There is a new maintenance release of Firefox out today, I think. If you take a look at issues in the release notes, you’ll see a disabled, work-in-progress, enable-at-your-own-risk “single window mode.”
In one of my previous Firefox gripes, I called for just such a feature. When I discussed it with Lewis he claimed that this would disobey the wishes of the site developer. I admonished him, and he cried.
Speaking of old gripes, my next big move will be bringing back my old posts, at least as far back as the last version of the site. I may just upload the old files, but I’m considering manually entering each post into the current version of the site. If I (re)insert entries from one version back, I might as well do it for all of them. I like this idea a lot for two reasons, one of which is vain and one of which is functional: I will enjoy seeing my “Archives” section date all the way back to 2002; And the old entries will become completely searchable. Plus there’s Permalinks … I might lock out comments on old posts, though.
Speaking of the issues page, please note that the first known issue is:
But if you use the update functionality from within Firefox, the entire 1.0.4 installer downloads to your computer, then launches automatically. At some point it tells you that a currently running instance of Firefox must be closed (unless you beat it to the punch).
My point is, something doesn’t add up. Either I shouldn’t have to dowload the entire 1.0.4 setup file (How about a patch in the true sense of the word?), or no user should have to worry about installing into clean directories.
Which is it?
“When I discussed it with Lewis he claimed that this would disobey the wishes of the site developer. I admonished him, and he cried.”
I’m not sure I remember actual tears. And I certainly didn’t say anything about “disobeying the wishes of the site developer.” I don’t even know what that means. In fact, I agreed with you about the feature, I just said it wasn’t Firefox’s place to create a solution using an HTML attribute – a target=”_tab” attribute for example. That would totally abandon the idea of web standards because the browser would be setting the standard not the W3C. Now if they want to do it as a browser preferences feature, I’m all for that. I think I’ll wait until it’s out of the “enable at your own risk” phase of development though.
You have comment moderation turned on? What kind of bullshit is that?
Actually, the key option I have selected is, “Before a comment appears … Comment author must have a previously approved comment.”
So now that you have a previously approve comment, your future comments do not require moderation.
IE7 will have tabs!
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/05/16/417732.aspx
And take a look at this comment.
“I really hope you won’t be going the opposite direction and create something against web standards like target=”_tab” and so take away power from the users…”
I think I already said that.
Two points.
One, WP forced me to moderate this comment … Maybe I’m misunderstanding something with the option I mentioned in my comment above. I have promoted you to a Level 1 author (previously you were a registered user only), and hopefully that will resolve this.
Two, tabs. I looked at that blog. The entry was noteworthy, but I also find it interesting that I agree with the first three comments, which address standards and end user customization. And yes, you have converted me from the window=”_tab” school of thought.
It appears I fit in with the authors of those comments because I want as many options as possible when it comes to tabs. I’d say 60-80% of my browsing is done via “Open Link in New Tab.” I predict that at some point (like after Firefox takes the wraps off the feature), I will make my left-click trigger the “Open Link in New Tab” functionality. And I do think it’s a pain when a site opens a new window. Occasionally “Open Link in New Tab” is not enough, and the new tab is just a blank page that triggers the new window.
As long as I’m talking here, perhaps a useful tool would allow for opening several bookmarks (or multiple homepages) in separate windows. To clarify what I’m talking about, imagine that I have one window for ESPN.com, where I can open ESPN.com articles in their own tabs; a CNN.com window, where I can open CNN.com articles in their own tabs; etc.
I think an RSS aggregator wouldn’t fall far from the tree here. As of right now I haven’t ever used an RSS aggregator for anything other than exploring the technology. What really turns me off is that they are visually unappealing — Instead of seeing colorful ESPN and CNN homepages, RSS aggregators (at least the ones I’m familiar with) just give you everything in black and white, or perhaps in two colors of your choice.