Forum Discussion
MicrosoftVertical tabs preview now available in the Canary and Dev channels
William Devereux I think they are a great start, although there are a few things that could be improved.
· the title bar now takes up all the space that used to be consumed by the tabs, this is unfortunate as I was really looking forward to gaining more vertical page space by using vertical tabs
· the NewTab button is at the bottom of the list and therefore moves constantly - putting it at the top would have meant there was always a single place to click for a new tab.
· the tab bar isn't resizable - it would be nice to be able to expand it sometimes to read more of the tab titles.
· there is no visual link between the current tab and the displayed page
· it's weird that the back button is now to the left of the tabs.
A (very)rough mockup of what I was hoping for would be something like this:
I do love the ability to "pin" tabs though, that's going to be great 😄
dgkimpton, I think I disagree with most of these (but not strongly). Certainly, I have nothing against them being options, but to give MS alternative feedback on these:
1. The title bar already narrows SLIGHTLY (admittedly, not enough to really add any screen real estate to the page). I'm OK with it shrinking a bit more, but I do think it's important to keep an area at the top for easily grabbing the window to drag and move it.
2. The new tab button for horizontal tabs is always at the right end and already moves based on the number of tabs. I think the vertical tab button should follow that for consistency.
3. Resizeable pane for tabs -- I'm neutral on this one. There are times when I would like to make it wider or narrower to see more of the text or make the window narrower, but I also appreciate that it maintains a consistent width. If it had the ability to change its width, I'd use it. Maybe consider how this works in the Outlook application -- it is possible to resize the panes, but only within a fairly minor range.
4. No visual link between the current tab and the displayed page -- Yes there is. At least for me, the current tab is highlighted. Maybe this is a bug if it's not for everyone?
5. Weird that back button is to left of tabs -- I definitely don't think this should change. The button positions at the top of the window should remain as they are for consistency.
Good UI innovations should never break consistency. Consistency is most important in UI, so any improvements should always ensure consistency is maintained. That doesn't mean UI can't evolve and improve (they definitely should), just that any changes must be holistic to preserve UI consistency.
GraniteStateColin 1. in the mockup I did leave a couple of pixels for dragging (exactly the same as in the current Edge when you have lots of tabs open in fact), I absolutely agree that losing that ability would suck outrageously. I don't see any great value in having the document title up there though - in horizontal-mode, we don't have it either. I assume they put the title there because the min/max/restore icons were already there and just leaving a giant empty space would look weird.
2. Strangely being at the end in horizontal mode never bothered me, but being at the bottom just feels continuously irritating. I'd got as far as to say I in fact expect newly opened tabs to appear at the top of the list too - just something about my mental model of a stack I guess.
4. The tab is highlighted, but not linked to the main window - in horizontal mode, there is a clear indication that the highlighted tab also links to the window. This is, admittedly, a very minor issue.
5. We're just going to have to disagree here - I don't believe consistency (especially between modes that won't be used at the same time) is that paramount. Daily workflow and visual comprehensibility are way more important than being consistent for the sake of it. That's not to say consistency is unimportant, just that it definitely doesn't come so high up my list.