127492 - Idea (!) for easily opening multiple tabs for multiple links

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 9274

(SeaMonkey :: Tabbed Browser, enhancement)

Description

[Ed Suominen]

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I am a patent agent and an inventor (not your typical open source
software user an advocate :-) with more ideas than I have time and
money to protect. This one I'd like to contribute to the Mozilla
community, and this GPG-signed message  constitutes an irrevocable
license for the Mozilla project to freely use the idea and any
derivation of it regardless of any intellectual property protection I
might obtain for it. If you do use it, however, I would appreciate a
brief attribution along with the URL to my site.

The attached PNG image (with accompanying GPG signature) pretty much
says it all. The user clicks on some toolbar button or enters some
keystroke/combination to activate "multi-link mode." Links within the
bounding box become highlighted to indicate that they're part of the
selection. When the user releases the mouse button, all links within
the bounding box open in tabs of the browser window. Advantageously
(patent-speak here), the  links can remain highlighted to indicate
that they are no longer HTTP links but simply local links to the
opened, loaded tab, which the user can click to switch to the tab.

I hope you like this one as much as I do. No warranties, particularly
no guarantees that no one has already thought of this and may have or
will obtain proprietary rights to it. But I haven't seen it in any
browsers, have you?

Ed Suominen
Registered Patent Agent (http://eepatents.com)
Independent Inventor of Electrical Engineering Technology
U.S. Patents 5,926,513; 5,937,341*; 6,052,748*;
  6,069,913; additional patents pending*  (*Available for licensing)
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Comment 1

[Ed Suominen]

Attachment: Simulated screen shot of multiple link selection

Comment 2

[Ed Suominen]

Attachment: GPG digital signature of screen shot

Public key is at http://eepatents.com/key

Comment 3

[Alfonso Martinez]

I think that this is already possible (in some way) with Optimoz, see the "link
drag over functions" in http://optimoz.mozdev.org/gestures/index.html

Comment 4

[Ed Suominen]

Very cool, but it's hard to keep track of. The proposed browser integration with
a bounding box and highlighted links makes everything intuitive to the user, and
is easier to do with a mouse.

Comment 5

[Jesse Ruderman]

Opening many links at once is bug 9274 (see also bug 105580).  I don't like the
idea of a "multi-link mode" (modes are usually confusing), but I do like the
idea of highlighting links that are currently open in other windows or tabs.

Comment 6

[Ed Suominen]

Glad you like at least part of the idea. How about also the concept of having
the link action change from (old) loading the URL contents in the active tab to
(new) just switching to the tab opened by the URL? A simple check of the URLs
open in tabs and windows could implement this.

I don't know whether highlighting (as in my screenshot) would be best or a
change the link appearance (e.g., from blue to dark red or green or ???).
Perhaps a user-configurable option?

Don't count out the multiple-link mode idea, though. Lots of apps use bounding
boxes for selection of objects in a region, and it should be quite intuitive
(and useful).

P.S. Thanks to all the developers for your efforts!

Comment 7

[Shark Daddy (Jonathan L.)]

I know this idea was discussed for Optimoz, and may already be in the process of
implementation.

Comment 8

[Hixie (not reading bugmail)]

I don't like the bounding box idea because in practice most times that I have to
select multiple links they span more than one window height and bounding boxes
don't work well when you have to scroll.

Incidentally there is prior art for this idea in bug 9274 comment 0 point c.

Comment 9

[Hixie (not reading bugmail)]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 9274 ***

Comment 10

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

marking verified as a duplicate.

if you decide to reopen this bug, please clarify why.

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