OmniWeb Help

Using Tabs

Tabbed browsing is a method for loading more than one web page into a single window. Without tabbed browsing, window clutter can quickly become a problem as you open more and more windows to hold all of the pages you want to have loaded. Tabbed browsing can also help you keep your browsing organized by allowing you to keep related pages open in the same window.

OmniWeb provides tabbed browsing functionality that is a bit different from similar functionality found in most other browsers. Instead of providing a horizontal 'tab bar' across the top of the browser window, with a tab for each page, OmniWeb displays each page in a drawer on the side of the browser window known as the Tab Drawer.

Within the tab drawer, each page is displayed as a thumbnail graphic that helps you easily identify pages from one another. An optional list mode is available by clicking the view switcher at the top of the tab drawer. In both view modes the title of the web page is displayed, and it is shortened where possible allowing you to see the most relevant part of the title for easy identification. A close box is provided on each tab when there is more than one tab open in the drawer.

You can hide and show the tab drawer using the toolbar button, the Show/Hide Tabs ⌥⌘T menu item in the View menu.

The tab drawer can be made wider or more narrow by dragging the edge of the drawer. Tabs scale to fit the size of the drawer.

Creating Tabs

To create a brand new tab that loads your Start Page you can choose New Tab ⌘T from the Action menu at the top of the tab drawer, or from the File menu. You can also right-click or control-click in the tab drawer itself where the contextual menu allows you to create new tabs.

Tabs can also be created in a number of other ways. You can:

• Drag a link or bookmark to an empty space in the tab drawer.
• Depending on your Tabs & Windows preferences, you can ⌘-click a link to open it in a new tab or a new window, in either the foreground or the background.
• Right-clicking or control-clicking on a link or bookmark gives you options for opening the item as a new tab either in the foreground or the background.
• When you have a URL on the clipboard, you can paste it into the tab drawer using ⌘V to create a new tab with the address.
• Hold ⌘ when clicking a favorites folder to open all top-level bookmarks in the folder as new tabs (leaving any currently open tabs intact), or hold ⌘ + option to have existing tabs in the window replaced with the new sites.
• You can enter an address into the location bar and hold ⌘ or ⌘ + shift when hitting enter to open the URL in a new window or tab in either the foreground or the background depending on your ⌘-click preference set in Tabs & Windows preferences.

Managing Tabs

Tabs in OmniWeb benefit from full drag and drop functionality. To reorder tabs in the drawer, simply drag the tab you want to move to wherever you'd like it. You can even drag and drop tabs from one window to another.

You can drag links and bookmarks to existing tabs to open them in that tab. Dragging to either the top or the bottom of a tab, or between two tabs will cause the tab(s) to slide out of the way so you can create a new tab. Drag to the middle of a tab to prevent this. You can also hold down the ⌘ key while dragging to prevent the tab from sliding out from under the cursor.

You can switch between tabs just by clicking on them, or by using the Next Tab ⌘⇣ and Previous Tab ⌘⇡ commands in the Window menu.

You can double-click a tab to remove the tab from the drawer and have it open in a new window.

Tabs can be cut, copied and pasted from one window to another, or even into other applications. (When pasting into other applications the URL of the tab is pasted).

You can select multiple tabs in the drawer by holding down the shift key and clicking on another tab to make a contiguous selection, or by holding the ⌘ key and clicking on individual tabs for a non-contiguous selection.

Tabs can be closed using the close button that appears on each tab when more than one tab is open in a window, or by using the Close Tab ⌘W command in the Window menu to close the currently active tab. When the current tab is the only one open in the window, the command will close the window itself.

You can right-click or control-click on a single tab or a selection of multiple tabs to perform various actions such as closing all other tabs, reloading the tabs, closing the selected tab(s), or opening them into a new window or windows.

Tab Status

Tabs display their status using icons that appear on the tabs themselves. When a page is loading, its tab thumbnail will be overlaid with a whitewash and a static progress indicator appears in the upper right hand corner. The progress indicator will also appear on tabs in list mode.

When a background tab (any tab that is not currently selected) is finished loading the static progress indicator is replaced with a green check mark icon when the page is ready for viewing, or a yellow caution icon if OmniWeb encountered an error when loading the tab. The status indicator goes away when you view the tab for the first time.