Re: [Epiphany] Tabs Jump To pref

[Daniel Borgmann <spark-mailinglists web de>]

On Fri, 2003-05-02 at 23:36, Christian Rose wrote:

> > I think that's why many features/prefs
> > were written in the first place. There was some demand by seasoned users
> > for features/prefs.
> 
> In fact, and as Havoc also points out, it's not uncommon for preferences
> to be present in any random free software application just because it
> was present in an ancestor to said application, not because there has
> been any documented need or request for it. So it's just old luggage
> that grows and grows and gets carried over to the next generation all
> the time.

Additionally it should be noted that preferences are usually not
features but exactly the opposite. A feature allows you to do certain
things or do something more efficiently. A preference however is usually
a tradeoff between two advantages. You have to decide which of the
advantages you want and then take your choice. So in fact you often gain
functionality/features by removing a preference because you (as the
developer) are forced to combine the best of both choices.

To make this on-topic again, let's take a look at the preference in
question. Directly jumping to tabs (the functionality which was asked to
be removed) seems to offer the following advantages:
1) Sometimes a user wants to go to the link she clicked immediately, so
she needs a second click (on the new tab) which is rather ugly.
2) Some users have very slow machines where going to the new tab while
it's loading takes time.

The reason "open new tabs in background" is so useful is, that you can
continue to read what you are reading while the new page is loading.
This is especially useful as internet pages often take a while before
they are loaded so you can do something else instead of waiting for the
page to load in front of your eyes.
If you don't want this but directly start reading the new page (as soon
as parts of it are loaded), you will usually not open it in a new tab
but directly click the link. This basically leaves two exceptional
cases: The first case is that the page is opening itself in a new
window/tab itself (target="_blank" for example), not because you
middleclicked it. In this case, Epiphany seems to load a new window
right now instead of a new tab. I don't really like that but at least it
covers this case. I would prefer it to load the page in a new tab though
and then jump directly to it (if I have choosen "open in tab by
default").
The other case is that you want to go straight to the new page but for
some reason you want to keep the current page open (for example because
it's slow to load or you are currently editing something in a form).
Does this exception really happen so often that it's worth to have a
preference with all it's drawbacks (not beeing able to load pages in the
background anymore)? I wouldn't think so, considering that it only takes
you one extra click in those situations. Maybe it would make more sense
to come up with some kind of shortcut to directly jump to the new tab
instead so users can have this functionality without sacrificing any
other functionality (and without getting into the way of people who just
don't care). Something like shift+middleclick or something smarter.

- Daniel (argh, sorry for the long mail)