Better tabbing in Firefox.

The tabbing I propose differs from the current Firefox tabbing in that:

• The tab list on the right of the tab bar has been made much larger and is pulled down by mousing-over rather than clicking. (I'm thinking that an option would allow the user to only show the menu on clicks. Also, ignore the misplaced left arrow on the right side of the all tabs button; it should be on the far left, of course.)
• In the 'all tabs' list, the tabs currently seen in the main bar are highlighted so that the user can better associate the two lists with each other. A more noticeable highlight for the current tab than Firefox currently has would further help users naturally link the two lists in their minds, but I didn't bother implementing that.
• Clicking on a tab in the 'all tabs' list which is not seen in the main bar causes the set of tabs seen in the main bar to center around that tab. (The current Firefox behavior is to only scroll the main tab list only as far over enough to see the newly selected tab in view.)
• The little previews of tabs seen in IE7 and Opera when you hover over a tab are way too small, and their delay before popping up is annoying. Here, the previews are the full display window size and appear instantly (at least, they would appear instantly in a real implementation). A shadow over the preview image, a border, and the page title and url superimposed over the preview cue to the user that they're looking at a preview rather than the current tab. Fast, large tab previews not only work better than the small, slow tab previews seen in most implementations of previews, they also make thumbnail-style previews unnecessary: it's more direct and more habitual to just open up the 'all tabs' list and glide the mouse over the tabs till you see what you want.

WAIT ABOUT HALF A MINUTE FOR THE TABS TO FINISH LOADING (THEY ARE ALL DOWNLOADED AT THE START FOR QUICK PREVIEWING; AN UGLY HACK, OBVIOUSLY, BUT SUFFICIENT FOR DEMONSTRATION PURPOSES). Also, the 'all tabs' menu is a bit futzy, especially if you try to use the scrollbar; I recommend just using the mousewhell to scroll (this is the primary means of scrolling envisioned, anyway).

Notes:

• An annoyance with Firefox's current tabbing is that the tabs shrink and grow as the number of tabs changes. One of my habits is to clean house by selecting a tab, quickly surveying the page, then clicking the middle-button to dismiss it or moving to the next tab if I wish to keep that one; I can do this quickly and easily until the tabs start changing size because then I have to be more careful about where my mouse is hovering even though, most commonly, I'm getting rid of more tabs than I am keeping.
• A big reason vertical tab bars have been rejected is because they present harder to hit targets for less skilled mouse users. While I feel this is true with the Vertigo Firefox extension's implementation, the fix is simply to make the vertical tabs slightly taller. Perhaps the installation default will have quite tall vertical tabs, but advanced users can adjust a setting to get shorter tabs, allowing them to see more tabs at once.
• I previously had the 'ALL TABS' on the left with the idea that, when hovering over a tab in the 'all tabs' list, the full title would overflow out of the list. Now I'm thinking the full title of the tab you mouse over would appear in the preview image. above or below the preview image of the tab, so it's probably best to put this back on the right, though care should be taken so that its mouse-over behavior doesn't conflict with the page's scrollbar.

Not seen:

• In this demo, I've neglected to highlight the current tab in either the main tab bar or the 'all tabs' list. Also, there of course should be highlighting of tabs when you mouse over them.
• I've also neglected to add any close buttons on the tabs.
• The number of tabs in the main bar and their size do not vary with the number of open tabs. Only resizing the browser window itself changes the number of tabs seen in the main bar. The tabs on the sides are never partially obscured.
• Users probably shouldn't see a normal preview when hovering over their currently selected tab, as it would be confusing. I'm not sure what should happen instead, though.
• The mouse-scrolling of the main bar should work much like it does currently in Firefox. Scrolling the main bar would change which tabs are highlighted in the 'all tabs' list.
• When the 'all tabs' menu is open, the preview should be squished horizontally as an image, not as a narrower layout: a new layout causes the page to be less recognizeable.
• The current tab overflow arrows in Firefox are simply too subtle. It should be easier to notice them and notice whether they are greyed out or not.
• To help users better associate the main bar with the 'all tabs' list, a scroll-position indicator bar should appear beneath the tabs (though not the 'all tabs' button, which probably shouldn't quite look like a tab): think of it like a scrollbar, except it's a very thin colored line that you aren't meant to grab to drag; it's simply there as another cue to tell you where you are in the list; as you mousewheel left and right it slides back and forth.
• I'm not sure if the 'all tabs' list should open always scrolled to the top or if it should open scrolled to the set of tabs seen in the main bar, or maybe centered on the current tab.
• Perhaps for an alternate behavior, users can choose to have the main tab area show the most recently viewed tabs and the current tab in the order left-to-right (or maybe right-to-left) that they were viewed.