Vlad
I turned off automatic update. So I late to the party. I just updated Orion today and read the changelog. I immediately turned on Compact mode as soon as I read about it since it’s what I use in Safari. I was dumbfounded and confused. Now, apart from the fact that Orion looks a lot like Safari to the point that I expect the function that has the same name in both browsers work the same, I want to share with everyone my first impression.
Before turned on the Compact mode, there was two tabs. After I turned it on, I saw three tabs appear on the screen from my perpective. I thought this was a bug. No big deal. I hit ⌘W to close the “duplicated tab”. I was dumbfounded when there’s only one tab left. That’s why I'm here. 😀
Considering that Safari merges tabs and address/search bar, the fact that the address/search bar look almost idential to tabs in Orion doesn’t help. So, looking back at my experience, I propose two changes:
- Make the address/search bar different from tabs. Currently, they are very identical. I’m not a UI designer, so I’m not sure how to make it happen. However, some talented people like @Hybrid can help you.
- When there’s only one tab, show it to the user. This is a learned behavior. Other browsers that doesn’t merge the address/search bar with tabs still show the tab even if there’s only that tab.
Before moving on, I want to share with you a little bit about myseft. I’m still using Safari as my main browser because of Lockdown Mode. Not that I’m an FBI agent or anything, I just have some NDA stuff on my laptop. I use the Compact layout because:
- The position of the address bar doesn’t matter to me much. I’m a keyboard guy. I just hit ⌘L. When there’s too many tabs, I hit ⌘⇧\ and type in some letters.
- The compact layout is, indeed, save space.
- Yes. It looks sleek IMO.
When scrolling through this whole conversation, I can classify the majority of people into two groups:
- They like the the Compact layout because it saves space.
- Look how sleek it is!
I guess I’m in a minority group. I suspect the ones that said “The Compact layout is the only thing keeping me from using Orion” belongs to the second group. And this is the reason why the new Compact layout is so controversial. You have to understand that lots of people buy Apple products just because they look nice; lots of people like macOS because they look nice. For many folks, they can sometimes be willing to sacrifice some functions for something more beautiful in their eye.
Vlad When design is in question, it is tougher because tastes differ so this where HIG should come into play. We believe we followed HIG and Safari didn't. Important UI elements of the application should not change its position on the screen. Address bar is the most important element in a browser and in Safari's implementation it jumps around.
After observing normal folks interacting with tech, I have something to say about this. My mom is that person who type in Google “Facebook” and then tap on the first result. When she wants to do something new, she just hit the + icon and type in whatever she wants. Yes. She has 100+ tabs for no practical reasons. Yes. I set it so old tabs is automatically closed after one week for her. And I am 100% certain she doesn’t know what a domain name is, let alone differentiating between search bars and address bars.
What I want to say is what’s important for someone may not be that important for others. Regardless, I suspect that the majority of Orion’s users know their way around tech. You should keep that in mind. That being said, looks are still, sometimes, a very important factor to them.