Is tabbed browsing a hidden feature in Safari?

I don't think that it is. The reason that I found the Safari debug menu was that I was hunting for a hidden tab preference. It ain't there, or if it is, Safari never tried to access it.

It makes sense that there's no hidden tab settings because, according to some other thread that I'm way too lazy to search for, the version of KHTML that Safari is based on doesn't include tab support; it was added in a later version, after Apple had forked.

This is a bummer, because as cool as Safari is, without tabs or an equivalent feature, I ain't using it. They just increase my productivity way too much for me to give 'em up. I could live without my bookmark shortcuts (gg for google, az for amazon, etc.), but not without tabs.

I'm totally confident that Apple will add some sort of tab metaphore in the future. The demand seems to be huge.

I don't think tabs have anything to do with the KHTML version - implementing tabs is the browser's job, not the render engine's.

Exactly; tabs are a part of the browser, not the rendering engine. There are browsers on Windows which wrap the IE engine in a tabbed interface.

This all said. Hyatt has gone on record as saying that tabs -or something like them- are slated for the 1.0 release. However, he's also pledged not to answer e-mails asking about the feature, so I suggest you not bother him about it. They are coming.

The tabs Safari will implement will probably be nothing like the tabs we all know and use every day. The reason for this is that the way Chimera uses tabs is against the Aqua Human Interface Guidelines (so says the Chimera dev team at least). They're working for a way to get around it, however. There was a thread here on this, no?

This is GREAT! Yes, leave the poor guy alone so he can do his job. He has enough pressure. Btw, I emailed Dave Hyatt and told him that he's doing a wonderful job and that the Mac community appreciates his hard work.

who cares for the guidelines, if it fits a user's need? come on...

btw: safari uses "tabs", at least sort of. the browser view is a tab, as is the bookmarks view. by clicking on the bookmark icon, all you REALLY do is switch tabs.

so tabs are in, they just need to implement the creation of new tabs for webpages, and all is good...

But they could be better, they're not the best solution by far and infact are rather clunky

Apple does. They're not going to violate their OWN guidelines, don't you think?

Actually.. This happens all the time. In fact, the brushed metal appearance, by Apple's own guidelines, is not supposed to be used on software like browsers. Yet they happily violated their own rules.

Not that I have a problem with that! Rules are not meant to be followed to the letter. They are called 'guidlines' because they are there to 'guide' development, not force it. Start with the rules, and then if you find a need, then start to stray from them until you find a good solution. I'll agree tabs aren't perfect, but not because they violate any guidelines. I find them pretty intuitive to use. I hope safari gets tabs, or some similar mechanism for organizing windows. I think its clear that the individual window for each webpage metaphor isn't very effective given most people's browsing habits. "it violates the rules" is no good argument for how to design software.

When people have the sense to know when to start violating their own rules, thats when real innovation happens.

word.

and there's nobody at apple stating that "the guidelines are NOT subject to change".
and who knows: there seems to be a need for people to have "something else" than windows to manage multiple "documents". maybe apple will come up with a new class, just like they did with sheets...

The guidelines aren't meant to be strictly followed, however you can if you want to if you want a pure aqua experience.

Brush metal apps are usually more liberal in the way they are designed.

Your friend may have been talking about the NSTabView which contains the WebView object in Safari's browser.nib file.

Yes, there is an NSTabView. Safari uses it to switch between Browser and Bookmarks mode. The tabs are turned off; it's controlled by the Bookmarks button instead. You can turn the tabs back on, but you won't be able to use them for tabbed browsing; they'll still only work for switching between Browser and Bookmarks mode.

It is theoretically possible that Apple might extend this to implement tabbed browsing. But there isn't any other UI for it at all in Safari right now, so there's no way to tell if they'll use this for it, or implement some other means of switching between pages.

As long as they don't use a ing Drawer for it, I'll be happy. Coming up with new UI ideas is good, as long as they're better than what came before.