Google Tests Curvy Chrome Tabs With Material Design Overhaul (cnet.com) 109
Google is trying out a new Chrome interface that for the first time in a decade presents a very different look for the tabs and address bar at the top of the widely used web browser, CNET reports. It adds: Since its public debut in 2008, Chrome has featured a trapezoidal tab for each website you have open. But tabs now look very different on Chrome Canary -- a very rough-around-the-edges version used to test changes before they reach a broader audience. The active tab has a slope-shouldered look with curved corners. The grayed-out inactive tabs merge with the the browser itself and are separated only by thin vertical lines. In addition, the address bar's text box is a gray oval against a white backdrop, instead of a round-cornered white rectangle with a hairline border.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The web browser is a solved problem. Worrying about trivial bullshit like the shape of tabs is ridiculous. This is what happens when a company has too much money and too many employees. You spend your time on trivial bullshit, constantly trying to come up with something "new".
Re: (Score:1)
Use Vivaldi. You can place resizeable tabs on any edge you want and/or you can use the collapsible sidebar which can contain a "window" tree hierarchy of windows and tabs, bookmarks, history, download and notes. You can even add sites to the sidebar if you want.
All built-in, without the need for extensions and Vivaldi uses the Chromium HTML and JavaScript engines. The only downside to Vivaldi is that it does contain spyware which phones home to https://update.vivaldi.com/sta... [vivaldi.com] once every 24 hours, even if
Re: (Score:2)
The web browser is a solved problem. Worrying about trivial bullshit like the shape of tabs is ridiculous.
But... there's still two millimeters on the title bar where the user can click the mouse to move the window around. We have to cover that up ASAP!
Re: (Score:2)
Slashdot: Irrelevant Stories For Nerds Who Don't Care
Finally! (Score:1, Funny)
Slashdot is finally reporting about stuff that matters.
Re: Finally! (Score:1)
Can you imagine the posts when Slashdot finally supports modern encoding? Itâ(TM)s going to be a party weâ(TM)re all invited too and youâ(TM)ll love it!
Re: (Score:2)
Right, the only more nerdy encoding is the one that the CDC Cyber 170 I once worked on had. Only upper case.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh come on, the Cyber series had two-byte lower-case characters, too. Now, the byte-size was six bits (when you used "bytes" - it was really a word-oriented architecture) and the word size was 60 bits - but it was a great machine.
Re: (Score:2)
On the Cyber 170/750 that I worked on, lower case characters were indeed represented with two 6-bit bytes: an upper case character with a leading back-slash, \A, \B etc. I know, because I wrote my dissertation on it. The editor automatically converted between the two (i.e. you typed 'a', the editor converted to '\A' for storage, and the editor displayed 'a'), or it would have been a mess, but it was this sequence of two chars internally. I know because when I went to my first job and wanted to get a copy
Re: (Score:2)
If they change to a modern encoding, I will have to upgrade my dial-up modem to handle bigger words : (
Re: Finally! (Score:1)
Fix your settings.... turn off Settings>Keyboard > Smart Puntuations ..... you can't write code properly on your iPhone if you don't do this....
If you don't write code go reddit instead
You know (Score:5, Insightful)
the next build of Firefox is going to make this exact same change.
Re:You know (Score:5, Informative)
They already did this 5 years ago [mozilla.org] and just removed it last year [mozilla.org].
Re: (Score:2)
This needs to be modded up. I have to laugh at the irony, 2 years ago people were complaining that Firefox's interface was too Chrome based and inefficient, and then they changed back to their old squarish design, and now Chrome is moving from the angular to a curvy look. Maybe Chrome thought their tabs look too similiar to Firefox's now :P
Re: (Score:2)
They already did this 5 years ago [mozilla.org] and just removed it last year [mozilla.org].
I removed it immediately.
material design is an abomination (Score:5, Insightful)
this is probably off topic, forgive me for that if you can but why on god's green earth would we want to give up on the dimension of texture and gradient in UI? also sharp corners make UI feel very unfriendly and unnuanced.
full on skeuomorphism was too much, but this is just as too much albeit in the opposite direction.
go on, get off my lawn..
Just different eye candy. (Score:1)
It still takes up the same amount of space. I wish they would start making more use of vertical space for content. For example the title bar. Why so much space used for so little? It's why I have all my tabs on the right now.
Re: (Score:1)
Visual depth queues like edges and shadows are useful and important for distinguishing UI elements.
Edges and shadows are supposed to be in Material Design [material.io] as well
Re: (Score:2)
It may be dated, but UI designers today would do the world a favor by familiarizing themselves with Apple's HIG from the days of the original Macs.
Apple (and Microsoft) would do the world a favor by familiarizing themselves with Apple's HIG from the days of the original Macs.
Re:material design is an abomination (Score:4, Funny)
It's the pendulum swinging too far each way.
Management: I like skeuomorphism is great! All skeuomorphism:
Designers/developers: "But see"
Management: "NO. MORE. MORE SKEUOMORPHISM. DOUBLE DOWN. MOORE'S LAW DOUBLE DOWN. MORE MORE MORE!"
Designers/developers: "Okay. Sure."
Jump ahead
Management: "I want a button so subtle you don't even know what to click. No color, no text, no nothing. I mean, and stay with me here because this is in my TEDtalk LIKE IF I BUILT A PRIVATE ROOM IN MY PARENTS' HOUSE SO I COULD WATCH TELETUBBIES INSIDE A REFRIDGERATOR BOX MY DAD THOUGH HE THREW AWAY BUT DIDN'T AND I HELD IT IN THE CRAWLSPACE SINCE THEN TO WATCH THE SHOW THEY FORBID ME TO SEE!!!! I WANT A BUTTON THAT IS SO SECRET JUST LIKE THAT ONLY A GENIUS LIKE ME COULD FIND IT ON THE PAGE TO PAY SOME STUPID BILL. ONLY A GENIUS! ONLY A GENIUS! I have to go to my box. SIMPLE! MINIMALISM! THIS IS LIFE!"
Professional assessment (Score:5, Funny)
Looking at the image from the OP, I have the following notes:
1) There is still a tiny bit of warmth in the color scheme. They should work to remove this last bit of friendliness to make the browser maximally cold and uninviting.
2) There is still too much contrast between the white background and window elements. For example, using Chrome I can still see where the slider is in its rail on the right-hand side of a website. The white background should be made softer (lower luminance), and the window elements should be a bit brighter (higher luminance) to bring them closer together.
3) There are only 12 incomprehensible icons on the address bar line, to the right of the address bar. The screen needs more googaws, curios, gimcracks, and oddities to function properly. Addresses and/or search fields are of less importance so make the address field narrower so that the search terms are never fully shown, in favor of more gizmos and thingamajigs.
4) The red, orange, and green dots on the upper left are a nice touch. In reference to "Demolition Man", maybe change these to three seashells?
Just trying to be helpful...
Re:Professional assessment (Score:5, Insightful)
5) I don't want to know whether the browser has the active focus. There should be no distracting changes in titlebar colour, shadow, or cursors. That way it's a nice surprise where my text turns up when I type.
Focus (Score:4, Funny)
Re 5, Google hasn't done this because Microsoft Office does it; hence NIH. (And yes, that is one of my biggest beefs about MsOffice. Next to the ribbon, of course.)
6) Get rid of the hamburger menu, who needs menus? Menus imply that the engineers did something wrong. The user should not be able to change anything about the browser's behavior, it's already perfect, and Google Knows Best.
Re: (Score:3)
(7) No close button should ever be visible unless you hover over it.
If you happen to use a pen or touch (for instance a MS Surface "laptop"), then controls should either close when you tap blank space or never be able to be closed at all. Mouse users should just be annoyed, and lose history and data after close buttons have suddenly appeared.
Re: (Score:2)
(7) No close button should ever be visible unless you hover over it.
I'm sure Microsoft patented that feature for Sharepoint / Office 365.
Re: (Score:2)
There are only 12 incomprehensible icons on the address bar line, to the right of the address bar.
You know those are user-installed add-ons, not part of the browser, right? You can add as many as required to achieve your desired level of "googaws, curios, gimcracks and oddities".
Re: (Score:2)
this is probably off topic, forgive me for that if you can but why on god's green earth would we want to give up on the dimension of texture and gradient in UI? also sharp corners make UI feel very unfriendly and unnuanced.
Because styles and tastes change. We all used to like skinny jeans, then we liked flared jeans, then we like skinny jeans again, then we like baggy jeans, now we're back to skinny jeans. Don't go acting all surprised when non-skinny jeans are the next big thing...
OMG! (Score:3)
I've been waiting with bated breath for something like this!
("The snark is strong in this one...")
Who cares? Give me security, speed, economy (Score:1)
In that order. This kind of messing around with visual interfaces obscures that browsers are insecure, slow, and use too many computer resources. Pay attention to that, then try to impress me.
Absolutely Awful (Score:1)
The new search bar is even worse. I don't want things to look pretty. I want them to be functional. Does anyone know where are they going to stuff the per page privacy controls? (location, camera, microphone, etc)
Re: (Score:2)
It's really common for me to have 30-50 tabs open at the same time. How am going to fit them all now?
30-50 tabs? Amateur! I seldom have fewer than 200 open, and often the number is far, far higher than that. Of course, I'm using Pale Moon with Tab Mix Plus, not the botched abomination that Chrome misnames a UI; so for me, having a stupidly high number of tabs open at once is only marginally inconvenient.
Re: (Score:1)
It's really common for me to have 30-50 tabs open at the same time. How am going to fit them all now?
30-50 tabs? Amateur! I seldom have fewer than 200 open, and often the number is far, far higher than that. Of course, I'm using Pale Moon with Tab Mix Plus, not the botched abomination that Chrome misnames a UI; so for me, having a stupidly high number of tabs open at once is only marginally inconvenient.
So I am not the only one with a stupidly large number of TABs open in Pale Moon with Tab Mix Plus !!!
My current count is somewhere above 1500 !!!
Why can Pale Moon handle it and other browsers seem to bog down at 30 or so???
Material and modern design, DIE. (Score:5, Insightful)
My girl watches some awful youtube, I recently saw her watch this a week ago and I screamed YES at the television.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
That teenage girl says what half of us have been saying for about 5 or 6 years now, since they started making UIs WORSE instead of better.
Less lines dividing / defining where you can click and what a button is.
Less colours used (red stop / green go) - screw that, let's make it 'flat' colours
No labelling on icons, it's ok there MIGHT be a tooltip if you hover (but try hovering a finger?)
Bad animations slowing things down or not being smart (a great animation could be informative)
The list goes on. My computer is now covered with unlabelled icons. If you were to wipe my memory and put me in front of a modern PC I suspect it'd be much much harder to learn than it was 10 to 20 years ago.
Everything gotta be flat, one colour, LOTS AND LOTS of god damned white. Use shadows / shading / colour to define things. Who cares if it's gaudy? There's ways of doing it nicely.
Modern UI is a shambles. Utter shambles.
Re:Material and modern design, DIE. (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh and while I'm at it.
I know someone (kinda / tangentially) on the Chrome Dev Team and asked them to consider fixing the damn full screen mode.
On FireFox, if you hit F11, it's beautiful and large, yet if you hit "CTRL-D" you can still DO STUFF, type in URLs, CTRL T works for a new tab, etc, you can browse in this giant beautiful relaxing window, without seeing your tabs most of the time. I don't use it often but sometimes it's nice.
I said "Why does Chromes full screen mode have to render the browser, virtually useless" and the answer was very Apple-esque "our way, or the highway" kind of thing.
Groan, not surprising though.
Re: (Score:3)
The guy before her, who says "worst browser in history", is mistaken. IE5 for the Mac was not bad. It had its own rendering engine, Tasman, which was very W3C-standards-compliant. Unlike the infamous Trident engine of the Windows version. (Feels old, man.)
Other than that, everything you say is right. I miss that 90s interface style. Strong lines, good contrast, definition, physical volume! You knew where one thing ended and another began.
Let me give you an example of a disastrous modern interface: the curre
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
there are people who design slaughter houses to make the animals less stressed, because it makes the meat a better quality.
You might be referring to Temple Grandin, but I strongly recommend instead the Turkey Processing Room. [youtube.com]
(Apologies -that's obviously a camera pointed at a CRT)
Re: (Score:2)
Shut up Stannis.
Who wants bland sterile UI?? I don't (Score:1)
I saw glimpses of this in Canary and thought, can we get anymore bland and sterile. Well yes, we can says Google. Hopefully we will still be able to add a touch of customization with Chrome? Two things I dislike about Windows 10, it looks flat, and it looks bland, drab, sterile, cheap, not attractive or eye pleasing. I guess everything is going this way and maybe the solution is Linux desktop were at least people still offer ways to make a OS more then a cookie cutter UI.
Why is this still a thing? (Score:2)
Square tabs offer the most internal space for text and icons and efficiently utilize the surrounding space. Why does this need to be toyed with? Aren't there more important things to worry about and/or develop?
Re: (Score:2)
Not necessarily. By the edges of the tabs being diagonal they can be closer to the tab label without looking cluttered, but a trapezoidal tab shape is more distinguishable than a rectangle.
This is actually several months old news.
From earlier screenshots of the previous and new look of Chrome tabs, it has been have shown that tab labels are precisely the same distance apart. The "new" square look uses more vertical pixels though.
Follow the HIG or eat shit (Score:2)
A good developer will obey each system's Human Interface Guidelines to the letter. If you use non-standard interface elements, you are likely a shit developer. Fuck Chrome, and fuck everyone who does non-standard interfaces.
So...Australis? (Score:2)
Did anyone else immediately think "FF Australis" when you saw the screenshot??
"slope-shouldered look with curved corners" (Score:1)
Sorry Google. Apple patented that in 1986. Only the attorneys will applaud this change. Consider other possibilities, for instance /tab1\ /tab2\ delimited by some other shape. But whatever, enjoy messing with the minds of all your 2.3 million users. I'll stick with Firefox.
Er ... (Score:2)
Er, didn't things have curved tabs like ... 20 years ago?
Or am I just hallucinating from my expired Metamucil again?
Re: (Score:2)
It could be hallucinations... how many papers are you rolling it in?
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, Simulbrowse had curved-bezel tabs back in 1998.
Google has become Apple - innovation through copying old ideas and claiming them as new.
Why hardcode the look? (Score:1)
Shouldn't the presentation be themed by user preferences?
The application (or program, or logic, call it what you will) itself should not need to care at all about how it is rendered. What matters is the functionality.
And in that regard I would much rather have a proper hierarchical grouping of tabs that makes efficient use of screen real estate. Parent tabs, followed by the current tabd, followed by immediate child tabs, followed by sibling tabs, with separators or shapes or colours indicating the differenc
Re: (Score:1)
Have you tried Tree Style Tab [mozilla.org] in Firefox? Much more useful than the horizontal tab strip browsers offer by default.
Why Not A DYI UI Look? (Score:1)
If I can remember back to the early days of windowed UIs, a lot of the bells and whistles could be user defined via simple scripts in config files. It seems that over the years with the Latest Features, a lot of this has been lost, a dumbing down so that your average noob doesn't go into brain freeze.
What a breakthrough (Score:2)
FUCKING STOP IT! (Score:2)
Dear Google,
Please indicate on the attached screenshot where I can click to drag the window around.
https://cnet2.cbsistatic.com/i... [cbsistatic.com]
I think I can carefully click between or around the stoplight buttons -- but not too close to the borderless left edge of the first tab! Thanks for not actually putting a visible indicator there. I *love* the challenge of trying to guess clickable zones in UI I use dozens of times a day. It looks like I can also click the fingernail-sized area at the far right, and perhaps I ca
Re: (Score:2)
Dear Google,
Please indicate on the attached screenshot where I can click to drag the window around.
The next improvement will be requiring the user to reboot if they click wrong.
http://dilbert.com/strip/1994-... [dilbert.com]