Firefox 4's Panorama feature is misguided
Jan. 15th, 2011 06:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
roadrunnertwiceSo after using it on and off for a few months, I think I'm ready to call Firefox's "Panorama" feature a failure. It does interesting things, some of which are awesome, but it amounts to turning Firefox into a completely separate OS with its own window manager, running cordoned-off in its own little virtual machine.
Which is just a godawful idea regardless of implementation, but I can't even call the implementation good:
So okay, the underlying problem is that past a certain number of tabs, you'll want to split them into groups. Cool. We have a partial solution that has some problems, which is to split tabs into multiple windows. Also cool! I don't think it follows that the way forward is to forget windows exist and then create a new pseudo-window construct that's completely opaque to all the normal tools we have for managing window-like constructs. The only way that makes sense is in a ChromeOS-type situation, where a single window IS the entire operating system. I want Firefox to be an application, not a guest operating system; a citizen, not a resident alien.
And it's annoying that, for all that, it's so close. If you could invoke one unified full-screen Panorama view whose tab groups represented each open Firefox window, that would do the trick. Keep all the cool stuff about Panorama, but apply it to windows instead of some new like-a-window-but-shittier construct.
Which is just a godawful idea regardless of implementation, but I can't even call the implementation good:
- Not only do the operating system's normal window management controls have no way to interact with the window-like tab groups, but tab groups can't interact with each other beyond the boundary of the current window! You can't drag a tab from a tab group to another window's tab group; you can't drag a tab group between windows. It's like each Firefox window is its own OS instance with no knowledge of the others, which just makes no sense.
- Tab groups aren't exposed anywhere in the application's menu structure or window design. It would make sense to show them as children of the list of windows in the "Windows" menu, and to have each window show a representation of its available tab groups somewhere, but the only point where tab groups interface with the rest of the application is the trigger button, whose greyscale value shifts a bit if more than one tab group is present. So the state of tab groups is totally opaque until you trigger the view, which means it feels like a hidden feature. And not in a good way; in the way that results in tab groups degenerating into a cluttery, disused rec room, filled with forgotten junk tabs and unseen for weeks at a time.
- It's still buggy as hell, sometimes stops responding to clicks, and looks like ass more than half the time.
So okay, the underlying problem is that past a certain number of tabs, you'll want to split them into groups. Cool. We have a partial solution that has some problems, which is to split tabs into multiple windows. Also cool! I don't think it follows that the way forward is to forget windows exist and then create a new pseudo-window construct that's completely opaque to all the normal tools we have for managing window-like constructs. The only way that makes sense is in a ChromeOS-type situation, where a single window IS the entire operating system. I want Firefox to be an application, not a guest operating system; a citizen, not a resident alien.
And it's annoying that, for all that, it's so close. If you could invoke one unified full-screen Panorama view whose tab groups represented each open Firefox window, that would do the trick. Keep all the cool stuff about Panorama, but apply it to windows instead of some new like-a-window-but-shittier construct.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-16 04:52 am (UTC)I care about web browsers nearly as much as you. If not more. My journal barely qualifies as personal just over that fact (I think I spend more time writing about Firefox and IE than anything else). But I have no idea what you're talking about since I refuse to touch Firefox 4 until its final release (next month - it's my birthday gift, apparently).
I'll be sure to check out Panorama upon release, compare notes, and report back to you if I find anything discussion-worthy in either direction (provided, of course, that you don't mind me reporting back). I'm utterly fascinated with Firefox, which is why I won't touch the Beta - I made the mistake of jumping on the final last year (a mistake I'll probably repeat next month, since I can't hardly wait) and I was sorry, so Betas are absolutely out now.
edit: Just checked out your screencap, and yeah, that does look buggy, I'll say that much - thumbs floating out of
onethree groups on the right, some groups named, some unnamed, all quite randomly, it seems - I'm getting the drift, I guess. And that can't be good.edit 2: What is up with that white envelope in each group - does that default to Gmail (that's what it looks like, though it's hard to tell at that scale) and if so, why? - does Firefox have an explanation for that - or is that a user-controlled setting?
I'm actually running trunk nightlies because the betas are too stale for me.
Date: 2011-01-16 05:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-16 05:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-16 06:58 am (UTC)Also, I found a solution to my own problem of too many open tabs in the form of a reading checklist plugin called Read It Later (http://www.readitlaterlist.com/). If one of my tabs is lingering, 99% of the time it's some reading material that I thought was important when I gave it a quick glance but didn't feel like reading right then. If the tab stays open a good long while without being addressed (a couple days or whatever), I'll add it to the reading checklist and close that tab. Of course, may the Force be with that article I just closed, because, based on my past behavior, I won't get back to it for months. My reading checklist is a monument to my laziness. Or a to the unmanageable glut of cool things on the internet. I like that option better. Somebody should really trim the internet.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-16 07:12 am (UTC)And just to be clear, FF4 is otherwise a damn worthy upgrade, because it's fast as hell, impressively stable (although the out-of-process plugins go down at the drop of a hat, for some reason, but whatever, just reload the page), and in general smarter and slicker. It's just that Panorama feels tacked-on and faily.
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Date: 2011-01-16 07:29 am (UTC)Anyway, yeah, go team Firefox. It seems like it's losing its cool factor as lots of prominent techies switch over to Chrome as their main browser (I know this is a big generalization but I swear I keep hearing it), but I'm sticking to it. Less for technical reasons, more because I'm ... just used to it. I've become an old crank and don't want to let go.
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Date: 2011-01-16 09:06 am (UTC)Also, I consider Mozilla to have basically saved the web in that 2001-2005 timeframe, so they've earned a bit of loyalty.
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Date: 2011-01-17 08:19 am (UTC)Then again, every time my dad asks about secure web browsing, I tell him to use a separate locked-down computer for it. He hasn't taken my advice.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-17 08:27 am (UTC)Y'know, I heard about a year ago that some banks were starting to recommend people reboot their machines with a Linux live CD whenever they wanted to do their online banking. Which struck me as a pretty great idea, albeit an inconvenient one.