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Where did Google Chrome's pinned tabs go?
I, too, noticed the change recently and wondered what was going on. There's been plenty of discussion amongst Chrome developers, and it boils down to an evolutionary step for Chrome and the introduction of app tabs. The arrival of phantom tabs recently is also part of the change.
To clear the air, I pinged Google's Eitan Bencuya to see if he could shed any light on the situation. Here's his response:
Right now, changes to the tab strip are a moving target. Developers are also working hard at tweaks for the almost-certainly-coming tablet version of Google Chrome, and the extension API is still evolving as well."As you know, all of these features are still pretty experimental (they're not even in the dev channel yet) and we're trying out different approaches to see what works. In this case this is part of a larger set of tweaks we are making related to extensions but we haven't yet fleshed out all the details of app tabs specifically."
Ultimately, while this kind of change might be frustrating to us it's all part of the thrill of using experimental software. Yes, it comes at the expense of perhaps watching a feature you like fall by the wayside, but you still get to play around with all functionality users of the stable version may never see.
Comments
10
Subscribe to comments216Feb 5th 2010 9:29AM
umm i can still use pinned tabs in v4.0.266.0
HardwareGuyFeb 5th 2010 9:44AM
Yeah is the loss of "Pin Tab" something in a nightly build? I still have the option in the newest dev build on windows (5.0.307.1 dev)
JoeFeb 6th 2010 2:24AM
That's because you're not on the developer build, the nightly build; You are on the beta build. Your build doesn't receive near the amount of changes the dev channel does.
Saint SeminoleFeb 5th 2010 9:42AM
I never figured out what "pin tab" was for, anyway. You "pin" a tab, and all it did was move it to the left... I could have done that without a "pin tab" feature... It's easy to see why they got rid of it.
BenFeb 5th 2010 10:24AM
Both the pin tab feature and phantom tabs are in the 5.0.307.1 dev build...
Adam EFeb 5th 2010 11:08AM
It's fun to watch Chrome evolve.
You can also hide your extensions now if you like....
Money MikeFeb 5th 2010 11:35AM
Holy crap, I'm famous! Wow. Thanks for pointing this out, though, Lee.
In the comments on that project page, one of the developers replied to us a little while ago and let us know that they are actually bringing pinned tabs back. Yay!
216, yes - this an issue with the newer nightly builds of Chromium.
Saint Seminole, a pinned tab not only moves to the left, but the size also shrinks to about the 5th of the size and just shows the favicon, so it doesn't get in the way of my regular browsing. I use this as work because I want to have my email open, online radio playing, and my Google homepage showing at all times, but I don't want it to interfere by taking up a good chunk of my tab bar space.
Ben, I have the 5.0.315.0 (37836) build and I also have the phantom tabs. As I mentioned elsewhere, I've intentionally not upgraded because I still have some of the pinned tab feature.
Lee MathewsFeb 5th 2010 11:37AM
Hey, our commenters are important to us!
Also, I don't know if you've thought of it this way, Mike, but don't Phantom Tabs make the tabstrip in Chromium feel _a bit_ like the Windows 7 taskbar?
Pinned items in use get the button overlay, not in use they remain flat...
Money MikeFeb 5th 2010 1:27PM
Thanks, Lee.
To be completely honest, I haven't really played with the phantom tabs thing, so I can't say whether it does or not. I've noticed that when I close my pinned tabs, they don't actually go away... the tab is invisible, but the favicon stays there and if click on it, the page reloads. If I close it a second time (instead of clicking on it to reload the page), it goes away. I guess I understand the purpose, but I'm not sure why it would be better than bookmarking a site if I need to access it later, but don't want to pin it.
I will admit that I always thought Chrome felt like a better fit for Windows 7, maybe because it feels like a simpler browser and Windows 7 has a very simple feel to it. To me, Firefox has a bulky and slightly dated feel to it, and I feel like that goes perfectly with Windows XP (though I'm currently using Chromium on my work PC with XP as well).
Since I probably haven't noticed all of the functionality yet, What is it specifically about the tabstrip that feels like the Windows 7 taskbar?
Dan TFeb 26th 2010 8:29AM
Pinned tabs are back!