Some thoughts for the future

[John Summerfied]

Mike McCarty wrote:
> John Summerfied wrote:
> 
>> . m a r c o s a u g u s t o wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> It'll be so easy for linux os to be "the OS" in earth
>>
>>
>>
>> That would not be good. We need the diversity of alternatives, of 
>> competition. What happened to IE after MS "won" the browser war? 
>> Nothing. It's only now, after Firefox et al have had tabs for years 
>> that MS is thinking of maybe adding this feature sometime.
>>
>>
>>
> I agree with the sentiment about diversity. No one size fits all. I like 
> the
> way Firefox is more adaptable than IE. More of the features can be
> "customized". But you know something? Not all features even deserve
> to exist. IMO, tabbed browsing is one of them. Not the best feature ever
> dreamed up. I'd like all the features to be configurable, even disableable.
> It would be nice NOT TO HAVE TABS AT ALL.
> 
> So, it seems to me, that your own prejudices are showing a little bit. IMO,
> IE is better than Firefox in this respect. OTOH, Firefox does allow one,
> sort of, to turn tabs off.

Nothing forces you to use them. OTOH I regularly (most days) read 
www.theregister.co.uk  (www.theregister.com and www.theregister.ca for 
North Americans). open the home page, then middle-click all the 
interesting items.

I then start reading the first to load, middle-click any interesting 
links and so on until I'm done.

Right now I have 42 windows open spread over 18 desktops, several 
browsers have several tabs - one has 15, but I often have more, and most 
konsoles also have several.
> 
> However, I can specify the "default search engine" to be
> either "Google" or "Ask Jeeves", but I cannot specify "none". I can specify
> where to open the search tab, but I cannot specify "no search tab".

The search tab is the first thing I turn off.

You can have endless fun stuffing round with the Mozilla family of 
browsers in about:config. Probably, you can even get no search engine.


> 
> As a more general comment, it seems to me that all options which are
> configurable should be disableable. For example, I have a mouse with
> a wheel, and the wheel is also "clickable". I find that I can configure
> the third button to do any of several things, but "nothing" is not one of
> them.
I could certainly make it do nothing in some contexts, but I don't see 
how that would be useful.

For example, I use KDE, If I middle-click the desktop, the default 
behaviour is to open a window list. I _can_ change that to do nothing.


If you feel strongly that you should be able to turn off selected mouse 
clicks, by all means file a bug report and be prepared to argue your case.


> 
> I'm not trying to dump on Firefox. I like it. It's more configurable than
> IE. But IMO not configurable enough. I find that I'm frequently
> accidentally doing things with the mouse because I can't just disable
> "features".

If you have special accessibility requirements, I suggest you take it up 
with the developers of your preferred desktop. Probably, if you can make 
a good case you will get a sympathetic hearing.


-- 

Cheers
John

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