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Me looks at "Window-Tile vertically" menu option in almost every MDI application, to see the exact same effect. he he.

Can you mention a browser which does this?

Thought so.

Opera

So there's a button or keyb. shortcut in Opera with which I can automatically minimize each tab into the same width/height, and have them neatly placed in rows and columns so I can open/close/etc them?

Because i'm having a hard time finding that option in Opera 9...

On my Opera 8.0, simply right-click on the tab>>Arrange and voila there is options that you might try it.

On my Opera 8.0, simply right-click on the tab>>Arrange and voila there is options that you might try it.

I don't have it-- I am running Opera 9 on a Mac though, so it might be a Windows/Linux only option or something-- or the fact that OSX lacks MDI.

There's a preview of Opera9.

Edited 2006-01-05 13:59

@Thom:
Opera 9? Is it already out? I look at opera's website just find the version 8.51.

No, he's using a technical preview of Opera 9. The beta versions and previews can be found here:
http://snapshot.opera.com

Here's a screenshot. Look harder next time.

http://camendesign.com/kroc/stuff/Opera8Tile.png

"with which I can automatically minimize each tab into the same width/height, and have them neatly placed in rows and columns so I can open/close/etc them?"

Vista's just taking another feature already in Opera.
(I'm a firefox user BTW, but I fail to see any innovation in IE at all).

Here's a firefox extension that does the same as IE7
http://tinyurl.com/97ab8

That shot is nothing like how IE does it. THat is cluttered and ugly, IE's is much much more elegant.

"That shot is nothing like how IE does it. THat is cluttered and ugly, IE's is much much more elegant."

Try OmniWeb then. New IE looks at lot like it, much like "Photo Gallery" "appears to be similar to Apple Computer's iPhoto." lmao about this one ^^

Not quite. You can add a toolbar to make the Windows cascade, but IE apparently has a specialized view that's done much better IMO. IE's tab view show "snapshots" of the tab's whole window, and this tab view doesn't change the state of the windows other than to close them. When you hit the Tile button in Opera, the size of the tabs stays that tiny until each one is manually resized.

Maybe not innovative, but at least improved.

foxpose can do the same... sorry again, microsoft ;-)

Thom, I can mention a browser that does this... Install firefox 1.5 and then install the viamatic foxpose extension. Open up a dozen tabs and click the little icon in the bottom left for a Apple expose-ish effect.

You'de be surprised what some of the extensions in firefox can do

OmniWeb

I especially giggled at the last part of the video, where he shows previews of all tabs. Me looks at "Window-Tile vertically" menu option in almost every MDI application, to see the exact same effect. he he.

No kidding, meanwhile Apple users have had the Shiira browser for a while, which does Exposé-for-tabs ( http://hmdt-web.net/shiira/screenshot/en#tabExpose ) and page transition effects.

Edit: just saw someone already posted this link, that'll teach me to just skim the comments, sorry.

Edited 2006-01-05 17:47

meanwhile Apple users have had the Shiira browser for a while

I bow to thee in gratefullness! You have just solved my MAJOR (err) pet peave with Safari in Tiger: the inability to remove the Google Search field! This browser allows me to . Yes, I know, I have weird pet peeves.

Thank you for the link, I have just found my new standard browser. +1 to you!

http://www.bcm.fh-furtwangen.de IT Business Consulting BCM - Faculty of BIT - Furtwangen University - Germany

Off-topic/advertisement.

Stick that stuff on your user page if you really think that anyone cares.

But somehow I wonder about their real life value. I for one, don't see myself having a small window at the bottom of the screen with a movie playing, distracting me while I'm doing something else, with the real movie window in the back or minimized because I'm not watching it.

It's called a proof-of-concept. The idea is to demonstrate that you can have a live preview of a window in the taskbar. This might have been better demonstrated as a way to quickly check the progress of downloads, virus/malware scans, disk defragmenters, etc. - things that generally run in the background but continually update their window contents - without messing around with your desktop window positions and such. Traditionally, programs have had to implement custom interfaces such as animated system tray icons and title bar updates to do this.

I mean, it's kind of okey if they want to show off, but it's just one of those fluffy eye-candy things which I don't think would get much use from me.

I don't think it's "showing off." When they implement something cool, they have a right to be proud of it. I expect similar demonstrations when X, KDE, Gnome, etc. get these capabilities in the not-so-distant future.

I didn't say "this is totally useless and worthless".

What I meant to say is that, sure, this something cool and all you want, but real life use of this -imho- is pretty low. So it's ok to have these advanced features and everything, sure, but it seems to me that too much emphasis is being put into this stuff.

In other words, yeah, sure, there's all this stuff about live thumbs, pseudo-3D desktop, translucency, buttons that light up and everything, and it's great that they have all those things and that they are proud of them, but... come on, show the real stuff.

In other words, yeah, sure, there's all this stuff about live thumbs, pseudo-3D desktop, translucency, buttons that light up and everything, and it's great that they have all those things and that they are proud of them, but... come on, show the real stuff.

People don't buy the real stuff. They buy "dancing icons".

This is a 'catch 22' situation. I am sure that most of the normal CES consumers (i.e. non geeks, we are not normal) would be uninterested in seeing demos of the 'real stuff' you describe;

* Completely rewritten audio subsystem
* Graphics drivers out of the kernal
* Completely new networking stack
* Collaboration/p2p networking functionality
* All the new developers frameworks
* UAP and restriced user stuff
* etc

This would bore normal people to sleep

vista has alot of stuff "under the hood" that you can not really 'show off' like you can with eye candy. go take a look at the channel9.msdn.com videos on vista.

and not only does miscorosft have to "improve" the OS and UI they have to maintain compatibility with exisisting software.

and its the chain of compatibility that really hampers things. like I am sure IE7 will break some things, as it works much different then any IE version before it.



-Nex6

vista has alot of stuff "under the hood" that you can not really 'show off' like you can with eye candy. go take a look at the channel9.msdn.com videos on vista.

You are right, there is alot of sexy things that have been added, like Avalon, XAML and numorous other cool things - the problem is, the end user won't see the coolness factor until applications start using those features.

Unfortunately for the end user, there is ALWAYS a massive lead time between the operating system release and the software vendors releasing a version to take advantage of the new features.

Personally, what I would love to see is this; .NET made available for MacOS X and Windows, port all their applications accross to it, and voila, both platforms would benefit - but hey, it would never happen as you would finally have a situation where people would no longer need to be wedded to Windows to get things done in an office environment.

Personally, what I would love to see is this; .NET made available for MacOS X and Windows, port all their applications accross to it, and voila, both platforms would benefit - but hey, it would never happen as you would finally have a situation where people would no longer need to be wedded to Windows to get things done in an office environment.

You'd still have to change the UI or users of the respective platforms would complain about it not looking/working like a Win/Mac application (MS got the hint w/ Word, Apple still hasn't gotten the message with Quicktime et al). Then you'd have to account for differences in available services on each platform or stick with the least common denominator. There's no WinForms, WCF, WPF, etc., on MacOS. To get the best out of each platform, Apple would need to license those technologies, or there would be some level of porting required. Even if there only needed to be UI changes, this could involve significant porting work depending on complexity.

For the LCD case, there's Mono today. Though it doesn't have to be LCD if you're willing to put in the work.

Why do most people seemed fixed on this mysterious 'innovation' concept. Nothing is *really* revolutionary, most design is in fact evolutionary. Either way joe consumer doesnt really care (we are geeks/trolls - not normal people).

Joe consure is happy they get feature X, they dont give a dam if they are the first in the world, especially if product Z already has X and their product doesnt!

By the way I do not even use windows, if you are a desktop linux user then you appreciate that a large part of the advances in desktop linux are evolutions, often meant to keep up with commercial software, if for no other reason than to make it easier for joe consumer to switch

watch the channel9 videos on vista, they really have added alot of changes at the OS level for security and stability.


-Nex6

what??

windows is windows is windows....


if your an NT admin, moving to win2k or XP should not be any kind of problem and u should not be 'lost' in any way.


and Linux configure is not some kind of magical template. it requires OS knoweldge just like MS windows. and even in Linux moving form one OS version to another can have issues and changes.



-Nex6

Are you serious? I use Linux and Windows daily, and play a bit with MacOS X, and they are are just as complex, even OS X, it's just better at hiding it. And as far as the differences between Windows NT 4.0, which came out in 1996, and Windows XP, which came out in 2001, the differences are not near as vast as MacOS 9x and Mac OS X, which came out at approx. the same times.

Even the "wobbly windows" for Linux is more impressive than what MS showed.

Yeah... But have fun installing Luminocity. That ain't no simple apt-get install luminocity, I'm afraid.

Luminocity is not really done for the end users to install.

The technology to do this in X/GNOME is still very much in development, as is Windows Vista.

MS had a demo of using Aero to do wobbly windows a while ago. Think ~3 years ago maybe?

Edited 2006-01-06 00:51

MS had a demo of using Aero to do wobbly windows a while ago. Think ~3 years ago maybe?

Yeah, it was at WinHEC 2003:
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2003/0509/k1_3.jpg
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2003/0509/k1_5.htm

More here:
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2003/0509/kaigai01.htm