A client is reporting a problem using our Web-Based application. It seems that their users are opening Multiple tabs while using the site. It leads to a problem where they lose track of what tab they are on and sometimes enter invalid data or view data in the wrong context believing that they are on a different tab.
Though I have proposed different solutions for them they only want to consider one solution: disabling tabbed browsing when their users are on our site, and enabling it again when they are not.
Is such a thing possible? All the users are using Windows (XP, I believe, although possibly W7) and Internet Explorer 7+.
I wasn't sure if there is a Windows Scripting solution that can accomplish this, or maybe an ActiveX control that has this capability.
EDIT: 2012/08/13 One feature I am now considering is a custom Internet Explorer application. Something similar to what the poster is talking about here:
http://www.symantec.com/connect/forums/ie8-virtual-layer-custom-ie-settings
and here
http://www.vandyke.com/support/tips/ieobject.html
This is new ground to me so if someone with experience here has any ideas I would love to hear it.
No, you cannot do this. IE will only allow the user to make choices around how tabs work, not the website. It does not have a feature for controlling this on a per-site basis.
If modifying the application to behave differently when it detects this happening is off the table, your client (the people) can just disable tabbed browsing completely using administrative tools.
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I'm using the primary theme colours from Office UI Fabric Core, but no matter which theme I change to in Outlook Web Access my add-in colors don't change. It's constantly using the default blue.
I've tried clear browser history/cache, different users, different browsers, different machines.
When displaying an Outlook Add-in in OWA the add-in is displayed in its own sandboxed iframe (if this helps someone who knows how the dynamic theme mechanism is suppose to work).
Office UI Fabric team member here. Sorry for the incredibly long delay, I'm just now seeing questions about Fabric on SO.
This question has come up a number of other times and is a scenario we hope to address soon. I don't have a great answer for when we can enable picking up & applying specific Office client themes, but know that this is important for us to support in our own product scenarios, so I'd expect to see developments here soon. We'll be working with specific product teams to figure out the best way to handle this from a technical perspective.
That said, in the meantime, it is actually possible to load themed styles in Fabric-React today that should give you an indicator of what the solution might look like: try changing a theme color like themePrimary on this page, then view a component like Button to see that change reflected there. I imagine the solution we end up with will look similar to this.
For a while now I've disliked the default folder browser dialog in Windows:
Granted, at least it has the text box with autocomplete; but if you go strictly with the tree view, it can take a lot of clicks and scrolling to get where you want!
It'd be nice if I could develop a superior (to my taste) UI and have this override my system's default. That is, whenever an application requests a native folder browser from Windows on my system, I'd like to be able to define my own such control so that it will be displayed instead of the built-in one. Naturally I could/would then also offer this to others to install on their systems if they like.
Does Windows provide an API to override this particular feature? Maybe via a shell extension or something like that? (I've never done anything that interacts directly with the OS like that; so I don't even know where to start looking.)
Basically I am asking if this OS-level functionality is configurable within Windows.
An app called FlashFolder seems to have done that, and has a lot of good reviews (meaning it at least works for someone) but doesn't work for me at all on Windows 8. If you have an earlier version of Windows perhaps you'll have more luck.
A common problem I find myself dealing with is having way too many tabs in my browser. Part of this I know is just trying to do too many things at once. I tell myself to focus focus on one task at a time and try to close tabs I'm not using. Nevertheless, I still often find myself with over 20 tabs open at a time, just because apps that I use in the course of the day that I don't want to keep opening and closing and have them be in different positions.
I have not seen any great ways in either Chrome or Firefox to deal with tab overload. I had a couple ideas of possible UI enhancements to deal with this. I know there's a couple of tab grouping/organization extensions for Firefox and Chrome, but I've tried most of them and haven't found them all that helpful. One feature that would be nice is if it automatically grouped tabs by category/domain (so for example all my finance-related websites automatically open in the same group).
That said, how do you manage large number of tabs, and do you have any ideas of browser enhancements for dealing this this?
(Another pet-peeve of mine is that Chrome doesn't have MRU (most recently used tab switching), which is a huge pain for me when I'm working with two pages and having to switch back and forth between them. But that's sort of a different topic)
http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/tabcandy/
Tab candy in firefox 4 beta
http://tabsugar.com/
same thing for chrome
I've had your exact problem. With tab candy I've had up to ~90 tabs open at once with no issues at all, except memory use :)
I just use a combinatioin of tabs and windows, with each window containing a logical grouping of tabs. In both FF and Chrome, I can drag tabs between windows to reorgaize them as desired. Also, on Linux or OS X, you can use multiple workspaces, each with one or more browser windows. I dunno -- maybe Windows 7 has workspaces too now?
I recently got myself a second monitor and I have been looking at software which offers the possibility to extend the taskbar to the second monitor. Softwares such as UltraMon and MultiMon offer such possibility.
I'd be interested to know what is the method they are using to replicate the tasbar? More precisely:
Is the second taskbar completely generated and managed by the software or is it some sort of extension/modification of how Windows behave?
How are the additionnal buttons on the window handle added? Is there some sort of templating system similar to what Stardock does?
How can you replicate the taskbar feel?
How can you remove open software icons from the main taskbar in order to move them to the software's taskbar?
Would creating a second start button actually be some sort of image of the said button, and the software would require to do POSSIBLE calls to the Windows API? (by possible, I mean I have no idea if such calls exists)
Finally, I'd be interested to know what field of knowledge is required to program such software.
I'd be glad to receive any pointers to articles or information that would lead to answers. If you have in depth knowledge that you'd gladly share, I'd really appreciate it.
Thanks to all for your replies.
They completely re-create the experience. DisplayFusion uses the Desktop Window Manager API to capture live thumbnails. Scott Hanselman has a very good rundown on just how close they got and where they're different.
I would imagine there is a lot of ugly code required to get it as close as they've gotten it.
I've noticed recently that it seems to be a trend in Windows applications to no longer include the menu bar in an application (the "File Edit ..." menu), instead having the functionality linked to icons seemingly randomly spread around the application window.
for example: IE8, Windows 7 media player.
Is there any usability evidence driving this change? (I, personally, find these apps really hard to use)
If so, can someone suggest where I might find this research and perhaps some guidelines for writing new applications using this style?
Some answers have suggested that it's the "Ribbon" style, which appears to be what I'm looking at. I'm still having trouble finding guidelines or evidence of what works/doesn't work.
The MS Office Ribbon perhaps inspired the latest slew of apps that use multiple icons without text labels in lieu of a menu bar. However, the implementation of these apps apparently failed to understand or realize the advantages of the Ribbon or even what makes a Ribbon a Ribbon.
Controls labeled with icons alone are more difficult to learn than those labeled with text alone [See Wiedenbeck S (1999). The use of icons and labels in an end user application program: an empirical study of learning and retention. Behaviour & Information Technology, 18(2)]. The lack of text labels for groups of controls in these apps can’t help.
Note that the Office Ribbon generally avoids both of these pitfalls by providing text labels for groups of controls (the Office Logo being a notable exception) and text labels for most individual controls (many controls on the Home tab being another notable exception).
After being subject to much research, the Office Ribbon largely preserved the traditional File-Edit-View arrangement of commands found the traditional menu bar. There’s no evidence that there’s anything wrong with this organization.
IMO, icon-scattered UI designs represent a fashion or branding statement, a rather clumsy attempt to appear “state-of-the-art” like Office, and an excuse to decorate the UI with graphics. They are not a usability improvement.
For everything about the Ribbon, see Jensen Harris’s blog.
My critique of the Ribbon. Not that I'm particularly satisfied with the traditional menu bar and tool bar.
It is ribbon. Presumably it is easier to use than the standard menu because it is context dependent. The whole purpose of developing it was that despite the fact Word can do almost anything now, people were complaining it is missing some features just because they couldn't find them. So MS people were thinking hard and ribbon is what they created. Being context dependent it shows you the features you might use right now, not all the features and it saves screen estate so more features actually visible to the user.
Well, after a quick search I found a reasonable explanation of this UI trend. It is based on the Ribbon concept. It traces back from Office 2007 and even Firefox is using it.
References:
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/351808/firefox-tidies-up-with-office-2007s-ribbon
http://slashdot.org/story/09/09/23/1846248/Firefox-To-Replace-Menus-Wi
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Sprints/Windows_Theme_Revamp/Direction_and_Feedback
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribbon_(computing)
The ribbon still serves as a navigation area - a combination of a menubar and toolbar that tends to be organized by area (Print, Design, Layout, External Data) rather than traditional style (File, Edit, Tools). While it does take a bit of getting used to things being organized by area, it certainly adds to the usability.
I think the reason IE 8 integrates the menu bar into the same line as the tab is to allow for more viewing real estate (or junky toolbar add-ons). A ribbon would be overkill for something as simple as a browser where 99% of the time you do one of 3 things: Enter a URL, Go to Bookmarks/Favorites, or Print.
If you are writing a Windows-based database system or other complex application, definitely checkout how Microsoft utilizes the ribbons throughout its Office products.
The "ribbon" is nothing more than a FAT toolbar. Such things are getting invented, not because of user request or need, but because of the arrogance of large corporations and bored, rich managers and "developers" sitting around with nothing to do. "Inventing" things is one thing, but FORCING it on everyone w/o preserving the previous, non-cluttered, classic, working, familiar interface is absolute arrogance. People need to be informed. You don't have to put up with it. Say something.