doron's blaahg

To put it simply: nobody except advanced users, or users who have had advanced users show them, knows what "tabs" are.

I think that this could be remedied to some extent by changing the default toolbar configuration for a new profile. It's like this: imagine a browser world without "forward" and "backwards" buttons. Then one day a browser group innovates and comes up with this revolutionary idea - forwards, backwards, and history! However they don't put a "forwards" or "backwards" button in the default toolbar configuration of their browser. Yes the user can add this button to the toolbar by configuring it, but its not there for the default. And the average user will not change their toolbar configuration - it sounds too scary. So the average user won't discover these revolutionary features!

A similar thing is happening with tabbed browsing. It's there, but there's no button in the default toolbar configuration, the user has to add it him or herself. I think that just having a forwards, back, reload, stop, home and address bar is NOT enough; we should also have "new tab". That way it will be there AND visible to every new user who installs firefox. Most users will click it at some point, and discover tabbed browsing. Also if the first time a new tab is opened, a little dialogue pops up that explains tabbed browsing, similar to the way a dialogue pops up the first time Firefox blocks a popup window, it will help users figure out what tabbed browsing is. It's simply about making these features discoverable.

Jason

That's a good point Jason. It wasn't until I had been using Firefox for a while and was comfortable with the program that I started messing with the toolbar configuration. I already knew about tabbed browsing but I was very happy to find the open new tab button. Much more convienent then clicking File, New Tab.

But most average user know how to "open in new window" by right-clicking at the hyperlink. It shouldn't be hard to discover "open in new tab" which is just next to "open in new window".

After using Firefox, you'll find that hiding tab bar is actually a good arrangement.

I don't think "tabbed browsing" is a "navigation" helper as such. I think it helps organisation of mutliple documents rather than navigation. It lets you have several documents open without taking over your whole desktop and without the complexity of MDI.

Quite how you'd phrase that in a way that's attractive to users I don't know.

I strongly doubt that most "average" users know how to "open in new window" by right clicking on a link. I'd expect the context menu is (sadly) unknown/unconsidered/unused for/by a surprisingly large percentage of users.

I forget when it was that I first discovered tabbed browsing, however I know that when I did, at first I thought, "well, why not just open a new window." Then when I started maintaining sites that required me to have phpmyadmin open and the site, and a multitude of other sites, I found out that tabbed browsing had become a must of my life (as back and forward buttons have for most people.

In any case though, I agree that the add new tab button should be default for the installation of firefox. However, in the popup, it should also list the keyboard shortcut prominently for adding a new tab. I know that I always press command-T to open new tabs and have never touched the file menu for that purpose (not to mention command-clicking a link opening a new tab). I believe that firefox should try to educate the new user about these new features but in a way that isn't intimidating. Perhaps my idea of prominently displaying the keyboard shortcut is overkill; however, I think that education about how to use features such as tabbed browsing is a must.