display bugs with the portion of CSS that they DO "support." There's a novel idea. (Safari is curretly my browser of choice... now if only its input widgets obeyed CSS properly. *sigh*)

Although in the end, your last statement is the most important. I don't care about glitzy tabs or vector based widgets or some new method of rendering fonts better. MS, your HTML rendering engine sucks. It sucks big time. You need to stop hiring programmers from the Special Olympics for Nerds to handle your web browser.

And you know, while I'm going on let me just say I fucking hate that fucking piece of shit browser. Never has Microsoft's ability to stifle a market been clearer. The adoption of new, excellent technologies on the web is at a crawl because they haven't felt the need to upgrade that travesty of a browser in umpteen years. FUCK YOU ASSHOLES! These aren't even just gee-whiz features but also things that assist with accessibility.

I really, really hope there is a special place in hell for corporate executives who cause this kind of irritation. I also hope they're sodomized by some uber demon in the pits of damnation for hour of my life and other web devs that was wasted taking a perfectly standards compliant site and trying to get it to work all right in their garbage browser. FUCK YOU MICROSOFT!

Woah. I get REALLY annoyed just thinking about it.

Re:Cant run IE 7 even if i wanted too.

[TheCodeFoundry]

"since microsoft no longer supports me, i dont get any new features. ( or bugs "

That's crap and you know it. Windows 2000 goes into extended support June 30th. They are still supporting it. Typical /. post.....

Re:tabbed browsing and window management

[toddestan]

I agree, tabbed browsing isn't that great. It's for people who run their browsers maximized because they don't understand windowing interfaces or lack the resolution. Being able to actually see the page I want to switch to as opposed to memorizing its title (which may be obscure) is much better.

You must be thinking of the way Firefox and Safari do tabs. I suggest you try Opera's way of doing tabs before knocking the concept entirely. Opera actually treats each tab as its own window inside of the main program's window. The windows can be resized, tiled, and moved around just like you might expect. You can even drag the tabs out of the main program, creating an entirely seperate window (great for dual head). Basically you have all the advantages of tabs and seperate windows at the same time.

Re:middle-click

[friedmud]

In Firefox type "about:config" into the address bar and filter for "middle".

You should see a "Preferance Name" named: middlemouse.contentLoadURL

Set it to "False"... now it won't load what's on the clipboard when you middle click on something other than a link...

Friedmud

Re:no more ie7 tab news!

[MidnightBrewer]

Microsoft announced several weeks ago that they'd support transparent PNGs and more robust CSS support. From the same website: [msdn.com]

• Support the alpha channel in PNG images. We've actually had this on our radar for a long time, and have had it supported in the code for a while now. We have certainly heard the clear feedback from the web design community that per-pixel alpha is a really important feature.
• Address CSS consistency problems. Our first and most important goal with our Cascading Style Sheet support is to remove the major inconsistencies so that web developers have a consistent set of functionality on which they can rely. For example, we have already checked in the fixes to the peekaboo and guillotine bugs documented at positioniseverything.net so use of floated elements become more consistent.

Great to be passionate about something, but make sure you check your facts before you wax melodramatic. ;)