interface
Google Chrome's tabbed options page now enabled by default
When Google made the decision to introduce an in-tab bookmark manager for Chrome, it only made sense that other personal pages -- like your settings -- would move to tabs as well. A tabbed options page for Chrome began taking shape in July 2010, when we shared a video of the feature working in Chromium. Now, it's become the default in Chrome Canary.
It's just as easy to get around in the tabbed settings page and perhaps a little easier, since the search field allows you to find specific settings instantly -- and we do mean instant. As with Google Instant in the Omnibar, Chrome will load settings which match your input in real time in the righthand pane. The search function will even pull in portions of separate settings pages, which you can see in the screenshot after the break.
Firefox 4 may be getting tabs in title bar option
As with Google Chrome, your tabs will only move to the topmost area of the window when maximized. The feature has yet to be delivered to the Firefox 4 nightly builds, but you can download experimental versions from developer Bill Gianopoulos. Windows and Linux versions are available at the moment. Gianopoulos states "These builds are essentially the same as the corresponding Official Trunk Nightly Builds" but notes that his builds include "not yet landed fixes for some MathML issues, and User Interface changes planned for Firefox 4, as well as bugs that I am currently working on or find particularly annoying."
iTunes 10 Interface: Where Apple Went Wrong
Almost every year, Apple releases a new version of iTunes with some new feature. Last year it was Home Sharing. This year, it’s Ping. Apple also usually tweaks the UI, many times creating a backlash. This year Apple has outdone itself.
Vertical Buttons
I’ll start with the most obvious UI tweak: the close/minimize/maximize buttons. I understand why Apple made this change: it saves space. When you hit the maximize button in iTunes, you get the mini-player, which has vertical close/min/max buttons in order to save space. Apple used the same reasoning with the main iTunes window.
There is a way you can disable it. Fire up Terminal and enter the following code:
Google adds more official themes for Chrome -- to the Extensions Gallery?
Google has introduced half a dozen new official Chrome themes, but you won't find them if you click the get themes link on your Personal Stuff menu. No, like the scores of user-created themes out there these new themes from Google have been dropped into the Extensions Gallery.
I'm sure the plan is to list everything in the Gallery at some point (possibly once it's re-branded as the Web Store?), but it really shouldn't be hard to give themes their own section on the existing Gallery. Or, you know, post them on the page Chrome takes you to when you click get themes.
The new themes are called Modern, Adaptive, Vibrant, Inventive, Fresh, and Orkut_Hudson. They're artist-created, and generally not for those of you who like Chrome's interface to be as unobtrusive as possible -- some are downright loud.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder of course -- tell us what you think of the new themes in the comments.
Four visual tab switching options for Google Chrome
One feature I like being able to toggle in Firefox is tab thumbnails -- not the ones on the Windows 7 taskbar, mind you. I'm talking about in-browser thumbnails which get displayed when switching tabs. Chrome OS has that snazzy, Cover Flow-style switching interface, but that's not part of the Chrome browser on other OSes.
There are, of course, options available in the Google Chrome Extensions Gallery for those of you who enjoy a visual reminder when looking for that tab you misplaced -- or if you just want a little eye candy!
Tabs Plus
This one might be the closest the Firefox's built in interface. Tabs Plus presents tab thumbnails in three columns and provides a search box at the top -- which might come in very handy for those of you who open more tabs by the truckload. Multiple windows are supported, and their contents are separated by a horizontal rule. Incognito windows will display as well, provided you've checked the box to allow access.
You can also merge everything you have open into a single window, bookmark everything, and close everything with a single click.
Visual Tabs
While Tabs Plus is nice, it's static. If you're really jonesing for that animated Cover Flow action, you've got a couple options. The three mentioned here all work the same way: click the browser actions button and a popup window lets you arrow through your tabs.
I don't usually pick on apps for memory usage, but I might make an exception for Visual Tabs. With a modest 13 tabs open, Visual Tabs wolfed down a supersized 240MB memory. That's actually more than Chrome, my tabs, and all my other extensions were using at the time.
TabsPreview (pictured) and TabsPreview Light
The Light version keeps things simple: it's a more lightweight version of what Visual Tabs does with no extended options -- just six background colors to choose from.
TabsPreview, on the other hand, is loaded with options. You're not limited to a simple horizontal flow for your tabs: choose from a grid view, Vista-esque diagonal layout, carousel, or a simple horizontal display with zoom effect. Tabs Preview can also show your closed tabs, and you can set any background color you want and add a linear or radial gradient effect.
There's also a search option and a grouped display which limits the preview display to tabs from a specific domain. Tabs Preview is a very good visual switching extension, but I would like the option to use a popup instead of its own tab -- and I'm also not so keen on the bouncy effect on the toolbar icons in the bottom left.
Enable the Ultra-Compact Menu in Google Chrome
Chrome: Chrome's interface is already minimalist and compact but if you want to shrink it even further you can collapse the page menu into the wrench menu with a simple command-line flag. More »