
Leaked Screenshot Shows a Cleaner, Simpler IE9 - shrikant
http://www.webmonkey.com/2010/08/leaked-screenshot-shows-a-cleaner-simpler-ie9/
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seltzered
I'm not a fan of mixing tabs on the same level as the url box. but I can
imagine it was a design decision to allow for a bit more reading on widescreen
monitors.

I'm no fan to judge though, as I don't think I've actively used ie for nearly
a decade now.

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ghurlman
As you can imagine, your average IE-only user typically only has one tab open
at a time - so there's no reason to provide an entire tab row for them.

My hope would be that the "tab bar" would act like any toolbar that IE has
today - easily dragged down to its own row. Heck, it might have been dragged
UP by whomever took that screenshot.

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bigsassy
I've always wondered about tab usage among the typical IE user. Do you have
any hard numbers or studies that corroborate your statement? I ask not to put
you on the spot, but figure it's possible you have this information or may
even work in a usability lab that has actually studied this (this is Hacker
News after all).

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koenigdavidmj
You would not use tabs either if it took three seconds to open a new one.

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ThomPete
At least from the screenshots it looks neither cleaner nor simpler.

Removing things is not the only point of simplicity.

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emarcotte
Removing (or rather probably just moving to be in a menu somewhere) things is
definitely not the only key to simplicity, but I think it does help in this
case.

I think it does look quite a bit simpler to comprehend at least with respect
to not slamming too much different stuff in the same sort of grouping.

When I start up IE 8 I get the tab bar which has, in this order: A favorites
button with an icon and a label, the set of tabs, some toolbar icons buttons,
some of which are menus, some are just actions, some menu labels, and finally
another icon menu for help. The new shot looks like they moved most of that
into 3 icons on the top right.

Unfortunately they moved the tabs next to the location bar, which means they
will now be competing for space, but definitely trimming down and moving where
all the menu options are is a plus in my eyes.

They also added the idea of greater emphasis on the back button which is
certainly more frequently used, which is nice.

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ThomPete
The main problem I see is that they have made it simple by removing stuff but
leaving no room complexity and still making the look of it complex.

For instance the browser background is semi-transparent which means that yes
the page will probably stand out more in some respect but at the same time
they have no canvas to work with to make additions, allow for third party
stuff. It will have to sit on top of that transparent canvas which will end up
making it more complex.

The reason to normally use white, black or gray is to have a neutral
background that almost everything fit's nicely into. Now any icon or button
have to compete with whatever happens to be behind the semi-transparent
canvas.

In many way's from the looks of this they are already maxed out on design
debt.

Of course that might be reading too much into it from this screen shot as I
don't know what their plans are. But my immediate reaction is it won't scale
very well.

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iaskwhy
In their defence, that's how windows usually work on (err...) Windows 7, apps
usually have the top bar and sometimes something more where transparency is
allowed (there's a system setting for setting the amount of transparency, or
none).

I don't see a problem since the tabs are not transparent, just with a small
gradient like Chrome, and it's probably not going to be possible to add things
(icons from extensions?) to the main controls of the browser.

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henry81
I see some people saying "you NEED this" and "you NEED that". Maybe YOU do,
but I don't. At least give me the option to remove it. Yes I'm a minimalist.

Personally my dream browser would have tabs and the URL box in the same row
with no other icons or search boxes at ALL. Also get rid of the fat borders,
maximize the real estate.

Just my 2 cents.

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swatermasysk
It would be nearly impossible for IE9 to not be simpler than IE8, so I am not
giving them too much credit until I actually see something shipped that the
masses adopt.

Interesting write on the simplicity of IE8 vs. Safari:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1638772>

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2mur
Where's the yahoo toolbar? (I really think that it looks similar to Chrome).
But really, I'm just hoping for good css3/html5 support.

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jasonlotito
Not an IE user, but I've been impressed with the work the IE team is doing for
IE9. The quality of support previewed so far outshines WebKit or Gecko. WebKit
and Gecko, I think, have greater support, but the quality of IE9's support is
superior.

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hebejebelus
Every single time a new version of IE is released, I think "Hooray! The masses
will be able to see the web as it's supposed to be seen!" and then I'm
crushed.

Every. Single. Time.

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Groxx
Why does Microsoft hate tabs?

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shrikant
The slab you see to the right of the address/search combo bar _is_ a tab.

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Groxx
I know, it'd be an utter _nightmare_ to use if you had more than 2 or 3 tabs.
Compare to more tab-friendly browsers like Chrome / Firefox / Safari / Opera /
anything with tabs.

Heck, they've _reduced_ the amount of space for tabs from the previous
version, where all you had taking up tab-space was your favorites buttons and
a half-menu setup.

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grg
Leaked by whom? Microsoft's PR Department?

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PhilipM
Its not cleaner or simpler, its exactly the same. Stupid people just stare at
the pretty picture thats all.

You need 2 search boxes, links bar and tabs and a title bar and a status line.
Everything else better take up no room.

There is no possibility of the interface changing, period. Ever.

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bmelton
1) It isn't exactly the same. The tab bar has been floated next to the URL
bar, some of the icons have been shifted around, and overall, it seems to take
up less space for the browser chrome to allow more space for the content.

2) Why do you need 2 search boxes?

3) Really? No possibility of the interface ever changing? I honestly figured
Mozilla had it all figured out with Firefox 3.0 (or whichever version had the
search box right next to the URL box,) until Chrome came along and had a
multi-purpose URL box (that let you perform searches.) To make the statement
that it will never, ever, ever change just seems brazen.

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PhilipM
You need an address box and a search box. You need tabs. real estate concerns
mean thats 2 lines so far. you need a favorites line (or i do anyway) you need
a title line and a status line.

If the browser is missing any of these lines I will add it. The interface is
exactly the same, internet hasnt changed browsing hasnt changed. What you need
to do in a browser hasnt changed. Its nonsense.

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andrew1
I'm not saying you don't need a search box, but I use the address bar as my
search box. That's even the default layout in Google Chrome isn't it?

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desigooner
So far, I prefer the Chrome approach of a unified address+search bar to the
Mozilla approach of 2 separate boxes. 1 keyboard shortcut to access either is
far better than 2 .. if you type a search term in the firefox address bar as
well, it'll search it for you ..

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andrew1
Maybe stating the obvious here, but you can just remove the search box from
Firefox and they look pretty much the same.

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bmelton
Except that you then don't have a search box. That's the magic of Chrome, is
that the address bar IS ALSO the search box.

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andrew1
You might have to mess around with the default behaviour but you can use the
Firefox address bar as a search box. You can set it up so that typing 'g foo'
searches for foo on Google, 'w bar' searches for bar on Wikipedia etc. It's
actually more useful than the search box (in my opinion) as you can set up
shortcuts so 'gm' will open google mail, 'lol' will open up the lolcats
website. So there's really no need for a bookmarks bar either (as long as you
can remember your shortcuts!).

