Posted by Calixte Pictet | 0 comments
Tab Candy in Firefox 4: Tabs Reinvented
Firefox rose to fame as the alternative browser to still dominant Internet Explorer. It was innovative, both compared to Microsoft’s browser and to the others alternatives of the time. Mozilla rise was accompanied with a certain revolutionnary flare. Using it meant being living in a isle of resistance against the Redmond’s empire at a time where Mac OS was considered less of an alternative than Linux is now. Not only was Mozilla’s browser technologically innovative in respect to Microsoft’s proposal but it also had a more efficient UI.
It was Firefox who first brought tabbed bring to the mainstream. But times have changed. Most of Firefox’s momentum, both in user adoption and media attention, has been stolen by Google’s own browser: Chrome.
Chrome has been continually growing. And growing. Granted, that is partly due to Google’s aggressive marketing campaign, but we shouldn’t try to ignore the obvious: Google Chrome brought a breath of fresh air in the so-called browser wars. It was a new contender, and as such, it could completely re-invent the browser UI. Its simplicity, bordering a complete lack of features at first, made older browsers such as Firefox look…. Old. Chrome’s goal was to eliminate the Chrome in the browser interface (don’t ask), creating an unobstrusive window to the web.
Firefox is not taking this asault sitting. It still has more than twice the market share of Chrome, and while it doesn’t seem to be growing much, no-one is profetizing its end.
Firefox 4 will come with a whole new UI design. Somewhat inspired by Chrome’s “tabs on top” and a minimalist frame. But if Firefox is to retrieve the upper hand, it can’t simply monkey it’s competition; it has to come up with something definitively new.
And that’s what it’s doing: meet Tab Candy.
Tab Candy is a new way of organising and switching between tabs. While Firefox will keep the traditional tab bar that sits near the top of the screen, a button at the end of this bar will be present. The Tab Candy button will present the user with a zoomed out exposé-like view of all the users’s tabs. The user, along with having access to a spacially organized tab system which takes use of the whole two-dimentional real-estate will be able to reorganise his tabs, either by placing them differently, or by moving them to new groups. Browsing within your tabs in Tab Candy calls upon your spacial memory, so it is set to be more intutive than the current tabbed browsing. To improve upon that strength, the developers are proposing that you thee your tabs for easier visual recognition.
Another “zoom” feature, similar to the preview function in Mac OS X will permit you to take a closer look at your tabs (if they can still be called like that). Also, different groups represent different sessions, so when you click on one, you will be bothered only by the other tabs in the same group. As you can easily switch between groups, using to login instances becomes worry free and fast.
Tab candy is still in the early developement phase, but it is already quite usable. In the future, the developrs want to integrate syncing groups with other devices, providing the user with a simple way of sharing their session with other computers, their phone, or their collegue.
Here’s a demonstration of the current implementation of Tab Candy, along with its future capabilities by Raskin, the lead developer for the project.
One final goodie? Tab candy is built on Open web technology, and is coded with a combination of Javascript, HTML5 and CSS.
Tab candy is a real take on what tab management should be. It feels very “desktop” (in the creators’ words), so it’s not hard to imagine windows being organized in the same way. You can view this as Mac OS’s “exposé” feature done right. If I were on the Chrome OS team, I would seriously think about integrating this or a similar feature.
But when will we see this feature? will it be included in Firefox 4?
My only question with Tab Candy is if and when it will make it into Firefox. In the lackluster announcement of Firefox 4 in May, the Firefox team had Tab Candy listed in light gray at the bottom of its list of new features (giving no indication of its importance). Raskin said “The reason why Tab Candy was listed in grey in the product plan is that there are still some implementation challenges to be solved and a couple user experience questions to be answered for us to be able to commit to TabCandy being in Firefox 4.” reports Jason Hiner from ZDNet.
The developement seems to be moving fast. Aza Razkin states the following in his blog:
Our current goals are focused on overall and start-up performance, unit tests, code documentation and refactoring. Next, we will focus on user feedback and polishing the user experience.
The reactions to this innovation in ZDNet’s talkback section are mixed. While some view this as the reason why they’ll switch back to Firefox soon (as I might if it’s implementation convinces me), others wonder why anyone whould have more than half a dosen tabs opened simultaneously in the first place. It also looks like a great way to slow-down Firefox even more.
I suffer from “info-guilt” as much as anyone could. I keep tabs open “for later” because I’m too lazy to create a bookmark (and because bookmarks always have a lame and outdated interface). Keeping a tab open often seems like the best solutions. Haters gonna hate, and a lot of people hate change, but I don’t doubt that if Tab Candy is coded well, it’s in a good position to conquer the world.
If you’re interested, you can download an early build of Firefox 4 with Tab Candy enabled here but be warned: it’s still in Alpha. The build is rather clunky and slow, but it’s already usable without making you ant to use it much. You can test it, but I won’t recommend it for daily use yet
So, are you convinced by Tab Candy? Let me now in the comments below.
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